Question

3) Please summarize “utilitiarianism”, and explain overall why you agree or disagree with this ethical model as the primary roadmap of personal and business ethics.

Answer 1

The utilitarianism theory is an approach where the actions are assessed on the basis of its outcome to all its stakeholders at individual level. Any action which has been able to contribute large positive outcomes at its minimum cost, that action is considered to be an acceptable action in utilitarianism theory. In this model every stakeholders interest is equally considered.

I do agree with the approach of utilitarianism theory. The benefit of this approach is that unlike shareholders centric theories this consider the value creation for all its stakeholders. In todays if a company wants to grow sustainably in the long term then it has to take care of all its stakeholders, and not just internal stakeholders like suppliers, employees and shareholders but external stakeholders like Civil society or government. It is very important for a company who wants o grow sustainably in the long term that it focuses on creating values for all its stakeholders rather focusing just one stakeholder. The positive part of this approach is also that while evaluating actions the negative cost is kept minimum.