Question

[2] In terms utilitarian ethics, discuss the moral issues at stake in the famous so-called Trolley Problem as related in the eText and also Michael Sandel’s Harvard lecture where “you are beside a train track with a train headed down the track. However, on the track ahead are five people who will all be killed if the train continues. But you also have access to a switch, and if you pull it the train will be diverted onto another track where there is only one person” (eText p.36). Do you think that this type of moral choice between the lesser of evils as in this Trolley Problem is realistic to what we might face in our everyday lives or places of employment? Do you think there is such a thing as a moral duty to choose between the lesser of evils? Why or why not? Can you give an example to support your point?

Answer 1

Definitely utilitarian theory directly supports this specific ideology where betterment of the maximum is preferred. Utilitarianism can be defined as a philosophy which is produced because it does the greatest good of the greatest number of the citizens. Utilitarian theory can be very effective as well as essential in any business. By applying the utilitarian theory to your business you can easily affect the masses and affecting the masses with your positive ethical decision will directly improve the overall productivity as well as efficiency and the image in society. By making ethical decisions for maximum number of people in an organisation you can improve your image as well as the image of the company in the society. An ethical system which determine the morality as the end of the result is called utilitarianism.
Utilitarianism basically focuses on the mass is rather than focusing on the individual employees of an organisation. Utilitarianism is basically and strategy in which some suffer to allow benefits to the masses. It is not measurable as the purpose of this specific strategy is based on total assumptions and applications. Rather than doing benefit to a specific set of employees this theory specifically focuses on the masses and work on the benefits of more people rather than focusing it to a group of employees.
Government policies are a fine example of utilitarianism which focuses on the masses is but does not focus on some specific people.
Hence we can say that utilitarian theory prevails in business at expenses of the individual.