Utilitarianism

One of the major modern philosophical systems of ethics is Utilitarianism. The basic idea is that 1. everyone is fundamentally equal and has an equal claim to happiness. To be selfishly interested in helping only yourself or your family or friends is not ethically defensible. 2. The best thing to do is what maximizes happiness. Usually taken as the most happiness for the most people, although there have been other interpretations. 

This system is attractive because it’s relatively simple and relatively difficult to counter. Consider the volunteer asking you to donate a trifling amount of money to provide vaccines to children in struggling countries. How do you justify not doing it? Is it more important to buy yourself a can of soda with that dollar than to potentially save the life of a stranger? Utilitarianism is the recognition that obviously it is not and you should donate the dollar.

So okay, now you’re a utilitarian. You donate the dollar. What next? Well, for every subsequent dollar you think of spending you have to consider whether it would better be spent fighting the serious problems of the world and saving innocent lives. Starbucks? Nope. See a movie? Nope. Go out to dinner? Nope. It seems like maybe you should give of yourself until there is no one who needs help more than you. Or maybe you can do more good by being successful so you have more to give, but surely every luxury is still immoral.

Okay, so maybe you aren't a utilitarian. It’s hard to argue with the logic of the system, but at the same time it seems self-apparent that it is flawed; that’s just not how people work.

Probably, the value of utilitarianism, as with most philosophical ideas, is in the contemplation of them. And when faced with a difficult ethical question, it can be valuable to have a number of carefully thought through perspectives to consider. For example, maybe utilitarianism isn't very useful for an individual human, but maybe it can be of use to something less personal like a government or other organization.