Joyce Weathers is a 62-year-old patient with emphysema.

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Joyce Weathers is a 62-year-old patient with emphysema. Mrs. Weathers is a grandmother who has smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for over 40 years. She enjoys smoking and does not want to quit. Her physician has become somewhat insistent that Mrs. Weathers quit. She tries, but each time she becomes nasty and irritable around her family. She lives with her daughter and two young grandchildren. The family members want her to quit, but it becomes very unpleasant at home when Mrs. Weathers tries to quit.

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Discussion Questions

1. Using act-utilitarianism as a model, create a pain-avoided, pleasure-gained list to determine if Mrs. Weathers should continue smoking.

2. If your decision is that she should quit smoking, how can Mrs. Weathers’s family help her?

 

 

MORE INFO 

act-utilitarianism model

Introduction

Utilitarianism is a theory of ethics that states that the best action is the one that maximizes happiness or pleasure for all concerned. This can be done by taking into account the number and type of people affected by an event or decision, as well as their desires, needs, and preferences.

You must analyze all the consequences of your act

As a utilitarian, you must analyze all the consequences of your act. You must consider all the people who will be affected by your action and all possible consequences of those consequences. You must also consider each individual consequence for each individual person involved in an action or decision and then come up with an overall ranking of which choice is best for everyone involved.

You must take an objective view

• You must take an objective view.

• You must consider all consequences of your act.

• Each person’s well-being counts equally, regardless of the individual.*You should not consider only one person’s well-being when making decisions and deciding what action to take or not to take in a situation where they are involved.*You should not favor one person over another simply because they are a member of a certain group (for example race).

You must consider all persons equally

In order to be a good person, you must consider all persons equally. This means that no one individual is more important than another and no one individual is less important than another.

All people must be considered at the same time and in consideration of each other’s needs and desires.

Each person’s well-being counts equally, regardless of the individual

Well-being is an important concept in utilitarianism. It’s not the same as happiness, but it’s closely related to it. Well-being is the quality of life, and it can be measured by asking people questions like “How satisfied are you with your life?” or “How happy do you feel right now?”

In order to achieve well-being for all individuals, we need to make sure that each person counts equally regardless of their situation—for example:

• One person may have more wealth than another but be less happy because they don’t have good relationships with their family members (or friends). This isn’t fair because everyone deserves equal access to happiness!

• Another person might have less wealth than another but also more opportunities for meaningful work which helps them feel happier overall; this is also not fair because everyone deserves equal access to happiness!

You can use your current knowledge to predict outcomes

You can use your current knowledge to predict outcomes. This is because you already know everything that will happen, so you have a good idea of what’s going on.

If someone asks me “Will I pass my exam?”, and I answer yes or no based on what I know now, then we’re fine with this model. But if they ask me “How long will it take me?” then things get tricky! It seems like we need another kind of model for that question—one that takes into account how much time each individual has left before their next exam date (and maybe some other factors).

You can balance a greater number of benefits against a smaller number of drawbacks.

You can balance a greater number of benefits against a smaller number of drawbacks.

When you think about it, utilitarianism is not just an ethical system but also a practical one. When making decisions, you want to consider how many people will be affected by your decision. In order to do this, we must first understand what utilitarianism is and how it works in real life situations.

Utilitarianism is a way of making moral decisions, and it can only be applied in certain circumstances.

Utilitarianism is a way of making moral decisions, and it can only be applied in certain circumstances.

It is important to analyze all the consequences of your act before acting on them. For example, if you are trying to save someone’s life from cancer, then this may seem like an obvious choice for you—but what about those who have been affected by cancer? They might not think this is their best option either; they may not want their loved ones dying from cancer just so that someone else could live longer (and happier).

It’s also important for utilitarians to take an objective view when evaluating whether or not someone should live or die based on someones’ well-being alone without considering other factors such as religion or personal beliefs like “I don’t want gay people getting married.” Some people believe that homosexuality should never be accepted in society because they don’t agree with it personally but still believe everyone deserves equal treatment regardless if they’re religious or not!

Conclusion

I hope that you were able to learn a little bit more about utilitarianism from this post. I certainly learned a lot myself! It’s an interesting theory, and one that I would be willing to use in cases where my actions could have long-lasting impacts on other people. But it’s not the only moral framework out there – there are plenty of other ways to make decisions for yourself and others, based on your own beliefs about what is good or bad for society as a whole (or just yourself).