Vlad Dracul and utilitarianism

             Vlad Dracul killed all of the poor and crippled people in the kingdom of Wallachia. By doing so, he eliminated the problems of poverty and welfare. This essay will discuss whether his action would be viewed as right or wrong by an act-utilitarian and by a rule utilitarian.
             Vlad Dracul was the prince of Wallachia, which is now a province of Romania. He earned the nickname, 'Vlad the Impaler' for the sadistic punishment he inflicted on his enemies. An example of this is his treatment of the poor and crippled. He believed that these people were beggars and were diminishing the wealth and quality of life of the hard working people. To remedy the situation, he decided to invite all the old, poor, ill, and lame people to a great banquet with food and drink. At the conclusion of the banquet, he boarded up the building and set it ablaze, killing all of the people inside. This quickly put an end to poverty in the land. I am assuming that he really did make the people of Wallachia happier.
             This was not the only option that Dracul had to eliminate or reduce poverty in the land. To completely evaluate whether an act or rule utilitarian would view his action as right or wrong, I would have evaluate the amount of happiness that each option would generate, and compare that with the amount of happiness that his action produced. I will simplify this process by assuming that if his action generates a lot of happiness then it is probably right (i.e. would generate more happiness than other options), otherwise it is wrong.
             An act-utilitarian would calculate the total amount of happiness resulting from this particular action (killing the poor and crippled people). They have to identify all of the people who are affected by the action and then combine the amount of happiness generated for each person, to get the total happiness.
             The poor and crippled people who were killed, probably did not want to die, otherwise they could have killed ...

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