Utilitarianism
             The main idea of utilitarianism, according to Adam Morton's book Philosophy in Practice is to follow the action that "brings about the greatest amount of pleasure or the least amount of pain." This idea at first seems simple but when applied to some examples the edges blur. Millions of Americans love to watch football games, but lets say 200 people die a year playing this sport, and therefore the government wants to outlaw the sport all together. According to the concept above what would the utilitarian think? This is a type of example where it is uncertain to know what the utilitarian would do. Do millions of people's pleasure compare to the pain of the 200 football players' families? In this situation it is hard to say which "brings about the greatest amount of pleasure" and which brings about the least amount of pain. This is not the only problem with utilitarianism. There are other situations that arise in which if you were to follow the utilitarian view you would be going against some of your own moral beliefs. For instance the example in Morton's book; your best friend is devoted to a woman that despises him and she is married anyway. But your friend believes that she does really love him and if he learned how she truly felt he would be heartbroken? He asks you to tell him how she really feels. Now thinking like a utilitarian you might be leaning towards either telling your friend that she really does love him or just evading the question, but what do your morals tell you to do? Personally I would be truthful to my friend and hope that in the end he would be better off knowing the truth.
             There are good points to the utilitarian view though. Before knowing what the utilitarian would do, you must first think and consider the consequences, which most of us do not do all of the time. We all have said and done things that have hurt others without considering t...