In thinking about a relationship with a married person we will consider two fairly similar modes of thought. First we will examine the utilitarian ethics of Mill, then Rand's individualist ethics. Essentially our question is this, I am single, and I've met someone who is married that I want to have a romantic relationship with. The moral issue here is not uncertain. Clearly in our society the institution of marriage carries with it several very traditionally dependent modes of morality, and to allow ourselves involvement with a married woman would circumvent the very notion of marital alignment.
             Utilitarianism's underlying idea is the morality of action turns on how it figures in advancing human happiness and Mill's initial statement is, "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." In our dilemma we turn to Mill's theory of the right--to his view about what makes an action right or wrong. First we must consider that this is a moral question in a way that the issue of what is intrinsically good is not. Only the conduct of a moral agent can be right or wrong. Mill would consider our dilemma right if, of those acts available in the circumstances, it would produce the greatest total net good (happiness). In thinking about our relationship with the married woman the utilitarian principle would find that there is no greater duty not to harm than there is to benefit--so long as there is compensating happiness to others. Since what matters for the utilitarian act is the total net happiness, how the happiness and unhappiness that make up the total is distributed across persons is irrelevant, so long as it does not affect the total. Let us look at an example. Suppose A is to engage in the relationship and B is to abstain. X (me), Y (the married woman), Z (the spouse) would be benefited or harmed to the following degrees from each a...