Should society be based upon what achieves the best results or what is morally right?
Should our society be structured to “maximize utility” or should it be structured around the protection of the natural rights of all human beings?
By: Brad
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Filed under Philosophy by on Dec 31st, 2009.




Comments on Should society be based upon what achieves the best results or what is morally right?
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Both
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it should be structured around the protection of the natural rights of all human beings
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These two options are not automatically exclusionary. Often, more than we are sometimes consciously aware of, the moral right achieves the best results for society.
However, there are a few questions that need to be addressed before this one:
1. What are the ‘best results’? This needs to be defined, because ‘best results’ carries a lot of baggage, a lot of relative baggage.
2. What is ‘morally right’? If you know the Answer to this one – please be sure to share it and be sure you have adequate citation.
3. Is ‘maximized utility’ the ‘best result’?
4. Is the ‘natural’ rights of all human beings automatically constitute a moral right?
5. What are the “natural rights of all human beings”?
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Of course it should be based on soley moral ideals. But it impossible to base a society on such a subjective concept as morality. One person may have completely different morals than another. Who’s morals would we follow? The polititions? The religious leaders? The majority? If so, how?
I think that the best society must be one of compromise. It should protect the people’s rights as well as be efficient. If we weren’t efficient, we wouldn’t survive in today’s world.
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The “best results” most people would probably say means the best quality of life for the people in the society. Quality of life is made up of several dimensions – safety from fear, physical needs met, such as food, medicine, shelter, social needs, individual creative and socializing needs and so on.
So no comprehensive view of quality of life or best results would pit those two things against each other. They are both ingrredients in this cake. If a thing is not morally right, it makes us feel self disgust, and that lessens quality of life so it must be incorporated.
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I prefer result over “philosophical morals.” What good is a “right way” that increases harm?
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In general (since your question is general), assuming that a “good” society is one which maximizes benefit for all at the expense of none, these two approaches can seem to be in conflict.
I suggest, however, that they need not be. Maximizing utility is probably an efficiency goal; one that suggests a future state of affairs. The protection of natural rights is more of a constraint on methodology. In other words, we can strive to maximize the benefit to all (maximize utility) without harming anyone (protect natural rights).
I suggest that any society that neglects one of these principles is not going to succeed in the other.