A2 RS: Application of Utilitarianism (Act, Rule + Preference) to Business Ethics in 4mins

[spritesevenup]

this is so helpful thank you :) my teacher didn't really go over this so this has helped me a lot. thank you :)

[unassumption]

People derive 'common sense' policy outcomes from their ethical theories without realizing there are lots of laws consistent with any set of principles that take situation into account. Whatever works should be done in consequentialism, and that's an empirical question, possibly counter to intuitions; group-consequentialists like Mill often favor free markets and individualists may prefer strong government. We should be wary of deriving applications directly from theory w/o reference to reality.

[unassumption]

Students seem guided toward what the consequences of following each theory would be; that Act-Utilitarianism would ignore externalities, value money more than the pleasure/pain of workers (?) and follow short term goals for instance isn't exactly obvious but it's what exam boards want to hear and textbooks tell you it would endorse.

Again, great revision tool definitely what I wrote on my exams. May the consequence of your videos be a lot of students getting As :)

[CuteChadz]

@unassumption LOL thanks! Yeah we didn't do much work on this in class but it seems fairly easy :)

[CuteChadz]

@unassumption Personally I feel it is really illogical to ask RS students to apply ethical theories such as utilitarianism to business ethics - I study economics and even if I didn't I would put my hand on my heart and say no business cares about ethical theories it cares about 3 thing (i) profit maximisation (ii) obeying the law (iii) attracting consumers!

[unassumption]

@CuteChadz

I wonder if any people are guided by theories of right and wrong, rather than their feelings on it?

That they don't actually follow them doesn't mean they shouldn't follow them; but knowing the ought without a means of making it real is pointless.

I'm glad we did sexual ethics rather than buisiness ethics (especially since I didn't do econ) but even that required looking at weather laws against say abortion really decrease use, and the difference between use and abuse.Complicated

[CuteChadz]

@unassumption You are doing you Alevels right? What board?

Well I believe I follow a form of virtue theory I have a list of virtues I like to associate about myself and when faced by a dilemma I do the action that perfects these virtues - I don't simply go by emotion but then I have not had to deal with situations like abortion etc...

[unassumption]

@CuteChadz

I finished mine 2 years ago but was doing OCR. We had several applications to choose between. Mainly watch your videos for the econ stuff. Theories without virtue seem unworkable and virtue without other theories seems ungrounded; some combination of the 3 traditions seems necessary. Rules have to act through people so without virtues no one would follow them, though if a trait doesn't usually lead to the right action I'm unsure how it could be a virtue. The split seems artificial.