Utilitarianism is not a good guide for deciding ethical dilemmas, discuss

It is somewhat true that Utilitarianism is not a good guide for deciding ethical dilemmas and there are a number of weaknesses to both the Act and Rule approaches to Utilitarianism. However, both argument also have a significant number of strengths, that could make them very useful for resolving an ethical dilemma. One weakness of Bentham’s Act Utilitarianism in particular is that it is impractical to regularly apply the Hedonic Calculus. Whilst Bentham’s 7 principles may well be useful for accurately quantifying levels of pleasure/ pain, they are fairly time consuming and are not useful when we need to make impulsive moral decisions. For instance, if you wanted to decide whether or not to save a drowning man, by the time you were able to apply the Hedonic Calculus it is possible that the man would have died. In addition, as we cannot accurately predict the future it would be very difficult to determine the consequences of an action before they had taken place and we are therefore likely to make mistakes on the levels of pleasure/ pain that we would receive (this applies to both approaches). Utilitarianism’s key principle of ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’ also deduces that there is no defence for the minority; this means that there is potential to justify any act, including atrocities such as genocide. One weakness of Mill’s Rule Utilitarianism is that it is very difficult to define what constitutes happiness as, in reality, different people have different pleasures. On the other hand, Utilitarianism may be a good guide for deciding on ethical dilemmas, as it is democratic in the nature that it allows everyone to have an opinion. Utilitarianism is also practical in that it can be applied to most cultures worldwide and can therefore deal with most moral decisions. Act Utilitarianism is also quite flexible as it relies on there being only one moral rule: that we should always seek the greatest happiness for the greatest number in all situations. In conclusion, although Utilitarianism is useful as a good guide for deciding on ethical dilemmas, it has a number of serious weaknesses that make it somewhat impractical and at times an unmoral method of decision-making. It would perhaps be advisable to use Utilitarianism with caution, and in addition to reasoning from another form of decision making such as Kantian Ethics or Natural Law.