Utilitarianism and social ethics
... The opposing type of theory, teleology, is dominated by the importance of ‘the good’ instead of ‘the right’ and an illustration of this is Jeremy Bentham’s political theory, Utilitarianism. ... Rawls created his Theory of Justice, which he explains in his book A Theory of Justice, as an alternative to Utilitarianism in an attempt to create the means to a completely fair society. In this book he portrays “a theory of justice that generalizes and carries to a higher level of abstraction the traditional conception of the social contract” (Theory, p. ... Rawls describes it by stating that “social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all” (Theory, p. ... ” Without fairness there is no equality and without equality there is no happiness, entirely negating teleology and the theory of Utilitarianism. ... Mutual disinterest, in which everyone is solely interested in his or her own self, is a precondition to all social contract theories. You cannot enter a social contract on altruistic grounds in which every person unselfishly pursues total happiness for all. ... The principle that best counters Rawls theory and that best illustrates teleology is the theory of Utilitarianism. ... In defining how to engage in Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill, the philosopher most often associated with the principle, holds, in his book Utilitarianism, that “ actions are right in that tend to promote happiness, wrong that they tend to promote the reverse of happiness” (Utilitarianism, p. ... Utilitarianism is a moral theory in that it contends that it is every human being’s moral duty to maximize the happiness of all. ... In defining who is actually included in ‘the greatest number’ Mill states that it “is not one’s own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether” (Utilitarianism, p. ... Utilitarianism is also based on Universalistic Hedonism, which places value on the community over the individual as opposed to Egoistic Hedonism, which values the individual over the community.