Try to attempt to take the conversation further by examining their claims or arguments in more depth or responding to the posts that they make to you. Keep the discussion on target and try to analyze things in as much detail as you can.  Please respond in 100 words or more.

In this week’s second discussion the ideas of utilitarianism focused mainly on benefits instead of pleasure. The concepts of act utility, rule utility and the Hedonistic Calculus were introduced in order to determine whether an act is classified as good, bad, beneficial or harmful. It is a perceived notion that vaccinations bring about beneficial outcomes for majority of the world. A vaccine is a treatment which makes the body stronger against a particular infection. Vaccines eliminate potentially deadly disease and prevent epidemics from affecting large populations. The good that can be seen in the characteristics of vaccinations are lower disease rates, maximized health and welfare of the general public.

Mill identifies the good as the greatest happiness which yields pleasure and freedom from pain with desired happiness as the end result. The good must produce the greatest possible positive balance of value for all persons. Vaccination possess these characteristics simply because they positively effect a larger number of people than they adversely affect. They save the lives of many and take the lives of very few.

Singer on the other hand refers to the good as pleasure without pain which is also based off whatever most people prefer as good, bad, beneficial or harmful. When speaking in terms of good vs bad, utilitarianism measures and compares societal good. As of the year 2014, Singer considers himself a Hedonistic Utilitarian. Philosopher Jeremy Bentham created the Hedonistic Calculus to establish the good based off factors that determine whether an act should be considered bad or good and in some cases, harmful or beneficial. Act utility which requires the use of the Hedonistic Calculus, classifies certain acts based on newness, uniqueness and differences from prior acts. Using this form of utility, a person determines the strength of harm or benefit, the duration the harm or benefit will last, the probability of a harmful or beneficial outcome, the nearest outcome, the most valued outcome, a beneficial outcome with the absence of harm or pain, and lastly the span of influence of the outcome. People can use this to reach a “more equitable solution”.

Although this is good for some decision making it is not suitable for every circumstance due to the complexity of the process. Therefore, Rule Utility can be used to create generals rules to follow for similar acts that do not require too much thought. After analyzing both components utility, vaccinations do in fact possess the good Singer refers to because vaccinations benefit society as a whole due its ability to prevent and eliminate disease. The large percentage of benefits vs adverse effects display positive outcomes because “more people benefit than are harmed” Without vaccinations people can infect others which can cause harmful epidemics.

If we cannot identify a good of the sort that the utilitarian seems need there would be harmful consequences of our actions. We would not a sense of what’s generally right or wrong because we would do things that is pleasurable only to ourselves regardless of how it makes an individual or the masses feel.