Christopher Ciarla
345-BXH-DW: Applied Ethics in Humanities
Introduction to Ethics
Jennifer Koopman
Final Exam
A) For this question I will presume that the human population is 7 or 8 billion like it is today and
on the other planet there are only a couple hundred or thousand dinosaurs. According to
utilitarianism, the most ethical action maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain. Meaning your
happiness is as important as everyone else’s. Utilitarianism is interested in increasing happiness
for the future. So, the question is should we punish some brave soldiers or humans to risk their
lives and kill those dinosaurs? According to utilitarianism, we can only punish someone to
produce good results and reduce pain for the future, meaning it's ok to send humans on this
planet. But now there are two kinds of utilitarianism, act, and rule. If we answer with act
utilitarianism, the action of one human being brave enough to sacrifice their lives for the rest of
the human population would be ethical because the act of going to space will cause more
pleasure than pain for the rest of society. However, if we justify this with rule utilitarianism then
it wouldn’t be ethical because then it would be selfish to say that you need to send every human
to fight the dinosaurs (when only some would be sufficient enough). Lastly, I will try to justify
why it is good to try and make the planet livable through Kant’s theory. According to Kant, all
humans are equipped with reason and will. Reason tells us what’s right and what’s not. Will
allows us to choose what's right or wrong, it sort of guides our behavior. Therefore, to be good,
you must have goodwill. Goodwill acts from duty, not according to duty, meaning you do the
345-BXH-DW: Applied Ethics in Humanities
Introduction to Ethics
Jennifer Koopman
Final Exam
A) For this question I will presume that the human population is 7 or 8 billion like it is today and
on the other planet there are only a couple hundred or thousand dinosaurs. According to
utilitarianism, the most ethical action maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain. Meaning your
happiness is as important as everyone else’s. Utilitarianism is interested in increasing happiness
for the future. So, the question is should we punish some brave soldiers or humans to risk their
lives and kill those dinosaurs? According to utilitarianism, we can only punish someone to
produce good results and reduce pain for the future, meaning it's ok to send humans on this
planet. But now there are two kinds of utilitarianism, act, and rule. If we answer with act
utilitarianism, the action of one human being brave enough to sacrifice their lives for the rest of
the human population would be ethical because the act of going to space will cause more
pleasure than pain for the rest of society. However, if we justify this with rule utilitarianism then
it wouldn’t be ethical because then it would be selfish to say that you need to send every human
to fight the dinosaurs (when only some would be sufficient enough). Lastly, I will try to justify
why it is good to try and make the planet livable through Kant’s theory. According to Kant, all
humans are equipped with reason and will. Reason tells us what’s right and what’s not. Will
allows us to choose what's right or wrong, it sort of guides our behavior. Therefore, to be good,
you must have goodwill. Goodwill acts from duty, not according to duty, meaning you do the
