The Utility of Utilitarianism

The beautiful thing about an Ethics class based in a Christian perspective is that it is necessary to talk about the secular ethical theories. I am a philosophy minor, so topics of philosophical theory are of interest to me. I have been charged with my thoughts on utilitarianism.

The leading proponent of Utilitarianism is a man by the name of Jeremy Bentham. In a nutshell, without having to go to the work of citing someone, my understanding of utilitarianism is based on the greatest good principle; achieving the greatest good for the greatest amount of people is the best route to take. In its crudest form, it is the goal to gain the greatest amount of pleasure, and the least amount of pain.

Utilitarianism is a neat idea, but it falls short in the field of subjectivity. What brings me great utility may come at the utility expense of another. It places pleasure and pain on a relative scale; there are no absolutes to reference to, just cause and effect along the scale of pleasure and pain... It doesn't sound too promising to me.

Utilitarianism can't hold its weight against a God who promises the ultimate pleasure... eternal life. The tenth chapter of John (my paraphrase) states that Jesus came to give life to its fullest measure, something that utilitarianism cannot promise. Needless to say, Jesus is the way.