How does the case of the 'Guildford Four' Illustrate the weaknesses of Coursework

How does the case of the 'Guildford Four' Illustrate the weaknesses of utilitarianism when used as the moral guide of the State - Coursework Example Based on how the consequences of a human action could create happiness for human beings is merely a pure achievement of pleasure and prevention of pain (Kemerling 2002; Bentham 1789, p. 1). When estimating the moral status of human actions1, Bentham argued that the measurement of hedonistic value of human actions should be based on certainty and uncertainty, purity and extent of human actions, the intensity of pleasure and the duration wherein the sense of pleasure could last including the collateral benefits of the human action in order to prevent collateral harm (Timmons 2002, pp. 106 – 108; Dibie 1988, p. 315). It means that the experiencing pleasure and pain are classified as intrinsically good and bad respectively. With regards to political philosophy, Bentham’s proposed utilitarianism considers the happiness based on pleasure such that the happiness of the entire community and/or society as a whole is more important as compared to the happiness or self-interest of a single person. With this in mind, the principle of utility as suggested by Bentham means that the moral obligation of each individual should be based on â€Å"the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people affected by human actions† (Kenny 1998, pp. 283 – 284). In other words, Bentham’s strongly believe that the human actions and social institutions should aim at promoting the greatest utility – happiness and pleasure (Crisp 1997, p. 2). Since the greatest happiness should be for the greatest number of people, government corruption is considered as intrinsically bad since only few minorities among the government officials could enjoy the pleasure of having substantial amount of money due to misuse of political power and legal rights. At the... The act of judging whether or not a given action is morally right or wrong is considered a very complex situation. Specifically the case of the 'Guildford Four' illustrates the weaknesses of utilitarianism when used as the moral guide of the state. In judging whether or not human action is intrinsically right (good) or wrong (evil), the role of the public policymakers comes in. As stated by Sir William Blackstone, â€Å"It is better to let ten guilty men go free than to wrongly incarcerate one innocent man†. Because of the increasing number of wrongful conviction in UK, developing a set of political rules in the form of law will not always lead to actions that are morally good. One way or the other, developing a set of political rules the the form of creating a legal system may only serve as a scapegoating tactics in the case of the true criminals. As compared to the theory of utilitarianism, the concept of deontology is totally different in the sense that deontology remains f ocus on judging an action by observing the righteousness or wrongness of an action regardless of whether the end result of the action is good or evil (Nishukan 2007). Instead of taking into consideration the end-result of an action, Immanuel Kant suggest the use of deontology more than the classical utilitarianism since deontology judges moral issues by carefully examining the type of actions being committed by a person