"The greatest good for the greatest number," this is the guiding motto for Utilitarianism. 

The most common test you will hear when finding your individual views on utilitarianism is the following: 

"Imagine you are confronted with a terrible decision that you must make. Imagine a train is hurling toward 10 strangers. Right next to you is a lever that will allow you to divert the train onto another track that will kill your mother."

How can you possibly make a decision that will save 10 strangers but kill a member of your family? What would you do? Could you save 10 lives at the cost of your mom? 

According to utilitarianism, the moral obligation in such a situation would be to allow your mother to take on the pain and spare the 10 strangers. This is according to the theory of "hedons" and "Dolors". 

Imagine these two words to represent value. One hedon is equal to one unit of what Jeremy Benthem, one of the first philosophers to accept utilitarianism, called "pleasure." In contrast, one dolor is equal is to one unit of "pain." 

Unfortunately, the vast majority of new explorers of utilitarianism stop there. At face value, the theory could justify slavery and other forms of exploitation of the minority as long as such an action helps the majority. 

Think of a society that practices a perfect form of the simplest form of utilitarianism. If just 51% of the population benefited from mass exploitation of the 49%, then it is morally right for them to do so. 

However, there is more to the story. Each action goes deeper than a simple +1 or -1. For example, stubbing your toe may  only equal 1 hedon (pain). In comparison, being enslaved may create more pain, perhaps 1,000,000 dolors. 

When this is added to the equation, this theory rationally makes sense. We want all of our actions to create to make more pleasure than pain. 

However, like every philosophical question, it comes to a halt when a few questions arise that are nearly impossible to answer. 

1. How do we determine the pleasure or pain gained from a specific action? 

There is no logical and full proof way to determine what actions are worse or better than others.  Take for example, being killed. Most of us would believe that dying is the most "painful" thing a person can experience, but how do we truly know? Perhaps theft is worse or torture is worse. In addition, how do we know the "exchange rate" of hedons to dolors? How do we know what actions are the exact opposite of one another, morally speaking? Is stubbing your toe the moral opposite of smelling a rose? Maybe yes, maybe no. 

If we cannot identify this relationship between pleasure and pain, how can we correctly answer the second area of questioning. 

2. Can it still justify harming of the innocent? 

Lets say that someone commits a crime, and no one knows who did it. As a result of this crime, there has been a good amount of violence in the community (riots, looting etc.). If you, as an individual, had the chance to sentence a innocent person to death to stop the violence, would you? How do we know that the "pain" of one innocent person dying is better than violence in the streets?

Again, unless we answer #1, we may never understand how to correctly answer #2. This means that utilitarianism fails to provide the universal moral truths that we so desperately hope for. 

So, is Utilitarianism morally good? 

It is impossible to say; I know this is a frustrating answer. However, if utilitarianism cannot explain the units of what is "pleasureful" in comparison to what is "painful," it is impossible to tell what actions are moral and immoral. 

Here is what I do know.

As long as we, as a society, learn from the mistakes of the past, understand the future repercussions of our actions and have a mindset that all people are created  equal and deserve to be respected, everyone will be better for it. 

Thank you so much for reading! Let me know what you think!