Antigone Comparison Paper

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I believe a good individual follows the morally correct values of the other members of the community. In order to make the community virtuous everyone needs to have the same moral compass, and think about the consequences some decisions may have on the community. Each individual should want to be better and strive to achieve the good life for all of the community. In return, the community should be fair and just. It owes its citizens a fair chance to make a good life from nothing. The community will not benefit one specific group or person, but rather only make decisions that benefit the entire population. No person would make decisions without weighing the benefits for each person affected by it. It would be based off the act utilitarianism theory where each action has consequences that are assigned values based on the amount of happiness that is produced.

If this is implemented the people that are viewed as invisible in America or any community will have a better chance at achieving the good life. The theory that each action has consequences and people would think of each possible outcome before doing anything can make people think of the less fortunate and make distributing the wealth easier. This can eliminate the wage gap and give every citizen the benefits they deserve simply because they are a citizen of the community. If the community works together as a whole and collaboratively strive to make it better, it could be a much more just community.

As mentioned earlier, most people have an egotistic type of motivation, where they are preoccupied with their own well-being and gratification. This type of behavior demolishes a good society where everyone could be equal and be given the same opportunities. In an individualistic community where everyone is only after their own self-interest, a gap will slowly start to grow between the people and the different classes. This gap will start small then become a divide that only increases and keeps the impoverished of society down and the rich getting richer. These differing groups then learn to hate each other because they blame one another for the separation. The rich blame the poor and say they don’t work hard enough or they need to work their way up. The impoverished class blames the rich because they don’t give them the opportunity to develop or better themselves. It’s a never ending cycle that has no winner. Their society or community is the only way to make a difference, not just one class. Only through enlightenment and act utilitarianism, in a perfect world, can this separation be avoided or fixed. This way all classes can show that they have equal capacity to make moral choices that are based in their own reason.

Part 3

“We are not studying in order to know what virtue is, but to become good, for otherwise there would be no profit in it” (Aristotle, NE 2.2). Again, Aristotle believed it was about practicing good not just knowing the good. Following that, Jeremy Bentham, and later John Stuart Mill, both worked on and believed in act utilitarianism which states that all humans desire happiness. They worked on teaching that each action has consequences which can be given values based on the amount of happiness each consequence produces. Mill believed that every human should aim at maximizing the welfare or happiness of all creatures. We can take this perspective and focus on the issues regarding the working poor and the controversy at Wal-Mart.

Applying these beliefs to the situation Wal-Mart is currently dealing is not difficult because it is directly related to the problem of the good. Corporate Wal-Mart is only maximizing their welfare and not those who work for them at each store. The people in control at Wal-Mart are probably not bad people who are purposely making life terrible for the working poor that are employed by the store, but rather people that are just following their instincts and making decisions based on their personal gain. This is a natural human thing to do, especially in the society we live in. The problem then lies with the society or community for allowing this behavior and further development of the gap between the working poor and the rest of society. We can blame society for making people egoistic and having little consequences for their selfish actions that only focus on their pursuit of happiness. John Stuart Mill was once believed to afraid of the prospect of a mass democracy in which working-class opinion would be oppressive, but he was actually worried about middle-class conformism much more than anything (Mautner, 2005). This means that Mill was scared of the majority of America becoming complacent and only focusing on them-selves instead of furthering the society.

The solution to this issue is to apply the idea of act utilitarianism. This thought is simple in theory and in a perfect world it could make a big difference. The main goal of this idea would be to make people more accountable for their decisions. All people desire happiness, but how they achieve that can be very different between each person. The idea of deliberating each possible outcome of each decision and assigning values to the consequences can eliminate selfish choices and actions.

The decision that Wal-Mart made to not offer health insurance to its full time employees is the direct result of a decision a small group of people made in order to accelerate their own happiness. This decision was believed to be good by the ones that made it, but the values of the consequences vary greatly between the two different groups. It made them more money but hurt a much larger group of people. Not only did the decision hurt the employees but because of the lack of help from Wal-Mart the employees had to rely on government funding which comes from tax payers. This domino effect was caused by a small group of people only pursuing their happiness and not considering others. By taking a consequentialist view more decisions can be made that benefit more than just oneself. If implemented this will help make society a just community where the gap between classes doesn’t exist.

Part 4

The egalitarian idea believes in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities. This idea summarizes the main goal of applying the theory of act utilitarianism. The problems that Wal-Mart is dealing with can be solved by thinking and acting this way. It can also be applied to the much bigger picture by making people really consider each possible consequence of their actions will help eliminate the gap between classes and make them view each person as equal in worth. The gap between the working poor class and the middle to upper classes is only getting larger mainly because of lack