Utilitarianism is based the greatest happiness principle, which states “actions are right as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they promote the reverse” (Mill 7). Mill believes that all people desire happiness. Everything that is desirable is so because it produces happiness or is a means to happiness. All actions aim for some end, and in humans, that end is happiness.
The belief of utilitarianism argues that it is best to try and produce the largest amount of utility when it comes to any issue, but especially world hunger and poverty. A utilitarian would argue that it is morally right to try and reduce the severity of the world hunger and poverty by providing ample funds of money for food and/or energy sources. Utilitarians do not think there are supererogation acts. They feel that one is “always obligated to do the thing that yields the greatest amount of utility, and it is precisely this that constitutes duty. Thus there is nothing above the call of duty” (Hinnan 172). Therefore, the call of duty is the most important for the utilitarian. Nothing is above it. According to utilitarianism, each individual has an obligation to provide the greatest amount of utility that we can for others. It does not matter if we have to decline in personal belongings, pleasures, etc., all that matters is that everyone is considered in the equation (Ethics 172).
Peter Singer, a professor of philosophy at Princeton University (Ethical Theory 320), and Garrett Harden, a professor of biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (Applied Ethics 139), both have formed personal approaches to the problem of world hunger and poverty, each of which can be said to be representative of utilitarian reasoning. Singer claims that we are morally required to do something about the world hunger, stating “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance, then we ought to do it” (Ethical Theory...