LAW214 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Jeremy Bentham, Moral Rights, Consequentialism
15 Mar 2020
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Moral rights in relation to discrimination or personal rights were called natural rights". Not a matter of conventional social or legal arrangements but are possessed simply in virtue of our nature as human beings or in virtue of natural law. Focus on human rights traditionally been on the exercise of state power whilst subjected to human rights scrutiny. Utilitarianism is a type of consequentialism theory. Consequentialist theories determine moral rightness by reference solely to the good consequences or results of, for instance, acting in a certain way, or being guided by certain rules or having certain motives. Moral rightness in reference to utilitarian consequentialism is defined in terms of the production of maximum happiness. Utilitarianism tells us that there is only one principle of morality, namely, to produce the greatest balance of happiness over unhappiness, both in personal dealings with others and social decision making.
