Singer's Utilitarianism

Peter Singer represents a somewhat more modern view to utilitarianism, sharing his views in his works Practical Ethics in 1993. He uses the same principle of utility but distorts it from greatest pleasure for the greatest number with his idea of PREFERENCE.

"This other version of utilitarianism judges actions, not by their tendency to maximise pleasure or minimize pain, but by the extent to which they accord with the preference of any beings affected by the action or its consequence."

As previously states Utilitarianism is an umbrella term and whilst already having discussed its two main branches, ACT & RULE, another branch is that of PREFERENCE UTILITARIANISM or BEST CONSEQUENCE. Rather than pleasure and pain being our motivation, one should consider the INTERESTS of those persons involved. In this way Singer eliminates the persecution of minorities, which in theory could have justified things such as the slave trade, and facilitates Bentham's original flexibility.

One may question however how viable this theory is as although arguably it relinquishes any idea of majority outruling the minority it seems impossible a task to weigh up every individual's perspective. It is also a self-confessed theory for "special occasions" and may not be used in every day life whereas RULE or ACT certainly could.