There is a firefighter who is obligated to make a crucial decision. Upon arrival to a five-alarm blaze, the firefighter must make a life or death decision. There are two individuals unconscious in the burning building, and only one can be saved. One person is Dr. Rutland, a world-renowned pioneer in treating suicidal-depressives. The medication he has developed has helped thousands of patients already, and when perfected, will save many more. The other individual is Dr. Rutland's secretary. Being that only one person is to survive, who should be saved?
In order to decide what the moral or ethical decision would be in this situation, one may look the utilitarian philosophy of Mill. According to Mill,
The theory of morality- that pleasure, and the freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain. (Mill 1)
Because Mill believes that in order to achieve morality, whatever will result in the greatest amount of pleasure and the least amount of pain will be the correct choice, he is a consequentialist. With all of this in mind, Mill derives a theory known as the Greatest Happiness Principle. The GHP requires that in order for a decision to be morally right, it has to promote the greatest good for the greatest number. Mill states, "The ultimate end [of the GHP], is an existence exempt as far possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality (Mill 2)," the quantity being the greatest number, quality being the greatest good. Mill also says that "The utilitarian st ...