Utilitarianism
Utilitarian mindset might appear logical and rational, but there are simply more things to consider when one makes a decision. I have my reservations on judging whether the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaka and the invasion of Iraq are right, even though it might appear that the total net benefits over shortcomings is positive. However, i believe that when the American presidents were making these decisions, there are more factors other than Utilitarianism that prompted their decisions, e.g. the expectation of Americans, the psychological pressures in the Presidents.
Utilitarian is also the principal proponent of "the end justify the mean". By the principle of Utilitarianism, an action intended to cause harm but that inadvertently causes good results would be judged equal to the result from an action done with good intentions. Besides, if torture or slavery is beneficial for the population as a whole, it could theoretically be justified by utilitarianism as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarian
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/#1
From the start, the hedonism in classic utilitarianism was treated with contempt. Some contemporaries of Bentham and Mill argued that hedonism lowers the value of human life to the level of animals, because, as Bentham said, a simple game, such as push-pin, is as good as poetry if the game creates as much pleasure. Quantitative hedonists sometimes respond that great poetry almost always creates more pleasure than trivial games (or sex and drugs and rock-and-roll), because the pleasures of poetry are more certain, durable, fecund, and so on.
Mill used a different strategy to avoid calling push-pin as good as poetry. He distinguished higher and lower qualities of pleasures according to the preferences of people who have experienced both kinds (Mill 1861, 56; compare Hutcheson 1755, 421-23). This qualitative hedonism has been subjected to much criticism, including charges that it is incoherent and does not count as hedonism (Moore 1903, 80-81; cf. Feldman 1997, 106-24).
Even if qualitative hedonism is coherent and is a kind of hedonism, it still might not seem plausible. Some critics argue that not all pleasures are valuable, since, for example, there is no value in the pleasures of a sadist while whipping a victim. Other opponents object that not only pleasures are intrinsically valuable, because other things are valuable independently of whether they lead to pleasure or avoid pain. For example, my love for my wife does not seem to become less valuable when I get less pleasure from her because she gets some horrible disease. Similarly, freedom seems valuable even when it creates anxiety, and even when it is freedom to do something (such as leave one's country) that one does not want to do. Again, many people value knowledge of other galaxies regardless of whether this knowledge will create pleasure or avoid pain.
These points against hedonism are often supplemented with the story of the experience machine found in Nozick (1974, 42-45). People on this machine believe they are surrounded by friends, winning Olympic gold medals and Nobel prizes, having sex with their favorite lovers, or doing whatever gives them the greatest balance of pleasure over pain. Although they have no real friends or lovers and actually accomplish nothing, people on the experience machine get just as much pleasure as if their beliefs were true. Moreover, they feel no (or little) pain. Assuming that the machine is reliable, it would seem irrational not to hook oneself up to this machine if pleasure and pain were all that mattered, as hedonists claim. Since it does not seem irrational to refuse to hook oneself up to this machine, hedonism seems inadequate. The reason is that hedonism overlooks the value of real friendship, knowledge, freedom, and achievements, all of which are lacking for deluded people on the experience machine.
Some hedonists claim that this objection rests on a misinterpretation of hedonism. If hedonists see pleasure and pain as sensations, then a machine might be able to reproduce those sensations. However, we can also say that a mother is pleased that her daughter gets good grades. Such propositional pleasure occurs only when the state of affairs in which the person takes pleasure exists (that is, when the daughter actually gets good grades). But the relevant states of affairs would not really exist if one were hooked up to the experience machine. Hence, hedonists who value propositional pleasure rather than sensational pleasure can deny that more pleasure is achieved by hooking oneself up to such an experience machine (Feldman 1997, 79-105).
A related position rests on the claim that what is good is desire satisfaction or the fulfillment of preferences; and what is bad is the frustration of desires or preferences. What is desired or preferred is usually not a sensation but is, rather, a state of affairs, such as having a friend or accomplishing a goal. If a person desires or prefers to have true friends and true accomplishments and not to be deluded, then hooking this person up to the experience machine need not maximize desire satisfaction. Utilitarians who adopt this theory of value can then claim that an agent morally ought to do an act if and only if that act maximizes desire satisfaction or preference fulfillment, regardless of whether the act causes sensations of pleasure. This position is usually described as preference utilitarianism.
Many consequentialists deny that all values can be reduced to any single ground, such as pleasure or desire satisfaction, so they instead adopt a pluralistic theory of value. Moore's ideal utilitarianism, for example, takes into account the values of beauty and truth (or knowledge) in addition to pleasure (Moore 1903, 83-85, 194). Other consequentialists add the intrinsic values of friendship or love, freedom or ability, life, virtue, and so on.
