Utilitarian would state that overall doing small things to help reduce the carbon footprint and therefore protect the environment will bring about more pleasure than pain and therefore it the ethically just thing to do. However whilst this may be true, act of Utilitarian would look at each case individually and if on an occasion it brought about more pleasure to do something harmful to the environment then they would allow this. By killing, or as discussed in assignment 3, “by the act of letting 20 000 children die every day is justified on the basis of the good of the whole species” would be wrong from my perspective. Therefore it is better to consider a rule utilitarian that would see that the overall greatest pleasure comes from preserving the environment and therefore would make it a rule that this was prioritised. In other words treat others as they would like to be treated themselves. Applying these principle to sustainable development.
