Utilitarianism – Relatable

I grew up believing that a good deed brings good fortune, a lesson from my school textbooks. But this week challenged that belief. It was a week full of surprises: my roommate Anna was appointed as a professor, I bought a T-shirt that received compliments, I relished chicken biryani with chicken pepper fry after a long time, and most memorably, I donated blood for the first time. Donating blood had been on my bucket list since my UG days, and I finally got the chance on Tuesday (05.08.2025) during a Red Ribbon Club camp at college. I wasn’t afraid, even when the nurses used a large needle, something my friends teased looked like an animal injection! They drew 350 ml, and I felt genuinely happy to have helped someone.

But that happiness didn’t last. When I told my roommate Annas, they criticized me, saying donation camps often sell blood instead of offering it freely to those in need, and that I should have gone directly to a hospital. I was stunned. I had done a good deed with sincere intentions, but the reaction I received was disheartening. This ironic experience stayed with me for a while.

Later, while searching for blog topics, I came across a philosophical term that fit my situation perfectly that is, 'utilitarianism'. Utilitarianism is a moral theory that holds that the rightness of an action depends on the happiness it produces. It's a type of consequentialism, meaning actions are judged by their outcomes. The term was introduced by philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the late 1700s and later refined by John Stuart Mill. Bentham believed pleasure and pain were the ultimate measures of good and bad, even creating a “hedonic calculus” to quantify them. Hedonic calculus is a theoretical algorithm for measuring the moral worth of an action based on the amount of pleasure and pain it produces. Mill improved upon this by distinguishing between higher (intellectual) and lower (physical) pleasures.

In light of this, my story makes more sense. Though my action was morally good, its outcome caused discomfort and doubt. According to utilitarianism, the moral value of my deed lies not in the intention but in the consequence.