Jared Polivka

Professor Burleson

Philosophy 2306

8 August 2021

Utilitarianism In The Incredibles

Utilitarianism is a set of moral theories that focus on promoting happiness and pleasure.

This set of theories are among the most popular and influential involved with normative ethics

and philosophy. There are ideas from it that go back to even the late eighteenth century. It

supports making decisions that provide the most amount of benefit to anyone who could be

affected by it. Utilitarianism is essentially the doctrine that an action or set of actions is the

morally “correct” action if only it benefits the majority. Since these theories are based on the

consequences of actions solely, that makes utilitarianism a form of consequentialism. What

makes Utilitarianism different from basic consequentialism is that it has the desired outcome of

providing benefit to its affected personnel. Consequentialism does not care about its outcome.

Utilitarianism was introduced officially by Jeremy Bentham. Jeremy Bentham was an

English philosopher and writer who lived from 1748 to 1832. Although, ideas and concepts of

utilitarianism were introduced years before Jeremy Bentham was even born; he was the first

person to officially classify and define it.Since he was the first to stipulate on such ideas it earned

him the title of the “Father of Utilitarianism”.

There was another man who further explicated the ideas of Utilitarianism; this man was

John Stuart Mill, who also was a philosopher and writer. He lived from 1820 to 1873. Mill

introduced the ideas of rule utilitarianism which essentially is the belief of taking a two-part

approach to utilitarianism. This approach emphasizes the significance of moral rules.

 In the movie “The Incredibles” we see a character, named Frozone, arguing with his wife

about going out to do hero-work. His wife is against his decision because she would like to enjoy

a dinner with him that evening that supposedly they had spent planning for two months. Despite

all the planning, he still wanted to go and help others because he had decided his decision was

“for the greater good” which he even mentions in the scene. Frozone used a utilitarian viewpoint

when making his decision.