Eudaimonia is the concept of personal flourishing which is the result of being virtuous. The key thing to note is the word ‘personal’ – you achieve this sense of striving/success when you act in a virtuous manner (ie. you are focussed on being a good character and act according to the golden mean). But the sense of flourishing that you feel is only entitled to you as you alone have acted in a virtuous manner. This completely contradicts the entire Utilitarian view on normative ethics as the sense of happiness which comes as a result of actions is not relegated to a single one person, rather it is owed to every individual in the scenario. The basic tenet of Utilitarianism is the ‘principle of duty’ which states that in any situation where a moral decision to be made, one must choose the action which results in the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. This is not personal happiness rather it is collective happiness. Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics focuses on moral actions being actions that can lead us to virtuosity and, therefore, eudaimonia and this directly contradicts any Utilitarian view as they believe moral actions are the one which attains the largest quantity of happiness for the largest amount of people.
In my opinion, I feel that the Principle of Utility is the best moral guideline for me because I feel that, as social beings, we do have moral obligations to one another (I am a proud subscriber of the theory on Moral Obligations!) so we need to take into consideration every person in the moral dilemma. Everyone in the world is equal and everyone has a stake in decisions which pertain them so we should definitely take them into account when making decisions. For example, we can see this concept exemplified in the idea of elections: everyone has the ability to vote (in most nations) for the candidate that they would like to rule their nation so that when the party is elected, it brings happiness for the greater number of people. This really strongly reflects the notion of the Social Contract as Hobbes believed that a government/ruling-entity should be in charge – nations have adopted this idea and turned it into a Utilitarian ideology as, in history, if people didn’t have a say in the government, there was always unrest. For example, the lack of democracy and the large upholding of autocratic dictatorships in Russia during the early 1900s led to mass unrest. This is why we must always use Utilitarian thinking as, if we want to move forward as a society, everyone should have a voice/say in the decision making so that actions can satiate the needs of the many and, therefore, not result in violence. As a liberal who believes in democracy, this idea perfectly matches my political beliefs. Happiness for the many should be prioritised so that civil unrest is kept to the minimum.
In addition to this, Aristotle may say that, in the trolley problem, you should let the trolley kill the five as if you get involved with the situation, you are either going to be acting with a vice of excess (eg. rashness) or deficiency (eg. insensibility). But this doesn’t make logical sense; it may make ethical sense but, as a normative theory, it just doesn’t sit well with me. Why kill five when you can sacrifice one? In this world, it hurts me to say this but we must consider the many over the few. I am a believer in individual rights and freedoms and believe that they shouldn’t be overruled by the rights of the many but, in order for society to function, we can never prioritise an individual over the many. Otherwise, if we keep doing this, we will only be left with 1/6 of the total population (ie. if everyone were in the trolley situation and we saved the one rather than the five).
This is why I believe that I would adopt a Utilitarian framework over an Aristotlean one for normative decision making.