Essays --

On November 28th, 1942 a fire broke out in Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston. The fire killed approximately 492 people, injuring 166, and impacting numerous others (Cocoanut Grove Fire). This event became known as one of the deadliest nightclub fires of its time. The causes for such a devastating event can be analyzed using utilitarian ethics presented by John Stuart Mill. The decisions made by the owners of the nightclub will be evaluated as being right or wrong based on utilitarian theory. The utilitarian ethics theory in a nutshell basically states that â€Å"the good is the well-being of all, impartially considered (Riley 68).† What is emphasized in utilitarian theory is that the greatest good be produced for the greatest number of people. This brings up the question of what â€Å"good† actually is. Many utilitarian theorists believe there are two kinds of good, intrinsic and instrumental. Intrinsic good is good considered just by itself while all other things are instruments for gaining the intrinsic goods (Schinzinger 55). Mill believes that the only intrinsic good is happiness and thus the emphasis can be rewritten as the greatest happiness produced for the greatest number of people. In other words, happiness is basically the only thing desirable as an end in itself. However, once again we ask the question of what happiness really is. When explaining his utilitarian theory, Mill separates happiness into two types, the higher and the lower (Mill Ch.2 ). Mill defines the higher happiness as being that of humans including such qualities as justice, creativity, morality and nobility. On the other hand, the lower happiness is that which is associated with animals and is purely pleasure based. Using these two types of happiness, Riley c... ...at the owner did not act like Socrates dissatisfied but instead he acted like a fool. In other words, in this case the owner did not act like a smart man with dissatisfaction because of lack of money, but instead he acted like a fool with plenty of money. This fool believes that having more money is the ultimate happiness, when in reality it is only a stepping-stone towards happiness. In the aftermath of the Cocoanut Grove fire, building codes were amended by adding two outward-opening exit doors next to revolving doors, clearly marking exits that could be unlocked from within and keeping every exit unobstructed, requiring sprinklers and emergency lighting. (Boston Fire). However, due to poor decisions and management, the rapid spread of the fire and the intense heat & toxic smoke resulted in the majority of people inside the Grove to never have a chance to escape.