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Jose Martinez
Professor Enns
Philosophy 05
Analyzing A Moral Choice
The issue analyzed by this paper is whether people of minority/poverty should be given
more financial opportunities to pursue a higher education as a form to exit their current social class.
For example, I have been raised in poverty and at the age of fourteen was home schooled through
most high schooling in order to work in farm labor to support my families financial needs. I am
currently not receiving enough financial aid to support my families necessities. Should there be
more financial help as to receiving a higher education or should I just continue to work in cheap
labor conditions in order to help my families needs to survive?
Bentham argues that people can make moral choices by weighing or calculating ones
actions through the amount of pleasure and pain it produces, then records the results of those
actions in a chart he calls Moral Calculus. Bentham writes, “ Nature has placed mankind under the
governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure” (Bentham from Enns in class). Nature can
be defined as the inherent character or basic constitution of a person or thing; the Latin word
(nasci) meaning: to be born (Merriam-Webster). This means we are born with basic constitutions to
acknowledge and master pleasure and pain. Therefore, Bentham says we can measure these actions
through pleasure and pain on his basic categorized chart. For example, I gave myself a + 8 for
intensity because I am very eager to leave the poverty class and I feel that obtaining a higher
education is the only way to obtain that goal; yet I can only do so if more financial aid is provided.
I can not give myself a perfect +10 in intensity because not receiving the financial aid needed to
support myself and my family while in school may cause me to lose those closest to me. That being
said I can rate my families nearness at -5 because the longer I stay in college with the lack of
financial aid, the longer they financially struggle to live and would be forced to move on in life
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without me. If the government seeks my eagerness to rid of the poverty class it would partake in
distributing more financial aid for those in poverty. Yet this could mean more taxes for those who
can afford it, and also could mean pay-cuts for government officials, so I rate the governments
