t contradict itself. Regardless of what the widow does with the information, the act of telling her the truth, is a moral one. No one would argue that telling the truth, if she asks for it, is an immoral thing to do. Sometimes moral actions are difficult, and perhaps in this situation it would be easier to lie to the widow, but it would still be an immoral action that I would not want everyone to do. This picture of morality resonates with my common sense view of morality. If the widow subsequently commits suicide or commits any other immoral act as a consequence, that has no bearing on the morality of the original action in itself. Utilitarianism would differ on this point. Utilitarianism outlines that an action is moral if it increases the total happiness of society. Morality is based on consequences. Telling a lie to the widow would increase her happiness and consequently would, at least possibly, be a moral action. Utilitarianism would also take into account the precedent set by lying; however, the analysis still rests on predicted consequence rather than on the action's intrinsic moral value. The morality of telling the lie is on a case by case basis. In some situations, it might be better to tell the truth, and according to utilitarianism that would then be the moral action. Unlike Kantian philosophy, one is not bound by an immutable universal law. Instead one must judge in each case which action will produce the most overall happiness. The problem with this approach is that morality loses any value as a universal or intrinsic quality. Every decision is made on an individual basis in an individual and specific situation. In fact, utilitarianism considers happiness to be the only intrinsically valuable end. Defenders of utilitarianism claim that it maintains universality by considering the greatest happiness of all beings, rather than just individual happiness. Still, the morality is based on constantly changing and often unpredict...
