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Utilitarianism and situational political control

Utilitarianism is a concept that emerged as a result of the imminent contributions of Jeremy Bentham and John Mill. According to this philosophy, the proper reason for an action should be based on its consequences to the larger society. A moral act should be in a position of reaping the maximum possible amount of benefit to the people. Since, its inception, this theory has gained a significant prominence in the political sphere in many countries (Bayles, M. D., 2009).

On the other hand, situational political control refers to another important political theory that existing political situation in a country can fuel the formation, development, growth and success of the movement groups by its citizens. Under this situation, people get segregated into two opposing contented and those feeling oppressed buy the existing leadership. Hence, those who see themselves as being subjected to lots of oppression surp0ression, injustice and unfair treatment mobilize others from the same category to form movement groups to unite them together as they strive for a common goal.

While utilitarian conditions always tend to create harmony and bring diverse people together, the situational political control causes a great rift between the ruling class with their allied groups and the dissatisfied that are not happy with the kind of administration they are subject to. In other words, utilitarian governments formulate policies that are aimed at benefiting the common people. This actually makes people feel happier with it since they know that their interests are put primary to any other. However, this does not apply to the situational political control where people revolt by coming together to form political movement groups to help advocate for their rights.

Lastly, the responsibility of a utilitarian government is to make people happier, laws are formulated and subsequently enforced to fairly reward and punish the society appropriately. This makes people feel that the law is for them. Hence, they cooperate with their leaders whom they then offer their maximum support. Meanwhile, the situational political control creates political pluralism characterized with lots of dissent groups that end up jeopardizing the mainstream political control. However, all these may be misused if proper guidelines are not executed.

People vs. George W. Hal

Asians are the people who trace their origin from the Semitic groups in the continent Asia. However, as a result of immigrations, many of them can now be found in America, Europe, Australia and America. The nature of classifying them into the white race has been a very contentious issue for quite a long time now (Bentham, J., 2009). However, the peek of this contention was realized during the court case between the People of the state of California and George W. Hall.

It was in 1854 during an appeal case at the Supreme Court of California when the then chief justice, Hugh Murray acquitted Hall, the appellate of the murder case for which he had been charged with a life sentence. Even if he had murdered Sing Ling Sing, an innocent Chinese miner at Nevada. In my opinion, this was a very unfair ruling that could not have been delivered by such an experienced judicial officer.

This case confirmed that the Chinese were not whites to could not enjoy the privileges reserved for the whites. Justice Murray clearly institutionalized it when he based his stance on the Californian constitution section 394 on the civil cases that states that, ‘No Negro or Indian will be allowed as a witness in any proceeding where a white person is a party.’ Therefore, the chief justice dismissed the case because the testimony had been given by a Chinese, whom according to his interpretation was not a white.

Surely, this was a clear indication of the racial segregation in the larger United States of America. It was just an example of how the native whites mistreat the immigrants believing that it is their God given privilege to be on top of any other person regarded as a non white. This culminated into several racial revolts in the history of America.

Works cited

Bayles, M. D. (2009). Contemporary Utilitarianism. Anchor

Books: Doubleday.

Bentham, J. (2009). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Dover Philosophical Classics). Dover Publications Inc.