Utilitarianism? Sounds like Anarchy to me...

Alright so our discussion of Utilitarianism in class really made me think about the actual purpose of this philosophy. I feel like it's a little bit odd for a human to look past the fact that I am beating someone into a coma simply because I just recently rescued him/her from drowning. I mean, seriously? So, does the Utilitarian brother of this Utilitarian man who is being beaten just look upon the situation and say, "You've done a noble thing in saving his life, go ahead and torture him."???? It seems to me as if, in a society in which everyone adopted a utilitarianist doctrine, the result would be absolute anarchy. I think that this principle, in being driven off of consequences alone, gives people the ability to excuse their actions by somehow creating a beneficial consequence. That is to say that, a thief who enjoys stealing would be able to rob a bank and give the money to a charity without any objection. This also says that I could do something ridiculous like have someone else do all of my homework for me for the duration of my college career as long as the outcome involves me getting into graduate school. Something about this just seems wrong...

Last class Dr. J mentioned that most of us are probably Utilitarian when we think about. Honestly, I believe that I am more of a Kantian if I may say so myself. It would be kind of hard to redirect your actions so that they are not pleasurable for you but for the outcome of a larger group of people in order to be considered moral or just. While it is true that most people do think about the consequences of their actions before they perform them, it is not true that people always perform actions in order to yield a positive outcome. So, anytime I do something random that happens to impact someone else's life negatively, by default, I am considered to be an immoral person?

This is why I believe that Kant has more of an acceptable philosophy. Don't you think that it's easier to align the principles of our actions with how we would want the universe to function? As upstanding individuals (hopefully), I think that we would have an easier time merely acting out of reverence for the law and securing our own autonomy as to be in alignment with that law than we would trying to gage the universal consequences of all of our actions. And even in the event that we did make sure that all of those consequences were pleasurable and lacking pain, this guarantee of happiness does not guarantee the absence of immoral acts being done in society...it does, rather, increase the likelihood that the society will get out of control...but that's just my opinion...