A utilitarian would say that I should throw this one person overboard. According to utilitarianism, an activity is justified if it leads to the happiness of the largest number of individuals in a community or group. By eliminating a single person, a utilitarian can argue that the action will save more lives than if they did nothing, in which the boat would end up capsizing, and everyone would die.
One flaw in this hypothesis is that an individual may be put in danger to prevent 20 others from drowning. However, the advantages of saving 20 people might surpass that of a single person based on this philosophy. Generally, this is an ethical theory that focuses on results to determine what is right and wrong.
Utilitarianism is a moral theory that favors activities that promote happiness and opposes actions that create misery. When it comes to making ethical judgments about death, utilitarian philosophy aims for the least possible fatalities.
According to this ideology, an action is morally right if it contributes to happiness and inappropriate if it creates sadness, not just for the actor but for everyone impacted. Twenty-one deaths in the case where the boat capsizes is a significant loss that can bring harm and unhappiness to family members and even society.
However, one murder to save a greater number would bring more net pleasure than any other action. Existence has placed two absolute masters in charge of humanity: pain and pleasure. They are the only ones who can tell people what they should do and how they need to do it. Generally, utilitarians base their arguments on this premise to achieve intrinsic value.