Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a belief that the moral justification of an act is its end or goal.  The goal of our action is to produce happiness or prevent suffering.  This is difficult to grasp because there are so many exceptions.  For example the one with your friends in a car wreck and you have to hurt a little child in order to get the grandmother out of a locked room and give you the keys.  Even thought that could never happen, you can't decide what to do.  Helping your friends would be great but the action that you do to help them is wrong because you are hurting someone in the process.