43  Objections to Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism holds that the best action is the one that maximizes the overall sum of utilities. While influential and intuitive in many ways, it has faced compelling objections. This chapter introduces three: the permissibility of using people as a resource, the problem of utility monsters, and the anti-aggregationist challenge.

43.1 Using People as a Resource

One standard objection to Utilitarianism is that allows one to use people as a resource to increase overall utility. Consider the following case:

Alice and Bob are in a room with a robot that is programmed to be a perfect Utilitarian. The robot must decide between two options:

  1. Situation \(x\): The robot leaves Alice and Bob alone. Alice has a utility of 5 and Bob has a utility of 6, for a total utility of 11.
  2. Situation \(y\): The robot pushes Alice to the ground, causing her pain but giving Bob enjoyment from witnessing it. Now Alice has a utility of 2 and Bob has a utility of 10, for a total of 12.

The Utilitarian robot would chose situation \(y\), as it produces a greater total utility (12 vs. 11).

The fundamental problem is that Utilitarianism treats Alice as a resource that could be sacrificed for Bob’s benefit.

43.2 Utility Monsters

The Alice and Bob case points to a further problem for Utilitarianism. The moral issue is not just that the robot uses Alice as a resource for Bob’s benefit, but that Bob derives great utility from Alice’s suffering. And because Utilitarianism requires counting all utility equally, these perverse gains cannot be discounted or ignored.

The philosopher Robert Nozick raised the problem of utility monsters. A utility monster is someone who derives such enormous utility from others’ suffering that it outweighs the harm to them. Utilitarianism seems to imply that we should all be sacrificed to feed such a monster’s endless appetite, a conclusion that is clearly unacceptable.

43.3 Anti-Aggregationism

A final challenge comes from philosophers who reject the aggregative element of Utilitarianism. Consider the following case:

Suppose that you must choose between the following two options:

  1. Completely cure a young person with a terminal illness.
  2. Cure \(n\) young people with a mild illness that causes a one-day headache.

According to Utilitarianism, there must be some number of people cured of the mild headache that would outweigh curing the terminally ill person. After all, a very large number of small utility gains can sum to more than one big utility gain.

But many people believe this fails to respect the gravity of death. Curing one person’s terminal illness seems qualitatively more important than any number of headaches relieved.

Defenders of Utilitarianism have a response. Consider the following series of claims:

  • Curing some number of mild headaches is preferable to curing one severe headache.
  • Curing some number of severe headaches is preferable to curing one case of the flu.
  • And so on, through increasingly serious conditions: pneumonia, chronic pain, temporary disability, permanent disability, and finally terminal illness.

Each individual step seems plausible. Yet accepting all of them commits us, by transitivity, to the conclusion the anti-aggregationist rejects. The anti-aggregationist must therefore deny at least one step in the chain, but which one, and why?

43.4 Concluding Remarks

The three objection discussed above - using people as resources, utility monsters, and the problem of anti-aggregation - have been enormously influential in moral philosophy. Each aims to reveal a deep flaw in Utilitarianism’s core commitments to aggregating and maximizing utility.

A good place to start exploring these objections and possible Utilitarian responses is the classic debate between J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams in (Smart and Williams 1973). In addition, the website https://utilitarianism.net/ provides an accessible introduction to Utilitarianism and its challenges.