39  Objections to Utilitarianism

This chapter briefly introduces several objections to Utilitarianism, understood as a moral theory that suggests the best action is the one that maximizes overall sum of the utilities. While influential and intuitive in many ways, Utilitarianism has faced a number of compelling objections. This chapter introduces three such objections: 1) The permissibility of using people as mere means, 2) The problem of utility monsters, and 3) The anti-aggregationist challenge.

39.1 Using People as Mere Means

One standard moral objection to Utilitarianism is that it seems to allow using people as mere means or resources 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). However, this seems to violate the moral principle that we should not use people (like Alice) as mere means to benefit others (Bob).

The crucial point here is that Utilitarianism treats Alice as a resource that could be sacrificed for Bob’s benefit.

39.2 Utility Monsters

The Alice and Bob case points to another issue for Utilitarianism. The moral problem arises not just because the robot uses Alice as a resource for Bob’s benefit, but because Bob derives great utility specifically from Alice’s suffering. Utilitarianism holds that all utility must be counted equally, so these perverse utility gains cannot be discounted or ignored.

The philosopher Robert Nozick noted the problem of utility monsters. A utility monster is someone that gets enormously greater gains in utility from any sacrifice of others than those others lose. According to Utilitarianism, Nozick argued, it would seem that we all should be sacrificed to maximize the utility of some utility monster, which is unacceptable.

39.3 Anti-Aggregationism

A final challenge comes from philosophers who reject the aggregative element of Utilitarianism - that is, the idea that utilities between people can be summed and compared. 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 Utilitarian, 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.

39.4 Concluding Remarks

These three objections - using people as mere means, 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 core commitments to aggregating and maximizing utility.

Here are some key works that develop the three objections to Utilitarianism in more depth or present Utilitarian responses:

  1. K. Arrow (1973), “Some Ordinalist-Utilitarian Notes on Rawls’s Theory of Justice”
  2. R. Nozick (1974), “Anarchy, State and Utopia”
  3. J. Rawls (1971), “A Theory of Justice”
  4. A. Sen (1998), “The Possibility of Social Choice”
  5. J. J. C. Smart and B. Williams (1973), “Utilitarianism: For and Against”

In addition, the following resources provide accessible introductions to Utilitarianism and its critics:

  1. J. Driver “The History of Utilitarianism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2022/entries/utilitarianism-history/
  2. https://utilitarianism.net/