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The Utility Monster
The Utility monster is an objection to utilitarianism formulated by Robert Nozick.
Nozick postulated a creature who received 100 units of utility (pleasure, happiness) per unit of resource consumption, in a universe where everybody else received 1 unit of utility per unit of resource consumption. In this type of universe, Nozick argued, utilitarianism would require that all of the people who got lesser utility be sacrificed (give up any and all resources) to the utility monster. This moral demand for sacrifice, however, is absurd. Therefore, basic utilitarianism is defeated by means of a reduction to absurdity.
Cardinal utilitarianism suggests that we allocate goods and resources so that we maximize the total or average amount of pleasure - given the existence of a utility monster we would be obliged to neglect the needs of human beings in favour of satisfying the monster, perhaps even to the extent of annihilating the human race.
Can anyone think of an argument defending utilitarianism, that can defeat the utility monster thought experiment?
The Utility monster is an objection to utilitarianism formulated by Robert Nozick.
Nozick postulated a creature who received 100 units of utility (pleasure, happiness) per unit of resource consumption, in a universe where everybody else received 1 unit of utility per unit of resource consumption. In this type of universe, Nozick argued, utilitarianism would require that all of the people who got lesser utility be sacrificed (give up any and all resources) to the utility monster. This moral demand for sacrifice, however, is absurd. Therefore, basic utilitarianism is defeated by means of a reduction to absurdity.
Cardinal utilitarianism suggests that we allocate goods and resources so that we maximize the total or average amount of pleasure - given the existence of a utility monster we would be obliged to neglect the needs of human beings in favour of satisfying the monster, perhaps even to the extent of annihilating the human race.
Can anyone think of an argument defending utilitarianism, that can defeat the utility monster thought experiment?
