ethics & morality · new to this edition
the utility monster
one being gets more out of everything than the rest of us combined. nozick thought that should embarrass the utilitarian. find out whether it should embarrass you.
In Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) Robert Nozick gave utilitarianism a creature to worry about: “Utilitarian theory is embarrassed by the possibility of utility monsters who get enormously greater sums of utility from any sacrifice of others than these others lose. For, unacceptably, the theory seems to require that we all be sacrificed in the monster’s maw, in order to increase total utility.” Four scenes put you in charge of the sharing. The monster is the easy part. The hard part is the reason you give for turning it away, and whether you can keep using that reason once you notice who else it applies to.
further reading
- utility monster wikipedia
- anarchy, state, and utopia wikipedia
- equality and priority original paper
- egalitarianism stanford encyclopedia of philosophy
- sharing the world with digital minds original paper