Is it possible to be a consistent utilitarian?
You think that it is not unjust to conduct experiments on living animals because you reckon that the sum of benefits for humans is greater than the total of animal suffering.
You think that it is not unjust to breed animals to be eaten or to be used to make garments, so long as you do not employ cruel or intensive methods, because the humans obtain a great deal of pleasure from them and the animals do not experience too much suffering, especially if they are killed in a sufficiently painless fashion.
You think that what counts morally is producing the greatest possible sum of well-being in total.
You may request admittance to the utilitarian club!
But if you are in the club, you risk being forced to concede that it would be just to give all the wealth to a few individuals and to leave billions of humans in poverty.
Indeed, this is what you would have to conclude if it is demonstrated, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the enjoyment of these few individuals is so immense that it very largely compensates for the misery of billions of people who have nothing.
The same reasoning should lead you to deem it just that a single person whose capacities for enjoying are gigantic monopolizes all the goods of the planet, or that all humans sacrifice themselves for him.
This kind of being may be called a utility monster (in the philosophical sense of the word “utility,” which signifies the benefit we derive from a thing).
1Would you be prepared to remain in the utilitarian club, if these conclusions were inescapable?
