Are long-lived persons utility monsters?

Gregory Ponthiere

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Abstract: Nozick's ‘utility monster' is often regarded as impossible, because one life cannot be better than a large number of other lives. Against that view, I propose a purely marginalist account of utility monster defining the monster by a higher sensitivity of well-being to resources (instead of a larger total well-being), and I introduce the concept of collective utility monster to account for resource predation by a group. Since longevity strengthens the sensitivity of well-being to resources, large groups of long-lived persons may, if their longevity advantage is sufficiently strong, fall under the concept of collective utility monster, against moral intuition.

Keywords: Longevity; mortality; inequalities; utilitarianism; Nozick’s utility monster (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-upt
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Published in Economics and Philosophy, 2024, pp.1-19. ⟨10.1017/s0266267124000373⟩

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Working Paper: Are Long-Lived Persons Utility Monsters? (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04834045

DOI: 10.1017/s0266267124000373

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