Negative Utility Monsters

Richard Yetter Chappell

Utilitas, 2021, vol. 33, issue 4, 417-421

Abstract: Many consider Nozick's “utility monster” – a being more efficient than ordinary people at converting resources into wellbeing, with no upper limit – to constitute a damning counterexample to utilitarianism. But our intuitions may be reversed by considering a variation in which the utility monster starts from a baseline status of massive suffering. This suggests a rethinking of the force of the original objection.

Date: 2021
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