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Negative Utility Monsters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2021

Richard Yetter Chappell Open the ORCID record for Richard Yetter Chappell [Opens in a new window]
Richard Yetter Chappell*
Affiliation:
University of Miami, FL, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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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.

Type
Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 417 - 421
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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