Nozick proposed that accepting the theory of utilitarianism causes the necessary acceptance of the condition that some people would use this to justify exploitation of others. Robert Nozick, a twentieth century American philosopher, coined the term "utility monster" in response to Jeremy Bentham's philosophy of utilitarianism. But maximin has its own monster: an unhappy (worst-off) being who only gains a tiny amount of utility no matter how many resources are given to it. The "happy" utility monster of total utilitarianism is ineffective against maximin, because as soon as a monster has received enough utility to no longer be the worst-off in the group, there's no need to accommodate it. ![]() The experiment contends that there is no way of aggregating utility which can circumvent the conclusion that all units should be given to a utility monster, because it's possible to tailor a monster to any given system.įor example, Rawls' maximin considers a group's utility to be the same as the utility of the member who's worst off. This thought experiment attempts to show that utilitarianism is not actually egalitarian, even though it appears to be at first glance. the theory seems to require that we all be sacrificed in the monster's maw, in order to increase total utility. 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. If the utility monster existed, it would justify the mistreatment and perhaps annihilation of everyone else, according to the mandates of utilitarianism, because, for the utility monster, the pleasure it receives outweighs the suffering it may cause. If the utility monster can get so much pleasure from each unit of resources, it follows from utilitarianism that the distribution of resources should acknowledge this. For instance, eating a cookie might bring only one unit of pleasure to an ordinary person but could bring 100 units of pleasure to a utility monster. ![]() The thought experiment Ī hypothetical being, which Nozick calls the utility monster, receives much more utility from each unit of a resource that it consumes than anyone else does. The utility monster is a thought experiment in the study of ethics created by philosopher Robert Nozick in 1974 as a criticism of utilitarianism.
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