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lukeprog comments on Against Utilitarianism: Sobel's attack on judging lives' goodness - Less Wrong
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IMO, it's accurate. Sobel says (pg3) of the "standard consequentialist position" that it takes two steps: you need to judge a life, and then aggregate all the judgments in a morally acceptable manner. He says that he's puzzled that the second part receives "the lion's share" (pg4) of criticism of the standard consequentialist position, when he regards the first step equally or more dubious ("But no comparable group of debates which challenge the adequacy of the first step in the SCP exists...I believe that the first step...is itself quite problematic").
If you can't even judge lives, then that takes out the average utilitarianisms (what are you averaging?), negative utilitarianisms, welfarist utilitarianisms... basically everything but the hedonism theories, and even that is questionable (can one be unable to judge one's own life and pleasures? If so, then hedonism too fails).
I see. I don't think of utilitarianism this way, but it might be common enough to call it the "standard consequentialist position." I'm not sure.
I agree. From my experience, utilitarianism typically sets the unit of measurement for utility at pleasure, preference, or happiness and not anything to do with life per se. I don't see how any of those measures require judging a life.