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novalis comments on Humans are utility monsters - Less Wrong
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So here's a question for anyone who thinks the concept of a utility monster is coherent and/or plausible:
The utility monster allegedly derives more utility from whatever than whoever else, or doesn't experience any diminishing returns, etc. etc.
Those are all facts about the utility monster's utility function.
But why should that affect the value of the utility monster's term in my utility function?
In other words: granting that the utility monster experiences arbitrarily large amounts of utility (and granting the even more problematic thesis that experienced utility is intersubjectively comparable)... why should I care?
Isn't this an objection to any theory of ethics?
As a lone question, it could be, but the point of his post is that even stipulating utilitarianism it does not follow that you or I should maximize the utils of Mr. Utility Monster.
No, only theories of ethics that say that I should care about things that I do not already care about.
And it is, in case, not an objection but a question. :)
Not necesarily a fatal one.
I believe some famous philosopher already has this point named after him.