How often are you in situations where you have two choices: option A gives you 1000000 units of happiness, and option B gives everyone on this planet 1 unit of happiness?
According to utilitarianism, I guess it would be better to choose B, but I think that in real life 99.9% of people never face the choice B, because for most of us, our actions simply don't influence the whole planet. -- Perhaps if Bill Gates decided to make Microsoft Windows an open-source software, that would be an example of an action likely to benefit billions of people, at his own expense. Assuming that this choice would only cost him, say $1000000, I guess it would be an ethical thing to do.
In real life, most people on this planet will be in completely the same situation regardless of what I do.
How often are you in situations where you have two choices: option A gives you 1000000 units of happiness, and option B gives everyone on this planet 1 unit of happiness?
Probably rarely. But you and I are in a position where someone, somewhere, would get more units of happiness from our efforts than we would. You could be working night and day, without let up, to feed the hungry, to vaccinate the unprotected, to shelter the exposed,..
That is your lot in life, under the Utilitarian God. That is the debt you owe. And if you don't pay it, day after day aft...
Utilitarianism seems to indicate that the greatest good for the most people generally revolves around their feelings. A person feeling happy and confident is a desired state, a person in pain and misery is undesirable.
But what about taking selfish actions that hurt another person's feelings? If I'm in a relationship and breaking up with her would hurt her feelings, does that mean I have a moral obligation to stay with her? If I have an employee who is well-meaning but isn't working out, am I morally allowed to fire him? Or what about at a club? A guy is talking to a woman, and she's ready to go home with him. I could socially tool him and take her home myself, but doing so would cause him greater unhappiness than I would have felt if I'd left them alone.
In a nutshell, does utilitarianism state that I am morally obliged to curb my selfish desires so that other people can be happy?