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?
You refrain from buying something, keeping its market price ever-so-slightly lower than if you bought it, and allowing a bunch of people on the margin to afford it who otherwise couldn't?
(I am not an economist, so there might be something wrong with this.)
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?