It appears to me that a utilitarian would have to say that it's okay for a group of people to get together and murder someone with no close friends or family so long as they are all enjoying it enough and they don't make it a particularly slow death. Does anyone have a counter point?

It appears to me that a utilitarian would have to say that it's okay for a group of people to get together and murder someone with no close friends or family so long as they are all enjoying it enough and they don't make it a particularly slow death. Does anyone have a counter point?

Don't you think that they would have to include the feelings of the victim their calculations? Utilitarians think that the effects of an action on all who are effected by it (including society at large) have to count in the calculations.

That's just it though, if the pleasure gained by the group outweighs the pain inflicted on the individual, doesn't that mean they should do it? Surely such a calculation could arise. Even worse, what if most of society agrees it is okay to do? Say it is an extremely racist society which does not tolerate jews or blacks.

Fine, lets leave society out of it, if nobody finds out about the murders, it appears as though they are kosher. Yeah you caught me, I'm sort of trying to refute Utilitariansim here. It appears to be a valid criticism though.

It appears to me that a utilitarian would have to say that it's okay for a group of people to get together and murder someone with no close friends or family so long as they are all enjoying it enough and they don't make it a particularly slow death. Does anyone have a counter point?

First of all, there are different types of utilitarians, like act utilitarians and rule utilitarians, and they say different things from each other. There is also the issue of the concept of "higher" and "lower" pleasures that Mill wrote about, though such an idea is not accepted by all utilitarians, so that, too, may affect what a particular utilitarian would have to say.

But the main thing is to consider is the totality of the outcome of this particular activity, not just part of it. There is the possibility that other people will find out, and they are likely to be displeased by the whole thing, and then do things that will displease the six. There is the possibility that the six will realize that, and it may bother them for the rest of their lives, because they know that in many places, there is no statute of limitation on murder, so they could be found out at any time later on in their lives and go to prison or be executed for it. Or someone might find out about it and blackmail them, and this is something that they might worry about even if it never actually happens. One of the six might later on feel guilty, and then confess the whole thing, which will likely get the other five into trouble, and all of the six should realize that that is a possibility when they are conspiring to murder someone, which, again, is likely to worry them all later on. So there is a good chance that the six will get more displeasure out of the whole thing than pleasure, even aside from the fact that the murdered one will probably not like it, and even if they are never found out.

In other words, one must think long term in order to do the calculation properly, and one must not omit some of the consequences when figuring out whether or not it is a good idea.


Also, if these people really enjoy murdering someone else, most likely, they are not going to want to stop at one. And the more they do it, the more likely they are to get caught, which should be obvious to everyone.


I think that the upshot of this is that with human beings, as they actually are, they ought not kill someone else as you describe, according to utilitarian principles, even if they believe it will give them pleasure, because they are likely to have displeasure later on for the rest of their lives. In fact, this seems to follow from only considering their own pleasure and pain, though utilitarians generally regard the happiness of everyone as relevant, in which case, the displeasure of everyone else if they find out is relevant to deciding whether or not they should murder the person.

It appears to me that a utilitarian would have to say that it's okay for a group of people to get together and murder someone with no close friends or family so long as they are all enjoying it enough and they don't make it a particularly slow death. Does anyone have a counter point?