Reading comments on my recent post on implications of different versions of utilitarianism I was struck by the number of commenters who identified utilitarianism with central planning, assumed that anyone who took utilitarianism seriously must be in favor of the government ordering people around, redistributing income, controlling the society. Utilitarianism is the view that individuals should act to maximize total (or average) utility. To get from that to a political position requires a theory of what political institutions maximize utility. If centrally planned socialism works to give everyone a good life a utilitarian should be a socialist, if anarchocapitalism works, an anarchist. My most recent post offered, for six different issues, arguments for a libertarian position all of which could have been put in utilitarian terms, as reasons to believe the libertarian position would produce greater utility than alternatives. Declining marginal utility is a utilitarian argument for...
learn more
