IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/utilit/v33y2021i4p417-421_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Negative Utility Monsters

Author

Listed:
  • Chappell, Richard Yetter

Abstract

Many consider Nozick's “utility monster” – a being more efficient than ordinary people at converting resources into wellbeing, with no upper limit – to constitute a damning counterexample to utilitarianism. But our intuitions may be reversed by considering a variation in which the utility monster starts from a baseline status of massive suffering. This suggests a rethinking of the force of the original objection.

Suggested Citation

  • Chappell, Richard Yetter, 2021. "Negative Utility Monsters," Utilitas, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(4), pages 417-421, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:utilit:v:33:y:2021:i:4:p:417-421_4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0953820821000169/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:utilit:v:33:y:2021:i:4:p:417-421_4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/uti .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.