Using that terminology, you’re objecting to the more general point that social utility functions shouldn’t be confused with personal utility functions. All mainstream discussion of utilitarianism has failed to make this distinction, including the literature on the utility monster.
I don’t doubt that you’re right, but I find that stunning. How can this distinction not be made?
In the trivial example Selfish World, everyone assigns greater utility to themselves than to anyone else. That surely doesn’t mean utilitarianism is useless—people can still make decisions and trade utilons!
“Utility” refers a representation of preference over goods and services in economics and decision theory. This usage dates to the late 1940s. It has almost nothing at all to do with the normative theory of utilitarianism which dates to the late 1780s.
As a normative theory is supposed to tell you how you ought to act saying “oh everyone ought to follow their own utility function” is completely without content. The entire content of the theory is that my utils and your utils are actually the same kind of thing such that we can combine them one-to-one in a calculation to determine how to act (we want to maximize total utils).
That surely doesn’t mean utilitarianism is useless—people can still make decisions and trade utilons!
This isn’t utilitarianism. It is ethical egoism as described by economists.
I don’t doubt that you’re right, but I find that stunning. How can this distinction not be made?
In the trivial example Selfish World, everyone assigns greater utility to themselves than to anyone else. That surely doesn’t mean utilitarianism is useless—people can still make decisions and trade utilons!
“Utility” refers a representation of preference over goods and services in economics and decision theory. This usage dates to the late 1940s. It has almost nothing at all to do with the normative theory of utilitarianism which dates to the late 1780s.
As a normative theory is supposed to tell you how you ought to act saying “oh everyone ought to follow their own utility function” is completely without content. The entire content of the theory is that my utils and your utils are actually the same kind of thing such that we can combine them one-to-one in a calculation to determine how to act (we want to maximize total utils).
This isn’t utilitarianism. It is ethical egoism as described by economists.