I am mildly consequentialist, but not a utilitarian (and not in the closet about it, unlike many pretend-utilitarians here), precisely because any utilitarianism runs into a repugnant conclusion of one form or another. That said, it seems that the utility-monster type RC is addressed by negative utilitarians, who emphasize reduction in suffering over maximizing pleasure.
Perhaps, but if your utility scale can actually become negative (rather than simply hitting zero), the solution of assisted suicide is fairly simple and cheap to implement.
The purely negative utility monster (whether it is in a ferociously large amount of pain or not), that also has by definition no diminishing returns in its utility function, just hits zero pain at some point. Until it is in pain again, it is simply not part of the equation. The difference is: If your goal is to minimize X, you can’t go on forever without diminishing returns (but with diminishing returns, you can) whereas if your goal is to maximize Y, you can go on forever with or without diminishing returns.
edit: It depends on how the function is defined. Above, I used allocated resources vs. utility (utility = relieve from suffering). But a negative utility monster would be possible if its condition got automatically worse and if it had no diminishing returns of (f.e.) suffering per unit pain, but all the other beings had.
I am mildly consequentialist, but not a utilitarian (and not in the closet about it, unlike many pretend-utilitarians here), precisely because any utilitarianism runs into a repugnant conclusion of one form or another. That said, it seems that the utility-monster type RC is addressed by negative utilitarians, who emphasize reduction in suffering over maximizing pleasure.
Isn’t there an equivalent negative utility monster, who is really in a ferociously large amount of pain right now?
Perhaps, but if your utility scale can actually become negative (rather than simply hitting zero), the solution of assisted suicide is fairly simple and cheap to implement.
Killing it reduces the overall suffering, since its quality of life is well below the “barely worth living” level, with no hope of improvement.
What if it can’t be easily killed?
That doesn’t work for preference utilitarians (it would strongly prefer to remain alive).
The purely negative utility monster (whether it is in a ferociously large amount of pain or not), that also has by definition no diminishing returns in its utility function, just hits zero pain at some point. Until it is in pain again, it is simply not part of the equation. The difference is: If your goal is to minimize X, you can’t go on forever without diminishing returns (but with diminishing returns, you can) whereas if your goal is to maximize Y, you can go on forever with or without diminishing returns.
edit: It depends on how the function is defined. Above, I used allocated resources vs. utility (utility = relieve from suffering). But a negative utility monster would be possible if its condition got automatically worse and if it had no diminishing returns of (f.e.) suffering per unit pain, but all the other beings had.