Nailchipper

Aaron Swartz recently wrote:

Utilitarians believe that people should work to maximize total happiness across the population. They believe that the only reason to do something or not to do something is because it will make people happier or unhappier respectively. Thus, whether something is good or bad depends to some extent on people’s preferences — whether it makes them happy or sad.

But this might leads to some odd conclusions in the case of what might be called “perverse preferences”. For example, some members of the Bush Administration say they get very sad when they see others eat ice cream in public. Yet many people like to eat ice cream in public. Should we stop them from doing so just because it makes others sad? Moreover, should they decide to stop doing so if they’re utilitarians?

My understanding of Utilitarianism is that it looks at the sum of all people affected by an action - not just influential groups.

According to Utilitarianism, if eating icecream negatively affects more people than not, then maybe we should reconsider eating icecream.

And that is why laws vary by peoples. There are cases which, for historical or cultural reasons, more people of a population consider a specific act as affecting them negatively. So, to impose a historical or cultural justification for an act by a larger population onto a smaller - under the guise of the “greater good”, would be, i think, unjust.

What makes sense to me is to have smaller governing units which permit for distinct populations to make their own decisions and assert their cultural beliefs (obviously, preserving basic human rights).

Utilitarianism can sometimes be a bit too universalistic and often forgets the most human of all social units: the family - and everything that stems out from family, like ethnicity, culture, nation etc.

Now, you can apply the same insights of John Stuart Mill to smaller social groups and allow for an even greater diversity of people who can be happy.