Why I am not a utilitarian

In fact, we make far worse moral calculations than that frequently. Eg, if you've ever supported a war, you've agreed with killing completely innocent children, often in horrible ways, for the sake of whatever benefit the war might have had for the side you support. And there have been plenty wars fought for reasons other than self-defense. Take Iraq and Afghanistan for instance.

Organ harvesting: How bad is the fear in every healthy person for risking to be harvested? Healthy people are much more that people in need organ transplants. How that fear condition their life. Is range generated? With what effects on in need organ transplants?

Framing the innocent: If the action from sheriff comes out and don't get punished what's the effect in people that that fear to be framed for no reason? What's the effect for people losing trust in justice? If you need just a temporary guilty just fake it as long as you find the real criminal or you improve the situation with other means. Obviously situations abstracted from the context and for others lines of actions lead to absurd solutions.

Deathbed promise: Considering the aftereffects of this case are so complex that giving a clear response is quite complex at best.

Sports match: Just save the person and let the other people know that they helped to save a person in need. Gratification will be much more that annoyance for short interruption and memories for that extraordinary events will be good too. If the person was just experiencing a little distress for the latest minutes of mood landing just let him experience it. Utilitarianism let you balance different situations.

Cookie: If we are talking about cookies who care. If we are talking about reward we can balance two things: - a gentle act toward a mad person can have much bigger effects - letting people know that good people get rewarded can generate more good people and more good with time

The Professor and the Serial Killer: Professor do good mainly with his work and with his personal life. Charity is only a small part. How being a lawyer would affect this total outcome? These more money he earn come from somewhere. What's the total effect?

Excess altruism: An altruist get joy from helping others so giving the cookie to Sue the total pleasure is maximized.

There are many cases where the "ethical" course of action makes many people miserable and where a simple, pragmatic, utilitarian solution would be beneficial. You don't have to go to extreme examples like the trolley problem or shooting down planes with terrorists in them. Just look at organ donations, for example. Here in Germany, it is opt-in. Why can't we just make it opt-out, or like in the US: when you get a drivers license, you have to decide yes or no?

I would consider myself somwhat utilitarian, but I have no problem reconciling most of the mentioned problems with common sense. Sometimes, it is by questioning the set-up:

> b. Framing the innocent > You’re the sheriff in a town where people are upset about a recent crime. If no one is punished, there will be riots. You can’t find the real criminal. Should you frame an innocent person, causing him to be unjustly punished, thus preventing the greater harm that would be caused by the riots?

The real problem here is that people are going to riot if their sense of justice is not satisfied. You're not just a sheriff but also a philosopher - the solution is to change society!

Most of the problems are variations of the classic "one person suffers greatly so many can have shallow pleasure". I don't know anybody who really proposes integrating over utility without any weight like this. Instead, most people would weight the injustice much greater than the pleasure. I maintain for example, we could radically reduce CO2 emissions and redistribute wealth to reduce poverty if we were willing to accept a couple percent GDP degrowth. That means on average, you might have to wait 2-3 years to get a new phone or a new car, and you might have to take a less than ideal job for a couple of years. But your inconvenience would be more than compensated by the increased utility for all.