Average and total utilitarianism

All proponents of utilitarianism believe that the quality of conscious experience is important; indeed it is the basis of their consequentialist approach to ethics. However, it is unclear what it is that is supposed to be maximized: average happiness or total happiness. Two alternative answers to this problem are provided by average and total utilitarianism.

Total utilitarianism

Total utilitarianism is a method of applying utilitarianism to a group to work out what the best set of outcomes would be.^[1] It assumes that the target utility is the maximum utility across the population based on adding all the separate utilities of each individual together.

The main problem for Total Utilitarianism is the mere addition paradox, which argues that a likely outcome of following total utilitarianism is a future where there is a large number of people with very low utility values. Parfit terms this "the repugnant conclusion," believing it to be intuitively undesirable.^[2]

To survive the mere addition paradox with a consistent model of total utilitarianism, total utilitarians have two choices. They may either assert that higher utility living is on a completely different scale from, and thus incomparable to, the bottom levels of utility, or deny that there is anything wrong with the repugnant conclusion. (Although, Sikora argues that we may already be living within this minimal state.^[3] Particularly as quality of life measurements are generally relative and we cannot know how we would appear to a society with very high quality of life.)

Total utilitarianism is also challenged by Nozick's utility monster, a hypothetical being with a greater ability to gain utility from resources, who takes all those resources from people in a fashion that is seen as completely moral.

Average utilitarianism

Average utilitarianism values the maximization of the average utility among a group's members.^[2] So a group of 100 people each with 100 hedons (or "happiness points") is judged as preferable to a group of 1000 people with 99 hedons each. More counter intuitively still, average utilitarianism evaluates the existence of a single person with 100 hedons more favorably than an outcome in which a million people have an average utility of 99 hedons.

Hazards of average utilitarianism are potentially avoided if it is applied only practically. Killing members with below-average utility would harm the utilities of all members of the group, undermining the project's purpose.

The mere addition paradox is also a problem for average utilitarianism. It avoids Parfit's repugnant conclusion, but forbids what Parfit calls mere addition. He argues that addition of extra, worthwhile lives which do not affect anyone else cannot make the outcome worse.^[4]

Average utilitarianism is treated as being so obvious that it does not need any explanation in Garrett Hardin's essay The Tragedy of the Commons,^[5] where he points out that Jeremy Bentham's goal of "the greatest good for the greatest number" is impossible. Here he is saying that it is impossible to maximize both population (not total happiness) and 'good' (which he takes as meaning per capita happiness), although the same principle of course applies to average and total happiness. His conclusion "we want the maximum good per person" is taken as being self evident.

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