>>5656
Utilitarianism is fundamentally retarded regardless of its scope.
1)You can't calculate the utility function in any real setting. This is just swept under the rug by pretending that first order effects are all that matters and that you can discard the rest. There is no mathematical basis for this! You can't pretend that summing utility across some Africans that you give mosquito nets to is even remotely the same as summing utility across all conscious beings inhabiting your light cone. You can't even determine the sign of this total utility. Actually most interesting systems are chaotic so it's not even a matter of not enough information or computing power. So every practical application of utilitarian ideas ends up privileging some people over others in arbitrary ways.
2)You have to pretend that you can somehow measure utility that individuals experience and compare it. You can't do it in practice so you end up with something that you again have no mathematical basis to claim even approximates the things you postulate are important.
Utilitarianism is one of those ideas that only an intellectual could take for a reasonable one. It's pretends to be able to quantify things it can't actually quantify in a futile attempt to appear "rational". It is to morality as Le Corbusier is to city building.