Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that says the morally right action is the one that produces the greatest possible happiness for everyone affected. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill developed the theory in the nineteenth century, and it was radical for its time.

Classical utilitarianism can be summarized in three claims. First, only the consequences of an action determine whether it is right or wrong. Second, only happiness and unhappiness matter when we evaluate those consequences. Third, everyone’s happiness must count equally. Mill expressed this last point by saying that we must be “as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator.” In theory, this may sound reasonable at first glance. In practice, however, it has consequences that many people experience as deeply counterintuitive.

The demandingness objection

The first objection is that utilitarianism demands too much. Imagine that you are on your way to the cinema. Someone points out that the money you are about to spend could instead buy food for starving children. Those children need food more than you need entertainment. So you skip the film and donate the money.

But the logic does not stop there. On the same reasoning, you should not buy new clothes, a car, or a phone unless those purchases produce more happiness than donating the money instead. Perhaps you should move into a cheaper apartment as well. Why keep comforts and luxuries if others need the resources more urgently?

As Rachels and Rachels point out, a committed utilitarian may seem required to give away wealth “until you’ve made yourself as poor as the people you’re helping.” You would retain only what is necessary to keep working so that you can continue to give. Most people would admire someone who lived this way, but they would not usually say that such a person merely did their duty. They would describe them as saintly, someone who went beyond what duty requires. Philosophers call such acts supererogatory. Utilitarianism appears to struggle to preserve that distinction.

Personal relationships and moral partiality

The second objection is even more serious. It concerns personal relationships.

In real life, none of us is willing to treat everyone equally in the same way. Doing so would mean giving up the special bonds we have with friends, partners, and family. We love them. We go further for them. They are not simply members of the general human population; they are ours in a morally significant sense.

This is exactly where utilitarian impartiality becomes difficult. When impartiality is applied without remainder, it threatens intimacy, friendship, and love. Rachels and Rachels ask what it would mean to care no more about one’s spouse than about strangers. For many people, the very idea sounds absurd. Love cannot survive without special obligations. The same goes for our children. John Cottingham puts the point sharply: a parent who leaves his child to burn because someone else inside the building has greater social potential is not a hero, but a morally contemptible person.

That judgment seems correct to most people. A parent who abandons a child in such a situation is not admirable. They are morally blameworthy.

The utilitarian reply

Utilitarians have tried to answer these objections. One strategy is to argue that love and partiality within families actually promote total happiness. If parents treated their children no differently from strangers, the children would feel unloved; later they might themselves become emotionally detached parents. The result would be a reduction of happiness across society. On this line of reasoning, utilitarianism can defend partiality, not because partiality is intrinsically valuable, but because it has good consequences.

That reply has force, but it also has limits. It leaves the basic principle unchanged. Utilitarianism still says that partiality matters only because of its effects on aggregate happiness. If it turned out that strict impartiality produced more total happiness, the theory would require us to abandon our special loyalties.

Conclusion

The objection from partiality reaches utilitarianism at a deep level. The theory asks us to surrender something many people regard as indispensable: the special moral standing of those we love. Rachels and Rachels therefore conclude that utilitarianism “seems to have lost all touch with reality” at this point. That may be too quick if taken as a total rejection of the theory. A better response may be to develop hybrid ethical views that preserve utilitarianism’s insight into the importance of well-being while making room for supererogation, attachment, and personal obligation.

Reference

• Rachels, J., and Rachels, S. (2019). The Elements of Moral Philosophy (9th ed.).