Average and total utilitarianism

Utilitarianism usually states that the quality of conscious experience is important; indeed it is generally the basis of its consequentialist approach to ethics. However, it is unclear what it is that is supposed to be maximized: average happiness, total happiness, or some other aggregation Two alternative answers to this problem are provided by average and total utilitarianism.

Total utility (also totalism) is a method of applying utilitarianism to a group to work out what the best set of outcomes would be. 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.

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. 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.)

Average utilitarianism (also averagism) values the maximization of the average utility among a group's members. 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.

Average utilitarianism may lead to repugnant conclusions if practiced strictly. Aspects of Parfit's mere addition paradox are still relevant here: Even though "Parfit's repugnant conclusion" (mentioned above) is avoided by average utilitarianism, some generally repugnant conclusions may still obtain. For instance, if there are two completely isolated societies, one a 100-hedon society and the other a 99-hedon society, then strict average utilitarianism seems to support killing off the 99-hedon society (this violent action would increase the average utility in this scenario). This criticism is also exemplified 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 immoral.

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