The utility of others is not my utility, therefore I am not a utilitarian. I reject unconditional altruism in general for this reason.
When I say that I’m a utilitarian (or something utilitarian-ish), I mean something like: If there were no non-obvious bad side-effects — e.g., it doesn’t damage my ability to have ordinary human relationships in a way that ends up burning more value than it creates — I’d take a pill that would bind my future self to be unwilling to sacrifice two strangers to save a friend (or to save myself), all else being equal.
The not-obviously-confused-or-silly version of utilitarianism is “not reflectively endorsing extreme partiality toward yourself or your friends relative to strangers,” rather than “I literally have no goals or preferences or affection for anything other than perfectly unbiased maximization of everyone’s welfare’”.
When I say that I’m a utilitarian (or something utilitarian-ish), I mean something like: If there were no non-obvious bad side-effects — e.g., it doesn’t damage my ability to have ordinary human relationships in a way that ends up burning more value than it creates — I’d take a pill that would bind my future self to be unwilling to sacrifice two strangers to save a friend (or to save myself), all else being equal.
The not-obviously-confused-or-silly version of utilitarianism is “not reflectively endorsing extreme partiality toward yourself or your friends relative to strangers,” rather than “I literally have no goals or preferences or affection for anything other than perfectly unbiased maximization of everyone’s welfare’”.