what do total utilitarians and average utilitarians actually mean when they’re talking about the sum or the average of several utility functions?
They don’t know. In most cases, they just sort of wave their hands. You can combine utility functions, but “sum” and “average” do not uniquely identify methods for doing so, and no method identified so far has seemed uniquely compelling.
They don’t know. In most cases, they just sort of wave their hands. You can combine utility functions, but “sum” and “average” do not uniquely identify methods for doing so, and no method identified so far has seemed uniquely compelling.