In the example above: the fact that you have no shoes equates to negative utility for you. If you’re a normal human being who is generally well-intended and wants people to have both feet and shoes for those feet, you would feel upset if you saw someone without feet, hence more negative utility. Your negative utility from you having no shoes + negative utility from seeing someone have no feet can only amount to a more negative total score than just the one obtained by considering your own lack of shoes. Even in the case where you’re a complete egoist for whom others’ misfortunes have absolutely no impact on your own personal happiness, if you sum them up again you still end up with the same negative utility from having no shoes. Only if you’re the kind of monster that rejoices in other people’s suffering is it possible for your utility score to raise after seeing someone with no feet. Yet it seems that even people who aren’t complete monsters seem to take comfort in the fact that someone else has it worse than them, and this seems intuitive for most people, and counter-intuitive for others, i.e. me, and the person who made the quote.
(Disclaimer: I haven’t studied utilitarianism formally; probably I’m using more of an everyday definition of the word “utility”, akin to “feel-good-ness” in a broad sense. The way I’ve thought about this problem stems purely from my intuitions.)
In the example above: the fact that you have no shoes equates to negative utility for you. If you’re a normal human being who is generally well-intended and wants people to have both feet and shoes for those feet, you would feel upset if you saw someone without feet, hence more negative utility. Your negative utility from you having no shoes + negative utility from seeing someone have no feet can only amount to a more negative total score than just the one obtained by considering your own lack of shoes. Even in the case where you’re a complete egoist for whom others’ misfortunes have absolutely no impact on your own personal happiness, if you sum them up again you still end up with the same negative utility from having no shoes. Only if you’re the kind of monster that rejoices in other people’s suffering is it possible for your utility score to raise after seeing someone with no feet. Yet it seems that even people who aren’t complete monsters seem to take comfort in the fact that someone else has it worse than them, and this seems intuitive for most people, and counter-intuitive for others, i.e. me, and the person who made the quote.
(Disclaimer: I haven’t studied utilitarianism formally; probably I’m using more of an everyday definition of the word “utility”, akin to “feel-good-ness” in a broad sense. The way I’ve thought about this problem stems purely from my intuitions.)