Total utilitarianism is defined as maximising the sum of everyone’s individual utility function.
That seems misleading. Most of the time “total utiltiarianism” refers to what should actually be called “hedonistic total utilitarianism”. And what is maximized there is the suprlus of happiness over suffering (positive hedonic states over negative ones), which isn’t necessarily synonymous with individual utility functions.
There are three different parameters for the various kinds of utilitarianism: It can either be total or average or prior-existence. Then it can be negative or classical (and in theory also “positive”, even though that would be insane, forcing people to accept eternal torture if there’s even the slightest chance of a moment of happiness). And then utiltiarianism can also be hedonistic or preference. Most common, and subject to this article, is (classical) total hedonistic utiltiarianism. While some combinations make very little sense, a lot of them actually have advocates. (For instance, recently someone published a paper advocating “negative average preference-utilitarianism”.)
and in theory also “positive”, even though that would be insane, forcing people to accept eternal torture if there’s even the slightest chance of a moment of happiness
There exist people who profess that they would choose to be tortured for the rest of their lives with no chance of happiness rather than being killed instantly, so this intuition could be more than theoretically possible. People tend to be surprised by the extent to which intuitions differ.
That seems misleading. Most of the time “total utiltiarianism” refers to what should actually be called “hedonistic total utilitarianism”. And what is maximized there is the suprlus of happiness over suffering (positive hedonic states over negative ones), which isn’t necessarily synonymous with individual utility functions.
There are three different parameters for the various kinds of utilitarianism: It can either be total or average or prior-existence. Then it can be negative or classical (and in theory also “positive”, even though that would be insane, forcing people to accept eternal torture if there’s even the slightest chance of a moment of happiness). And then utiltiarianism can also be hedonistic or preference. Most common, and subject to this article, is (classical) total hedonistic utiltiarianism. While some combinations make very little sense, a lot of them actually have advocates. (For instance, recently someone published a paper advocating “negative average preference-utilitarianism”.)
There exist people who profess that they would choose to be tortured for the rest of their lives with no chance of happiness rather than being killed instantly, so this intuition could be more than theoretically possible. People tend to be surprised by the extent to which intuitions differ.