According to my understanding, ideal utilitarians may be modeled as selfish agents to whom all world states which induce a positive change to another being’s utility function induce a proportional positive change to its own utility function, and all world states which induce a negative change to another being’s utility function induce a proportional negative change to its own utility function.
My question is regarding the ‘proportional’ bit—under the standard definition of utilitarian, would a utilitarian bias its decisions towards helping beings whose utility functions had a greater capacity for increase and decrease (or, in other words, beings who felt more strongly than others?)
According to my understanding, ideal utilitarians may be modeled as selfish agents to whom all world states which induce a positive change to another being’s utility function induce a proportional positive change to its own utility function, and all world states which induce a negative change to another being’s utility function induce a proportional negative change to its own utility function.
My question is regarding the ‘proportional’ bit—under the standard definition of utilitarian, would a utilitarian bias its decisions towards helping beings whose utility functions had a greater capacity for increase and decrease (or, in other words, beings who felt more strongly than others?)