I would accept any figure as “fallibly utilitarian” if they endorsed utilitarian ethics and claimed to be attempting to follow it, but Stalin did not do so, and while his actions might be interpreted as a fallible attempt at utilitarianism, his own pronouncements don’t particularly invite such interpretation.
That doesn’t actually contain any of his own pronouncements.
I managed to Google this for Hitler: “It is thus necessary that the individual should come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole … that above all the unity of a nation’s spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual. …. This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture …. we understand only the individual’s capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man.”
This may not be technically utilitarian,. but it is an example of Hitler endorsing the idea that some people should be harmed to benefit others (in this case to benefit society), and is an example of how that doesn’t go well.
People have been proposing that some people should be harmed to benefit others long before anyone proposed the idea of utilitarianism; usually it was justified because the people being harmed are outgroup members, or simply Less Important compared to the people being helped, or to subordinate individual identity to the group identity.
Sometimes, this doesn’t go well. In some cases, such as, by your own example, in the case of taxes or a justic system, it goes much better than a refusal to harm some people to help others. Utilitarianism is a construction for formalizing under what conditions it is or is not a good idea to attempt such tradeoffs. Calling the purges of Hitler or Stalin failings of Utilitarianism is about as fair as calling every successful government intervention or institution ever, which after all all involve sacrificing resources of the public for a common good, successes of Utilitarianism.
I would accept any figure as “fallibly utilitarian” if they endorsed utilitarian ethics and claimed to be attempting to follow it, but Stalin did not do so, and while his actions might be interpreted as a fallible attempt at utilitarianism, his own pronouncements don’t particularly invite such interpretation.
That doesn’t actually contain any of his own pronouncements.
I managed to Google this for Hitler: “It is thus necessary that the individual should come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole … that above all the unity of a nation’s spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual. …. This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture …. we understand only the individual’s capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man.”
This may not be technically utilitarian,. but it is an example of Hitler endorsing the idea that some people should be harmed to benefit others (in this case to benefit society), and is an example of how that doesn’t go well.
People have been proposing that some people should be harmed to benefit others long before anyone proposed the idea of utilitarianism; usually it was justified because the people being harmed are outgroup members, or simply Less Important compared to the people being helped, or to subordinate individual identity to the group identity.
Sometimes, this doesn’t go well. In some cases, such as, by your own example, in the case of taxes or a justic system, it goes much better than a refusal to harm some people to help others. Utilitarianism is a construction for formalizing under what conditions it is or is not a good idea to attempt such tradeoffs. Calling the purges of Hitler or Stalin failings of Utilitarianism is about as fair as calling every successful government intervention or institution ever, which after all all involve sacrificing resources of the public for a common good, successes of Utilitarianism.