I’m repeating myself here, but: I think you are mixing up two things: utilitarianism versus other systems, and singleminded caring about nothing but morality versus not. It is the latter that generates attitudes and behaviour and outcomes that you find so horrible, not the former.
You are of course at liberty to say that the term “utilitarian” should only be applied to a person who not only holds that the way to answer moral questions is by something like comparison of net utility, but also acts consistently and singlemindedly to maximize net utility as they conceive it. The consequence, of course, will be that in your view there are no utilitarians and that anyone who identifies as a utilitarian is a hypocrite. Personally, I find that just as unhelpful a use of language as some theists’ insistence that “atheist” can only mean someone who is absolutely 100% certain, without the tiniest room for doubt, that there is no god. It feels like a tactical definition whose main purpose is to put other people in the wrong even before any substantive discussion of their opinions and actions begins.
why is helping them “a great personal cost”, and not a great personal benefit?
It’s both. (Just as a literal purchase may be both at great cost, and of great benefit.) Which is one reason why, if this person—or someone who feels and acts similarly on the basis of utilitarian rather than religious ethics—acts in this way because they genuinely think it’s the best thing to do, then I don’t think it’s appropriate to complain about how grotesquely subjugated they are.
I’m repeating myself here, but: I think you are mixing up two things: utilitarianism versus other systems, and singleminded caring about nothing but morality versus not. It is the latter that generates attitudes and behaviour and outcomes that you find so horrible, not the former.
You are of course at liberty to say that the term “utilitarian” should only be applied to a person who not only holds that the way to answer moral questions is by something like comparison of net utility, but also acts consistently and singlemindedly to maximize net utility as they conceive it. The consequence, of course, will be that in your view there are no utilitarians and that anyone who identifies as a utilitarian is a hypocrite. Personally, I find that just as unhelpful a use of language as some theists’ insistence that “atheist” can only mean someone who is absolutely 100% certain, without the tiniest room for doubt, that there is no god. It feels like a tactical definition whose main purpose is to put other people in the wrong even before any substantive discussion of their opinions and actions begins.
It’s both. (Just as a literal purchase may be both at great cost, and of great benefit.) Which is one reason why, if this person—or someone who feels and acts similarly on the basis of utilitarian rather than religious ethics—acts in this way because they genuinely think it’s the best thing to do, then I don’t think it’s appropriate to complain about how grotesquely subjugated they are.
What do you believe my code to be, and why?