Utilitarianism has a terrible publicist. Say “maximize aggregate welfare” at a dinner party and people reach for the cheese knife as if you’d proposed replacing birthdays with quarterly KPI reviews. The brand evokes spreadsheets, grim trade-offs, and philosophers who haven’t seen the sun since dial-up. And yet, the quiet, unfashionable habit of asking “What helps the most people, by how much, at what cost?” is the closest thing civilization has … Read the rest
