Opinions on Nozick's Utility Monster

[John Dule]

Robert Nozick's famous critique of utilitarianism goes like this: If utilitarian ethics are true, then we should always allocate resources wherever they will be used most efficiently. But let's say (for the sake of argument) that there was an enormous monster called a Utility Monster, which always manages to consume energy in the most efficient way possible. If this monster existed, then utilitarian ethics would demand that we shovel all of our resources into its gullet, allowing it to consume us all in the name of efficiency.

Contrary to what you might assume, I find this to be a very poor thought experiment. It can easily be turned around on Nozick's libertarian ethics, as follows: Nozick posited that all inequalities that result from free exchange are still products of "freedom." But let's say (for the sake of argument) that there was an enormous monster called a Freedom Monster, which always manages to come out of trade deals on top. The monster uses its mastery of voluntary exchange to barter and trade until it controls all of the world's land and resources, turning all humans into serfs. If this were to happen, then Nozick's libertarian ethics would demand that we still consider this outcome "free," even though the outcome is obviously oppressive.

I think the argument is rather self-defeating, and it takes things to such an extreme that it becomes applicable to nearly any system of ethics. It's also overkill to use a thought experiment like this to criticize utilitarianism when utilitarian """morality""" is so blatantly flawed from the beginning.

[John Dule]

I don't know enough about Nozick's ethics to be sure the Freedom Monster applies. I imagine it would need to be more complicated than the utility monster thought experiment.

I'm not really philosophically libertarian anymore (the L has been getting smaller and smaller over the years), but I think someone like Nozick might make the claim that once the Freedom Monster takes over everything, it has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, which makes it the state. One other way the Freedom Monster might not apply as an objection to Nozick's is that it seems to violate the principle of self-ownership by making everyone serfs. I think Nozick says we can voluntarily suspend or give up our rights, but what about children born into this situation? I just don't know enough about him to know what he would say, but the Freedom Monster does not strike me as an immediate knock-down argument against his political philosophy the same way the Utility Monster is of a certain breed of utilitarianism.

Most analytic moral philosophy hinges on positing ethical rules or maxims that explain our intuitions, quickly realizing that there are special situations where those rules or maxims entail an action or judgement that goes against our intuitions, then making a choice between biting the bullet or changing our account of morality. A lot of arguments, especially between utilitarians and deontologists like Nozick are basically arguments about which bullets are worth biting.

With regards to the bolded part, I don't think Nozick would be able to make this argument because if that were the case, then each new generation would necessarily be born with increasingly less freedom. He doesn't make that claim. However, the rest of this rings true, especially the part about the creation of the State. Anyway, I haven't gotten through Anarchy, State, and Utopia yet, but I thought of this while mulling over what I've read. Thanks for your insightful response!

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Utility Monster assumes that we want to maximize either total utility or mean utility (or a similar function).  However, there's no particular reason why either should be the function we want to maximize.  For example, if we want to maximize a function like median utility or the minimum personal utility, then since the Utility Monster is so efficient at deriving utility, it should get very little in the way of resources because it takes so little to make it happy.

[Slander and/or Libel]

Having just read Mill's Utilitarianism, I suspect he'd object that the concept of a single entity having the ability to generate such disparate utility would have been laughable under his outline of utilitarianism, where each person is to be weighted equally. He doesn't delve all that deeply into it, but I believe there's an implication of a cap on meaningful utility, or that certain utilities can be weighted as far more fundamental than others.

[Senator Incitatus]

It is a good concept precisely because it can be turned around on liberalism.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Utilitarianism as an ethical system is monstrously evil imo.