Philosophy - Mills Utilitarian

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the pleasure and pain that would
be caused by torturing the terrorist. Then, the amounts would be summed
and compared. The problem with this method is that it is impossible to
know beforehand how much pain would be caused by the bomb exploding or
how much pain would be caused by the torture. Utilitarianism offers no
practical way to make the interpersonal comparison of utility necessary
to compare the pains. In the case of the bomb exploding, it at least
seems highly probable that a greater amount of pain would be caused, at
least in the present, by the bomb exploding. This probability suffices
for a quantitative utilitarian, but it does not account for the
consequences, which create an entirely different problem, which will be
discussed below. The probability also does not hold for Mill's
utilitarianism.
Mill's Utilitarianism insists on qualitative utilitarianism, which
requires that one consider not only the amount of pain or pleasure, but
also the quality of such pain and ...

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requires
that one compare the good that the people would do for society with the
harm they would do society if they were not killed. For example, if a
young Adolf Hitler were in the building, it might do more good for
society to allow the building to explode. Unfortunately for an
individual attempting to use utilitarianism to make for decisions, there
is no way to know beforehand what a person will do. Furthermore, without
even knowing which building the bomb is in, there is no way to predict
which people will surely be in the building.
A subjectivist utilitarian would dismiss this consideration and would
examine only what a rational person would consider to be the
consequence; ...

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