Mill's Utilitarianism: Sacrifice The Innocent For The Common Good?

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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 pleasure. Mill suggests that to distinguish ...

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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;
however, ...

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