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man. ... Utilitarianism does not take seriously the distinction between
persons.
32
Many others, among them Rawls' philosophical antagonist Robert
Nozick (1938-2002), have made the same point:
There is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for
its own good. There are only individual people, different individual
people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people
for the benefit of others uses him and benefits the others. Nothing
more. ... Talk of an overall social good covers this up. (Intentionally?)
To use a person in this way does not sufficiently respect and take
account of the fact that he is a separate person, that his is the only
life he has.
33
The concern that underlies the 'separateness of persons' objection seems
to be that individuals have rights, which at least sometimes trump utility
calculations and/or that their interests should not simply be traded off
against each other. The concern seems to be that utilitarianism does not
seem to sufficiently respect persons.
34
The Replaceability Argument has been considered one of the most
abhorrent implications of utilitarianism, from the perspective of the
'separateness of persons' objection. The Replaceability Argument allows
the killing and replacement of a being, provided that the overall amount
of welfare does not diminish. This flies in the face of those who are
concerned about utilitarianism being overly impersonal. Treating
sentient beings as replaceable seems to supply proof for the worry that
utilitarianism is concerned with welfare only as an abstract quantity,
instead of the welfare of sentient beings. The being that is killed gains
nothing from the fact that another being will live in its place. In the
words of Nozick, by being killed the being loses the only life it has.
In the field of animal ethics, the Replaceability Argument has been
criticized along the lines of the 'separateness of persons' objection. For
instance, Tom Regan criticizes that utilitarianism considers animals to
be merely 'replaceable receptacles'.
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Regan's major criticism against
Singer's utilitarianism is that it views an animal as 'only a receptacle of
what has value (i.e. preference satisfaction), lacking any independent
value of his own'.
36
Many others have also criticized the 'inadequate
individual protection' and the 'killing of innocents', in particular with
regard to the Replaceability Argument, where the killing is not justi-
fied in order to prevent a major disaster, but where the 'gain would be
quite small'.
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