Editing Utilitarianism (section)

===Quantifying utility===
A common objection to utilitarianism is the inability to quantify, compare, or measure happiness or well-being. Rachael Briggs writes in the ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'':<ref>{{citation|last1=Briggs|first1=Rachael |title=Normative Theories of Rational Choice: Expected Utility |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor=Edward N. Zalta |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/rationality-normative-utility/ |year=2017 |edition=Spring 2017 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=15 November 2017}}</ref>

{{blockquote|One objection to this interpretation of utility is that there may not be a single good (or indeed any good) which rationality requires us to seek. But if we understand "utility" broadly enough to include all potentially desirable ends—pleasure, knowledge, friendship, health and so on—it's not clear that there is a unique correct way to make the tradeoffs between different goods so that each outcome receives a utility. There may be no good answer to the question of whether the life of an ascetic monk contains more or less good than the life of a happy libertine—but assigning utilities to these options forces us to compare them.}}

Utility understood this way is a [[#Preference utilitarianism|personal preference]], in the absence of any objective measurement.