Editing Utilitarianism (section)

===Special obligations criticism===
One of the oldest criticisms of utilitarianism is that it ignores [[special obligation]]s. Classical utilitarianism does not attribute special weights to relatives. The first to address this was an early utilitarian and friend of [[Jeremy Bentham]] named [[William Godwin]], who held in his work ''[[Enquiry Concerning Political Justice]]'' that such personal needs should be disregarded in favour of the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Applying the utilitarian principle "that life ought to be preferred which will be most conducive to the general good" to the choice of saving one of two people, either "the illustrious Archbishop of Cambray" or his chambermaid, he wrote:<ref>{{cite web|title=Godwin, "Political Justice", Book 2, Chap. 2|url=http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Godwin/pj22.html}}</ref> <blockquote>Supposing the chambermaid had been my wife, my mother or my benefactor. That would not alter the truth of the proposition. The life of [the Archbishop] would still be more valuable than that of the chambermaid; and justice, pure, unadulterated justice, would still have preferred that which was most valuable.</blockquote>