Editing Utilitarianism (section)

===Criticisms of utilitarian value theory===

Utilitarianism's assertion that well-being is the only thing with [[Intrinsic value (ethics)|intrinsic moral value]] has been attacked by various critics. [[Thomas Carlyle]] derided "Benthamee Utility, virtue by Profit and Loss; reducing this God's-world to a dead brute Steam-engine, the infinite celestial Soul of Man to a kind of Hay-balance for weighing hay and thistles on, pleasures and pains on".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Carlyle |first=Thomas |title=[[On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History]] |year=1841 |chapter=Lecture II. The Hero as Prophet. Mahomet: Islam. |chapter-url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1091/1091-h/1091-h.htm#link2H_4_0003}}</ref> [[Karl Marx]], in ''[[Das Kapital]]'', criticises Bentham's utilitarianism on the grounds that it does not appear to recognise that people have different joys in different socioeconomic contexts:<ref>[[s:Das Kapital (Moore, 1906)/Chapter 24#cite note-50|Das Kapital Volume 1, Chapter 24, endnote 50]]</ref>

<blockquote>With the driest naivete he takes the modern shopkeeper, especially the English shopkeeper, as the normal man. Whatever is useful to this queer normal man, and to his world, is absolutely useful. This yard-measure, then, he applies to past, present, and future. The Christian religion, e.g., is "useful," "because it forbids in the name of religion the same faults that the penal code condemns in the name of the law." Artistic criticism is "harmful," because it disturbs worthy people in their enjoyment of [[Martin Farquhar Tupper|Martin Tupper]], etc. With such rubbish has the brave fellow, with his motto, "nulla dies sine linea [no day without a line]", piled up mountains of books.</blockquote>

[[Pope John Paul II]], following his [[Personalism|personalist philosophy]], argued that a danger of utilitarianism is that it tends to make persons, just as much as things, the object of use. "Utilitarianism", he wrote, "is a civilization of production and of use, a civilization of things and not of persons, a civilization in which persons are used in the same way as things are used."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_02021994_families_en.html |title=Letter to Families |access-date=1 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110405033300/https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_02021994_families_en.html |archive-date=5 April 2011 }}</ref>