For no strictly sufficient reason I’m reading Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, by Albert Jay Nock.

I grew up in the conviction that in a truly civilised society the sanctions of taste and manners would have a compelling force at least equal to those of law, religion and morals. By way of corollary I became convinced that expediency is the worst possible guide of life. Bentham’s doctrine of expediency, on which Michel Chevalier a century ago observed that American society was founded, seemed to me thoroughly false, corrupting and despicable; and in my opinion the present state of the society based on it affords the strongest evidence that it is so.

Obviously this stuff starts with Burke, if not earlier: “The age of chivalry is gone. – That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.”

And Dostoyevsky wrote Crime and Punishment, which lays considerable blame on utilitarianism, if I do not misread that author.

On a more contemporary note, I am pleased to see The American Conservative reviewing George Scialabba’s latest: good for them. But then this:

He also displays on occasion a too-generous view of some rather sinister figures. One can defend, for example, a humanitarian agenda on the part of the world’s great powers in favor of aiding poorer nations without relying on the musings of Peter Singer

I get it that it’s the abortion stuff. But do people really, seriously find Singer ‘a rather sinister figure’?

I don’t mind if people say they think utilitarianism has repugnant implications – it’s a major ethical theory, after all. But the demonisation, and the attribution of fundamental social influence seem so consistently disproportionate.

Why do so many people hate utilitarianism so much? No one hates Kant’s ethics this much, but it’s just as weird a theory, isn’t it? And quite influential. When was the last time that someone blamed Kant for damn near everything? (Fair is fair, surely.)