ABSTRACT
Utilitarianism is a universal emulator: it implies that we should lie, cheat, steal, even appropriate Aristotle, when that is what brings about the best outcomes. Christine Korsgaard writes that it is ‘nonaccidental’ that utilitarians are ‘obsessed’ with ‘population control’ and ‘the preservation of the environment’. From this stance they criticize utilitarianism for being too revisionist and utilitarianis for being no fun. Since utilitarianism is committed to the idea that morality requires us to bring about the best possible world, and global environmental change confronts us with extreme, deleterious consequences, there is no escaping the fact that, for utilitarians, global environmental change presents us with a moral problem of great scope, urgency and complexity. But utilitarianism has an important strength that is often ignored by its critics: It requires us to do what is best. This is why any objection that reduces to the claim that utilitarianism requires us to do what is not best, or even good, cannot be successful.
