why utilitarians are all dumb... brought to you in part by wheaties

as if just pointing at the military were not enough, here's an example...

an elite group of commandos has taken it upon themselves to eliminate all of the serial killers in america. the will not speculate on who might be a serial killer, the requirement to be a 'serial killer' is to have killed at least 2 people. this way the commandos feel justified in killing their targets, its certainly better to save two lives by killing one. of course, there are assuming a bit about the inductive properties of being a 'serial killer,' but thats not the real problem here...

these commandos are committed to their task and before long they have killed over 30 proven serial killers. they head down to the pub for a celebration. once there and once they've had a few pints, one commando realizes that in killing all the 'serial killers' each commando has become a 'serial killer' by definition. the commando promptly pulls out his gun and blows away two of his mates that are sitting closest. he turns to get a third when another commando blasts him, probably for killing the first two and not for the fact that they are all 'serial killers' now.

soon all but two commandos are dead and these two are holding guns to each others heads, screaming. one says, "you killed our mates!" the other says, "they were killing each other! anyways, you killed our mates as well." they pause and realize that they are the last two. slowly, they lower their guns. when they look around they remember how they started out, killing 'serial killers,' and at exactly the same moment they both realize how the pub massacre started. one says to the other, "brother, we're serial killers" the other opens his mouth to speak but the first blows him away.

as the last commando on a mission to kill serial killers and as the one commando to have killed the most people, he raises his weapon and caps himself. blam!

...in short you cannot be a utilitarian without killing yourself. well, you could, but you'd have to be a hypocrite as well.