There will be some significant spoilers for Infinity War in this article, so beware (I'm sorry for the lack of recent posts; I've been exceptionally busy near the end of this semester).
In Avengers: Infinity War [1], viewers see the ethical philosophy of utilitarianism portrayed in a way that is intimately woven into the overall narrative. Thanos, an incredibly powerful alien being, seeks to obtain all six infinity stones, relics that control various aspects of reality, so that he can use them to exterminate half of all life in the universe. But he is not motivated by mere bloodlust--far from it! Worried by the finiteness of the universes' resources, he wants to ensure that life never multiplies to the point where all life forms are threatened by galactic resource scarcity. Randomly--and somewhat reluctantly--Thanos kills half of the populations of entire planets, without specifically targeting the rich, the poor, men, women, or children. His massacres involve no discrimination by class or gender. But he is not the only utilitarian in the franchise.
Thanos simply amplifies the decisions many Avengers already make to the scale of an entire universe. Throughout Infinity War, even in an attempt to defeat Thanos, various heroes discuss whether or not some lives should be sacrificed for other lives to continue (Doctor Strange saying he will allow Tony to die if that means protecting the time stone, for instance). Thanos is simply an extraordinarily powerful being making the same types of cost-benefit analyses, but on a vastly more significant scale; when the Avengers act like utilitarians, maybe a single person or relatively small group of people will die, but when Thanos snaps his fingers near the end of the film, half of all life forms in the entire universe perish.
Yet Thanos never actually demonstrates that the universe truly is overpopulated, and never seems to seriously explore alternative options (colonizing uninhabited planets, planting crops in new areas, using the infinity stones to revise the fertility of entire planets or create new planets, and so on). Besides the fact that if a thing is wrong in itself it can never be made good by circumstances (although sometimes violating a lesser obligation to uphold a greater one is the morally best option in a situation [2]), a key flaw of utilitarianism is the fact that beings with human limitations cannot see into the future. I and all beings like me, trapped in the present moment, do not know what events will happen next. We only apprehend events as they happen.
How can a non-omniscient or non-clairvoyant being ever know just what outcome will result in a given scenario, much less how much happiness or utility that outcome will bring with it? Such a thing is impossible. In Infinity War, it seems like not even the time stone allows Thanos to see future events, as it only seems to grant him the ability to manipulate time, like rewinding an event that has already happened or control the speed at which time elapses. Did Thanos really know that all life in the universe would be threatened by overpopulation and resource scarcity? No, not unless he is a closet clairvoyant.
The same limitations apply to humans: I cannot know the future, and neither can any being like me. But even if I could, the morality of an action does not hinge on the consequences. A thing can be morally wrong even if it fills every sentient being in the universe with happiness, and a course of action can be morally right even if it contradicts a sense of happiness shared by all beings.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/04/movie-review-avengers-infinity-war.html
[2]. Although an evil thing cannot be made non-evil by circumstances, sometimes it is objectively impossible to avoid sinning in a particular situation, meaning that the sin one commits should be the lesser one:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-morality-of-vows.html
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