This is something I actually agree with, not just in terms of movement-building, but as a wider moral philosophy. There is reason to think that utilitarianism is too demanding, for example, by demanding that everyone make every decision impartially (e.g., by giving the benefits/harms to family and friends the same priority as benefits/harms to strangers), or at the extremes stating that people ought to calculate every action in terms of how much good/harm it does to others. Both of these examples are impractical, ultimately leading to misery by not taking into account what makes human lives worth living (e.g., having committed relationships to a select number of people who one considers more valuable than strangers, or sometimes indulging in frivolities that may prevent one from being maximally altruistic). I think people often associate utilitarianism with consequentialism as a whole, which I think may be counterproductive. Sprinkling in some egoist practices here and there may be what ultimately leads to the most happiness and least harm in the long run, as diminishing the quality of one’s own life in the name of helping others, if universalised, would lead to an unhappy world (in this way, I think Kant’s Categorical Imperative may be useful here).
This is something I actually agree with, not just in terms of movement-building, but as a wider moral philosophy. There is reason to think that utilitarianism is too demanding, for example, by demanding that everyone make every decision impartially (e.g., by giving the benefits/harms to family and friends the same priority as benefits/harms to strangers), or at the extremes stating that people ought to calculate every action in terms of how much good/harm it does to others. Both of these examples are impractical, ultimately leading to misery by not taking into account what makes human lives worth living (e.g., having committed relationships to a select number of people who one considers more valuable than strangers, or sometimes indulging in frivolities that may prevent one from being maximally altruistic). I think people often associate utilitarianism with consequentialism as a whole, which I think may be counterproductive. Sprinkling in some egoist practices here and there may be what ultimately leads to the most happiness and least harm in the long run, as diminishing the quality of one’s own life in the name of helping others, if universalised, would lead to an unhappy world (in this way, I think Kant’s Categorical Imperative may be useful here).