If the phrase “Most people have net-positive utility” is rephrased as “most people don’t actively want to not exist” it sounds totally unsurprising, and not nearly as positive as the original sentence. Moreover, it doesn’t seem to be the definition most utilitarians use: For example, “It’s okay to create people as long as they will have net positive utility” would lose all intuitive support if transformed into “It’s okay to create people as long as they won’t actively want to not exist, even if their lives are filled with suffering”.
I’m inclined to consider it far more counterintuitive to think ‘if this person experiences overall slightly more negative than positive affect, but very much wants to live, and find their life meaningful, and I painlessly murder them in their sleep, then I have done them a favor’, which is what a purely hedonist account of individual well-being implies. (Note that this is about what is good for them, not what you morally ought to do, so standard utilitarian stuff about why actually murdering people will nearly always decrease overall utility across all people is true but irrelevant.)
If the phrase “Most people have net-positive utility” is rephrased as “most people don’t actively want to not exist” it sounds totally unsurprising, and not nearly as positive as the original sentence. Moreover, it doesn’t seem to be the definition most utilitarians use: For example, “It’s okay to create people as long as they will have net positive utility” would lose all intuitive support if transformed into “It’s okay to create people as long as they won’t actively want to not exist, even if their lives are filled with suffering”.
I’m inclined to consider it far more counterintuitive to think ‘if this person experiences overall slightly more negative than positive affect, but very much wants to live, and find their life meaningful, and I painlessly murder them in their sleep, then I have done them a favor’, which is what a purely hedonist account of individual well-being implies. (Note that this is about what is good for them, not what you morally ought to do, so standard utilitarian stuff about why actually murdering people will nearly always decrease overall utility across all people is true but irrelevant.)