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I voted for the 3rd option; useful in some circumstances, cold-hearted and calculating in others.
Utilitariaism is a variant of socialis/totalitarianism in which the invididual is measured by the value of his "contribution" to society. It's no less diseased than the parent philosophies it evolved from.
Ok, sorry, I was having trouble seeing where you were going with your posts.
So in other words, some people are drama queens and want to be unhappy? If so, then that's fine. I don't think this philosophy works from a universal perspective anyway, but people tend to not work from a universal perspective since we are all finite creatures. Because of that, doing your best, can still be very utilitarian, even if its not a perfect action. However, in the end, if one believes that their actions will bring about more good then any other actions, then, while history's 20/20 view may prove them wrong in the end then they were probably acting reasonably. The crazy bomber who watches nothing but propaganda videos may feel he is doing good by blowing up some monument somewhere, but based on what he knew and to him, his actions were reasonable, this is probably the best we can expect out of anybody, even if it can let us down from time to time.
Humans are not logically absolute creatures and there will always be the unknown. Because of this, a reasonable attempt at trying to do good can be very utilitarian, even if wouldn't work from a god's eyes perspective. Choosing actions on what we know vs what we don't know is a problem that I would imagine any philosophy suffers from.