One problem I have with this argument is that personal freedom isn't taken into account. Every time a decision is moved up one subsidiarity level, members at lo

One problem I have with this argument is that personal freedom isn't taken into account. Every time a decision is moved up one subsidiarity level, members at lower levels sacrifice a little bit of freedom. For example, suppose the EU recognizes that gas-consuming vehicles contribute to climate change. From a utilitarian standpoint, it makes sense to ban all cars unless the economic advantage from driving outweighs the ecological damage from climate change. So perhaps the EU should ban all cars by default, but allow citizens to fill out a petition every time they need to drive. Except this is ridiculous, because we shouldn't need permission to drive. This is an assumed basic liberty (of course drivers should still pass a driver's test to get a license, but this only needs to be done once). I think the utilitarian argument can still hold, but only if personal freedom is taken into account. It should be weighed like everything else, and recognized as a tradeoff. The United States allows freedom of speech, in exchange for giving people the right to post hateful comments online. The utilitarian might argue this is a bad thing, since society might be better off if hateful speech was removed from the internet. But in this case, I personally believe the benefits of freedom outweigh the drawbacks of offensive speech. Every time a higher authority recognizes a prisoner's dilemma and enforces a rule, they are forbidding the players from playing the game themselves. Even if the societal benefits outweigh the drawbacks, there are hidden costs associated with sacrificing freedom.