I agree with your second point that having deontological boundaries is important. Interestingly, people like Eliezer Yudkowsky (generally respected in the EA mo

I agree with your second point that having deontological boundaries is important. Interestingly, people like Eliezer Yudkowsky (generally respected in the EA movement, I'm pretty sure?) also agree with you about that. He's been reiterating the point recently on twitter, though this post [1] says pretty much the same thing and it's from 2008. Generally, I'd attribute your examples of "utilitarianism gone wrong" to mental illness or sociopathy rather than to holding a utilitarian philosophy. For the average person, moral philosophy is much more of a way to explain the choices we make after the fact than a thing that actually determines the choices. [1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K9ZaZXDnL3SEmYZqB/ends-don-t-justify-means-among-humans https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/K9ZaZXDnL3SEmYZqB/ends-don-t...