In the movie Into the Wild, the main character (Christopher McCandless) 'moves' to Alaska without most modern comforts. He wants to provide for himself by hunting and collecting eatable plants, but ultimately eats a bad plant (because there is no game and he can't get back) and dies.
For high school I have to write something about his choice for running away from multiple ethical perspectives, among which utilitarianism. This brought me to the following question:
From a purely utilitarian viewpoint, would Chris' death make his choice of living in Alaska less ethical?
Utilitarianism ethics aim for the most possible positive consequences, but do consequences like your own death count? Rationally thinking, this is a 'bad' consequence, thus making it less ethical, but somehow this feels illogical.
By the way, this isn't a question directly from an assignment (in fact, I just submitted it). I had to write something about the movie from Bentham's viewpoint (who was an utilitarian). From there, I came to the above question myself, which isn't directly needed for the assignment.