I was tasked with this question: Suppose you are faced with two options each of which will lead to the exact same level of overall happiness. In which way could you not pick between the two options if you are a Utilitarian?
Flip a coin.
Choose whichever option that will give you more happiness.
Choose the option that will give certain others more happiness.
Figure out which of the two choices is more morally right (even if by a little bit), and choose that one.
According to utilitarianism, it is a wrong to create less net happiness than you could have created.
Given this definition, I assume that options 2 or 3 certainly contributes to the notion of increasing net happiness. I'm left with 1 and 4. Flipping a coin sounds plausible since both options would give equal happiness. For option 4, does utilitarianism constitute moral righteousness? Can I say that the morally right decision is to maximize happiness? Or does moral righteousness belong to the scope of deontology entirely?
If moral righteousness is equivalent to maximising happiness, 4 still seems like the correct answer. The question explicitly states that both choices confer the same level of overall happiness. Hence any choice that is more morally right would be assuming that a deontology or virtue ethics based variable has contributed to this increase in moral righteousness.