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Originally Posted by Frownland
It's pretty uncontroversial. That's what makes it such a great tool for propaganda, since heinous acts can be misframed as the utilitarian alternative to a hypothetical worse situation that's allegedly being prevented (nuking Japan's an obvious example of this in my mind). It's still a strong baseline for the critical mind that few people truly reject, but in practice, it's applied retroactively to justify actions as opposed to predicating them.
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Yes. I believe defending the nukes is a difficult and controversial example, but in general, I tend to accept that line of reasoning as long as the arguments are solid enough.
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Your example generally holds but I think that when push comes to shove, people view things in a more shortsighted way that runs contrary to utilitarianism. For example, if the older person was a relative, they might prefer the short term emotional utility that they provide to them versus the longer term and more widespread social/labour utility that the younger person would provide.
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Sometimes they probably would and sometimes not. I do agree that if a gut feeling of right or wrong presents itself (such as when sparing a relative), people are generally not going to choose counter to that. I wouldn't expect anyone to.