On Elias Khalil’s Scope of Justice Dilemma

In a recent paper, Khalil (2025) discusses the scope of rules of justice with some remarkable conclusions. Among others, ‘Two major approaches—namely, the deontological/contractarian and the utilitarian’ are either deficient or non-feasible, and the only alternative, the ‘Average Principle’, being ‘parochial’, ‘cannot amount to a universal moral principle’. Moreover, this ‘scope of justice dilemma has no solution that is universal while, simultaneously, non-deficient and feasible’. This note defends utilitarianism (its impersonal total principle in optimal population size in particular) against Khalil’s arguments that it is non-feasible. If properly interpreted to distinguish between levels of ideal ethics and self-interest, it is feasible.