This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Happiness is internal.

It is not something that the state can guarantee.

And when we speak freely, we're probably offending someone somewhere.

But there is a new threat to free speech from people who believe that they're entitled to

pleasure at the expense of yours.

They are modern-day Grinc, also known as utility monsters.

Jason Kuznicki, research fellow at the Cato Institute, believes they should

be stopped. He details his argument in a new paper, Attack of the Utility Monsters, the new threats to free speech.

Utility monsters are, first of all, they were a thought experiment proposed

by Robert Nozick. He said that if we are trying to be good

utilitarian and that is we're trying to maximize happiness for the maximum

number of people.

We may add up all the values and find some pretty disturbing things,

like say, I really, really enjoy punching people in the face.

If I enjoy punching a person in the face

sufficiently, well, a punch in the face only hurts so badly.

Maybe I should go ahead and do it because your pain is not as bad as my

pleasure is good and so I really like it and you know you only hurt so bad I go

ahead and do it.

And I go around doing this to lots of people

...