system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Question about Utilitarianism

Theoretically if someone was falsely accused of doing something terrible, and a large amount of people wanted them to be punished for it, and would be very happy knowing they were, would it be ethical in utilitarianism to punish them to satiate the masses? Or is this a stupid question to even be asking?
gpt
This is one of the classic objections to act utilitarianism. It maybe wouldn’t be allowed in rule utilitarianism, though. Rule utilitarianism says to act according to the rule that produces the greatest happiness and least pain. We might think of people generally adopted such a rule, it would lead to increased pain overall.