[imdoor]

The "pure utilitarian" viewpoint never made much sense to me because it seems to usually imply accounting for only first order effects, when calculating some costs and gains, and stopping there. I think the secondary effects of not saving people might go far beyond some saved fuel and time in such situations (especially in war, as some have mentioned here).

In other words, optimizing some aspects of a very complex and well functioning system, such as society, locally is likely to mess things up globally.