 The first, which was famously articulated by John Rawls (1971), is that utilitarianism fails to take seriously the distinctness of persons. Maximization of preference-satisfaction is often taken as prudent in the case of individuals—people may take on greater burdens, suffering or sacrifice at certain periods of their lives so that their lives are overall better. The complaint against utilitarianism is that it takes this principle, commonly described as prudent for individuals, and uses it on an entity, society, unlike individuals in important ways. While it may be acceptable for a person to choose to suffer at some period in her life (be it a day, or a number of years) so that her overall life is better, it is often argued against utilitarianism that it is immoral to make some people suffer so that there is a net gain for other people. In the individual case, there is a single entity experiencing both the sacrifice and the gain. Also, the individuals, who suffer or make the sacrifices, choose to do so in order to gain some benefit they deem worth their sacrifice. In the case of society as a whole, there is no single experiential entity—some people suffer or are sacrificed so that others may gain. Furthermore, under utilitarianism, unlike the individual prudence case, there is no requirement for people to consent to the suffering or sacrifice, nor is there necessarily a unified belief in the society that the outcome is worth the cost.