  One problem for preference utilitarianism concerns how to make interpersonal comparisons (though this problem also arises for several other theories of value). If we want to know what one person prefers, we can ask what that person would choose in conflicts. We cannot, however, use the same method to determine whether one person’s preference is stronger or weaker than another person’s preference, since these different people might choose differently in the decisive conflicts. We need to settle which preference (or pleasure) is stronger because we may know that Jones prefers A’s being done to A’s not being done (and Jones would receive more pleasure from A’s being done than from A’s not being done), whereas Smith prefers A’s not being done (and Smith would receive more pleasure from A’s not being done than from A’s being done). To determine whether it is right to do A or not to do A, we must be able to compare the strengths of Jones’s and Smith’s preferences (or the amounts of pleasure each would receive in her preferred outcome) in order to determine whether doing A or not doing A would be better overall. Utilitarians and consequentialists have proposed many ways to solve this problem of interpersonal comparison, and each attempt has received criticisms. Debates about this problem still rage. (For a recent discussion with references, see Coakley 2015.)