Hello. Listening to a radio programme about utilitarianism I was struck by the difficulty of making a universal framework fit in our relationship-driven world, and how a concept of egoistic or relative utilitarianism might do this. That is, we maximise utility not equally over everyone but across those with whom we feel a relationship, and to the extent that we do. So, where a utilitarian sacrifices his children to make a small dent in third world poverty but ignores his newly unemployed neighbour because she is not starving, an "R.utilitarian" buys his children the cheaper laptop, using the balance to contribute to the starving and to help his neighbour out with an interest-free loan while she gets back on her feet. I googled every combination of relationship/relative/egoistic and utilitarianism that I could find, and came up blank. Please can you tell me what this theory is called, and who came up with it 200 years before I did? If not, please don't steal it before I write it up ;-)