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“La notion de dépense” and La Part maudite by Georges Bataille are amongst the most important philosophical questionings of the utilitarian principle. In these publications Bataille’s notions are very close to Adolf Portmann’s, the zoologist and author of La Forme animale. Nevertheless his anti-utilitarian reflection exacerbates to a point where it becomes a nihilist philosophy of destruction and death. This confirms that it is a major philosophical task to maintain an anti-utilitarian point of view without drifting to such a nihilistic point.