What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?
That one question, asked by Jesus Christ Himself, leaves every supposedly "pragmatic" Utilitarian argument lying in smoking ruins.
If one looks at the long term, it turns out they weren't practical at all. They were simply short-sighted unto blindness, to their own destruction.
The natural law is that you reap what you sow. Everything reproduces after its kind. That is simply the way God made the world we live in.