The Problem With Utilitarianism

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper wrote:

If raping a child produces 5 units of sadness and 6 units of happiness then rape it is! There's no justice or virtue in that.

No surprise here. Garbage in, garbage out. That says nothing about the justice in Utilitarianism. We've already been over this, and I'm not interested in repeating myself.

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@stevecook172001,

stevecook172001 wrote:

If it merely espouses, in principle, the legitimacy of the limitation of the liberty of one, it is anti libertarian in principle. The numbers involved are of operational interets only. They are of no relevance in terms of the philisophical principle.

If you want to use words in that way, be my guest. But it's a nonstandard usage of words to say the least. In standard English, it is one thing to say "I'm pro-X because it's conducive to Y---but I'm only pro-X up to a point; not at all cost, and with some exceptions". It is something very different to say "I'm anti-X in principle". Substitute "liberty" for "X" and "the greatest good for the biggest number" for "Y", and you have the word-twisting you're trying to sell to me as logical equivalence.

stevecook 172001 wrote:

Now, in anticipatiuon of your reply to all of the above taking the form of arguning that I am using extremes

In all due respect, your batting average so far at anticipating my replies hasn't been too high. I suggest that in the future, you just let me reply and we take it from there. That way, you can save yourself a lot of time in this whole anticipating business.

stevecook wrote:

And who the hell is Ayn Rand?

A bestselling novelist, and an anti-utilitarian, true-believer-in-the-free-market ideologue. If you've been unaware of her so far, don't bother reading her now. She's a fruitcake.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

stevecook172001 wrote:
If it merely espouses, in principle, the legitimacy of the limitation of the liberty of one, it is anti libertarian in principle. The numbers involved are of operational interets only. They are of no relevance in terms of the philisophical principle.

If you want to use words in that way, be my guest. But it's a nonstandard usage of words to say the least. In standard English, it is one thing to say "I'm pro-X because it's conducive to Y---but I'm only pro-X up to a point; not at all cost, and with some exceptions". It is something very different to say "I'm anti-X in principle". Substitute "liberty" for "X" and "the greatest good for the biggest number" for "Y", and you have the word-twisting you're trying to sell to me as logical equivalence.

If you aren't for utilitarianism in principle then you aren't for utilitarianism. It is a principle. The fact that you limit your utilitarianism stance to exclude rape, torture, genocide, etc just means that you have some unstated deeper principle that you actually adhere to. Most likely it's of the sort pertaining to personal liberty that I espouse.

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@Thomas,

Ayn Rand wrote several books, the most influential of these is Atlas Shrugged-- a book where the libertarian hero drops out of society rather than be have his talents leeched off of by the lesser members of society. Many Americans my age were enamored of this idea in our impressionable teen years (although most of us outgrew).

This description made me laugh....

Quote:

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”~ John
Rogers

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper wrote:

If you aren't for utilitarianism in principle then you aren't for utilitarianism.

That's not just a red herring, it's two red herrings:

Utilitarians are for liberty. It's just not an end in itself for them---it's a means to their end.
Even if we assumed, counterfactually, that Utilitarians weren't for liberty, that still wouldn't imply they're against it---which is what Steve communicates by using the prefix "anti-".

Steve simply isn't making sense on this point.

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@ebrown p,

okay - that quote really made me laugh, seriously big time laugh

thanks for that

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@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper wrote:

The fact that you limit your utilitarianism stance to exclude rape, torture, genocide, etc just means that you have some unstated deeper principle that you actually adhere to.

It's not a deeper ethical principle that supplements my utilitarianism. Rather, it's empirical input about the reality of suffering caused by rape, torture, genocide, etc. The problem with your insistence on assuming away the suffering of raped, tortured, and killed people isn't that it's unethical, it's that it makes a grotesque travesty of reality. It's your callous disregard of the real world that makes up the "garbage in" part of your garbage-in, garbage-out problem.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Rather, it's empirical input about the reality of suffering caused by rape, torture, genocide, etc.

That's hilarious! It's not that any of those things are wrong, it's just that they haven't worked out. If 78 million Germans would be happier with the death of 6 million Jews then why would you oppose it? What's the suffering of a few Jews compared to the happiness of a greater number of Germans.

You talk about reality but then you refuse to admit that such cases do exist. Sometimes you could make a lot more people happy by treating a few unjustly. If you refuse to act then it can't be utilitarianism that compels you.

4 Replies

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper wrote:

Thomas wrote:
Rather, it's empirical input about the reality of suffering caused by rape, torture, genocide, etc.

That's hilarious! It's not that any of those things are wrong, it's just that they haven't worked out. If 78 million Germans would be happier with the death of 6 million Jews then why would you oppose it? What's the suffering of a few Jews compared to the happiness of a greater number of Germans.

You talk about reality but then you refuse to admit that such cases do exist. Sometimes you could make a lot more people happy by treating a few unjustly. If you refuse to act then it can't be utilitarianism that compels you.

Exactly so.

What Thomas appears to be doing here is deciding, quite arbitarily what he deems to be utilitarian behaviour and what is not. He provides no, in principle, justificatin for this whatsoever, save for some kind of vauge and personal appeal to what he considers to be out of bounds.

In other words, his position is completly unprincipled no matter his protestations to the contrary.

3 Replies

@stevecook172001,

Night Ripper wrote:

Thomas wrote:
Rather, it's empirical input about the reality of suffering caused by rape, torture, genocide, etc.

That's hilarious! It's not that any of those things are wrong, it's just that they haven't worked out. If 78 million Germans would be happier with the death of 6 million Jews then why would you oppose it? What's the suffering of a few Jews compared to the happiness of a greater number of Germans.

You talk about reality but then you refuse to admit that such cases do exist. Sometimes you could make a lot more people happy by treating a few unjustly. If you refuse to act then it can't be utilitarianism that compels you.

Exactly so.

What Thomas appears to be doing here is deciding, quite arbitarily what he deems to be utilitarian behaviour and what is not. He provides no, in principle, justification for this whatsoever, save for some kind of vague and personal appeal to what he considers to be out of bounds.

In other words, his stated position is inconsistent and therefore unprincipled no matter what his protestations to the contrary.

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@stevecook172001,

stevecook172001 wrote:

What Thomas appears to be doing here is deciding, quite arbitarily what he deems to be utilitarian behaviour and what is not. He provides no, in principle, justificatin for this whatsoever, save for some kind of vauge and personal appeal to what he considers to be out of bounds.

That you can write that to Night Ripper, who seems to think that justice and fairness are whatever he wants them to be, is the very acme of irony.

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@Night Ripper,

Godwin's law at work there Night Ripper.

Now.. if you have some empirical evidence that killing 6 million Jews would make 78 million German's happier we can explore your argument. The problem with your argument Night Ripper is that history shows it clearly did NOT make 78 million Germans happier. This is what Thomas has been trying to tell you.

Claiming that an act will cause more happiness without examining the possible outcomes isn't utilitarianism. It is nothing but an exercise in lack of intellectual thought. Something you seem to exercise quite a bit of.

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@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper wrote:

That's hilarious! It's not that any of those things are wrong, it's just that they haven't worked out.

Once again, you misrepresent the reasoning you're arguing against. To Utilitarians, "these things"---slavery etc---are wrong. And the reason they're wrong is that they haven't worked out, to put it mildly. By what reasoning do you arrive at the conclusion that slavery is wrong? And on the subject of putting it mildly, why do you always downplay or assume away the suffering caused by slavery, rape, and all those other atrocities you brought up?

Night Ripper wrote:

If 78 million Germans would be happier with the death of 6 million Jews then why would you oppose it?

As a consequent Utilitarian, I wouldn't---but only if the 78 million Germans would be happier by a large enough margin to pay fair value for those 6 million Jewish lives. By the rationale I gave earlier, this calculates to $5 million times 6 million lives equals $30 trillion---about 10 times today's German GDP. Even Hitler didn't hate the Jews that much, let alone the average German. Indeed, the premise of your question, that 78 million Germans would be happier with the death of 6 million Jews, is just another example of your garbage-in, garbage-out problem.

3 Replies

@stevecook172001,

stevecook 172001 wrote:

What Thomas appears to be doing here is deciding, quite arbitarily what he deems to be utilitarian behaviour and what is not. He provides no, in principle, justificatin for this whatsoever, save for some kind of vauge and personal appeal to what he considers to be out of bounds.

The justification, in principle, is to maximize the total surplus of happiness over suffering. You may not like the principle, and you don't have to---but that doesn't mean it's not a principle, and doesn't mean it's arbitrary.

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@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper wrote:

You talk about reality but then you refuse to admit that such cases do exist.

To the contrary---Although I condemn antebellum slavery in the American South, I also volunteered an example of slavery that I would approve of on utilitarian grounds. I notice that neither you nor Steve is disagreeing with my conclusion that it's ethically justifiable.

Night Ripper wrote:

Sometimes you could make a lot more people happy by treating a few unjustly. If you refuse to act then it can't be utilitarianism that compels you.

And yet, you haven't yet come up with a single specific example that a) is unjust and b) increases the surplus of happiness over suffering. So far, all your examples of injustice severely misrepresent the actual amount of suffering involved.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

stevecook172001 wrote:
What Thomas appears to be doing here is deciding, quite arbitarily what he deems to be utilitarian behaviour and what is not. He provides no, in principle, justificatin for this whatsoever, save for some kind of vauge and personal appeal to what he considers to be out of bounds.

That you can write that to Night Ripper, who seems to think that justice and fairness are whatever he wants them to be, is the very acme of irony.

What has night ripper's reputation with you or anyone else on this forum got to do with the veracity or othetwise of my post. Why on eareth should i kno or care what his reputation is. This is a silly ad hom tactic. Always a sign one's arguments are not going well in my experience

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Night Ripper wrote:
That's hilarious! It's not that any of those things are wrong, it's just that they haven't worked out.

Once again, you misrepresent the reasoning you're arguing against. To Utilitarians, "these things"---slavery etc---are wrong. And the reason they're wrong is that they haven't worked out, to put it mildly. By what reasoning do you arrive at the conclusion that slavery is wrong? And on the subject of putting it mildly, why do you always downplay or assume away the suffering caused by slavery, rape, and all those other atrocities you brought up?

Night Ripper wrote:
If 78 million Germans would be happier with the death of 6 million Jews then why would you oppose it?

As a consequent Utilitarian, I wouldn't---but only if the 78 million Germans would be happier by a large enough margin to pay fair value for those 6 million Jewish lives. By the rationale I gave earlier, this calculates to $5 million times 6 million lives equals $30 trillion---about 10 times today's German GDP. Even Hitler didn't hate the Jews that much, let alone the average German. Indeed, the premise of your question, that 78 million Germans would be happier with the death of 6 million Jews, is just another example of your garbage-in, garbage-out problem.

You say slavery hasn't "worked out" and so can be demonstated, preumably along utilitarian lines why this should be the case.

Define what you mean by not "working out". Bearing in mind, of course that slavery has been the norm in terms of societal organisation for the majority of the history of human civilisation. And before you make any attempt to ad hom the above remarks, I make no moral justification of slavery. Indeed, quite the opposite. It's just that your selective use of examples and selective/completly arbitary definitions of what it is permissable to apply utilitarian principles to or not is without any consistent foundation.

And while we are at it, I am noticing a tendancy in you, Thomas, to only answer those parts of posts you don't percieve to be difficult. I am referring in particular to sections of a couple of my recent posts.

You are obviously not thick Thomas, Far from it. Which leads me to surmise one of two possibilities. Either you know that there are certain aspects of your utilitarian approach that do not bear close scrutiny in that they may be considered to be objectionable by many and so you attempt to gloss over them, which is intellectually dishonest. Or, your arguments about utilitarianisnm are merely just a vehicle for dick-waving on your part. In which case, you are similarly less interested in honest intellectual debate as much as you are about "winning".

1 Reply

@stevecook172001,

stevecook172001 wrote:

What has night ripper's reputation with you or anyone else on this forum got to do with the veracity or othetwise of my post. Why on eareth should i kno or care what his reputation is. This is a silly ad hom tactic. Always a sign one's arguments are not going well in my experience

I have no idea what Night Ripper's reputation is -- this thread is the first time I've ever had any interaction with him/her. But then my comment had nothing to do with Night Ripper's reputation and everything to do with his/her argument, as well as your baffling inability to distinguish between a good argument (i.e. Thomas's) and a genuinely bad one (i.e. Night Ripper's). Try to keep up.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

That you can write that to Night Ripper, who seems to think that justice and fairness are whatever he wants them to be, is the very acme of irony.

Oh right, I forgot that what counts as just and fair are objective facts rather than just my subjective opinion. Of course, I assume that now you'll gladly tell me what is just and fair in such a way that it won't suffer from the same problem, namely that it's just whatever you want them to be. I find it amazing that you've solved the is-ought problem so tell me all about it. I'm holding my breath.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

And the reason they're wrong is that they haven't worked out, to put it mildly.

Right, but my question stipulates that it does work out and produces the most happiness. By saying that it doesn't produce the most happiness you are simply avoiding the question. I'm asking IF IT DOES produce the most happiness then utilitarianism says it is moral to act on it. Yet, we know it wouldn't be moral, EVEN IF IT DID PRODUCE THE GREATER HAPPINESS FOR THE MOST NUMBER OF PEOPLE.

Do you see the issue now? I'm actually addressing the issue of injustice and you are just trying to sweep it under the wrong. It doesn't matter since it'll never happen. Right? But I'm asking you WHAT IF IT DOES? That's the question you need to be ask.

Thomas wrote:

By what reasoning do you arrive at the conclusion that slavery is wrong?

I try to treat people how they want to be treated. When I don't then that's wrong to some degree. If they want to be slaves, I enslave them. If they don't want to be slaves, I don't. Most people don't want to be slaves therefore it's wrong to make them be.

1 Reply

The Problem With Utilitarianism

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