Destroy My Belief System, Please!

But that's different from saying that the categorical imperative allows the individual to "put his finger on the scale" when it comes to deciding what to do.

This problem, if it is one, received a narrow, technical fix with the advent of preference utilitarianism. Preference utilitarianism is like classical utilitarianism, except that it identifies people's preferences as the relevant measure of happiness for the utilitarian calculus. If some people prefer the orgasmotron while others prefer their reality straight and tough, this only goes to show that different people have different tastes. It does not reveal any deep flaw about hedonism in general.

Smart, an Act Utilitarian (or "extreme Utilitarian" as he puts it), points out that nothing keeps Act Utilitarians from setting rules and following them, and that in practice that's what they usually do. The distinction is that for Act Utilitarians, rules are mere labor-saving devices for the practical work of churning out useful acts. For Rule Utilitarians, rules are the center of attention. They don't care about the usefulness of individual acts.

Unless you are prepared to subject each "fact" in the chain (It's turtles all the way down) to the test you've established for belief, at some point, it seems to me, you must be engaging in faith, if only to keep yourself from following the turtles all the way down.

Whether or not this belief system of your is unassailable, I'll give you credit for having one, and even more is you are as consistent with it as possible.

Obviously you're not suggesting that you live a life that it always in keeping with your stated belief system, but I wonder, to what extent, you appreciate that your failures may not be as much a flaw in you as they are in the system.

And yes, that's different from rule utilitarians, who actually do acknowledge rules as obligatory because those rules have proven to be more utile than not.

I can think of many scenarios that would keep me from acting on my belief system. But that only means I'm a hypocrite. It does not mean that my belief system is wrong.

Why is the need for hypocrisy as a tool for dealing with the many scenarios you can think of where you need to be a hypocrite in relation to your belief system, not a clear sign that your belief system is wrong?

igm wrote:

Why is the need for hypocrisy as a tool for dealing with the many scenarios you can think of where you need to be a hypocrite in relation to your belief system, not a clear sign that your belief system is wrong?

No, only a clear sign that I'm frail and lack self-discipline.

Frank Apisa said: When I have had discussions with some Buddhists here...and they discuss elimination of suffering...I have indicated that I prefer to aim for contentment rather than happiness

I try, and sometimes manage,...

... And while you're at it, why don't you give me some against #2, too? Although I am aware of some arguments against it...

I can think of many scenarios that would keep me from acting on my belief system. But that only means I'm a hypocrite. It does not mean that my belief system is wrong.

Why follow any system? Why not take each situation as it comes and try to make the best decision?

Define "best". Without using any kind of system, please.

...the "best" decision that we as individuals can make based on our own abilities

If hedonism is based on the assumption that people prefer happiness, and it turns out that some people prefer other things besides happiness, then I'm not sure how that can't reveal a deep flaw in hedonism. I mean, it undercuts the entire premise of the system.

For hedonism (and, by extension, utilitarianism) to work, there has to be something that everybody prefers.

And yes, that's different from rule utilitarians, who actually do acknowledge rules as obligatory because those rules have proven to be more utile than not. Frankly, it's disingenuous for an act utilitarian to talk about "rules" when what he's really talking about are something more akin to guidelines.

Destroy My Belief System, Please!

I don't think your version of Nozick's experience machine actually demonstrates that people prefer other things over happiness. Suppose you asked people follow-up questions about the notion of getting rendered catatonic in an experience machine. Don't you think they'd reply that they find it unsettling, disturbing, creepy --- or in Utilitarian language, unpleasant? I'm pretty sure they would. And if they do, their preference isn't between pleasure and something else, but between different flavors of pleasure. Your debilitating experience machine is really just a new angle on an old point of John Stuart Mill's: "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." Happiness comes in different flavors. You prefer bitter orange, I prefer chocolate fudge. Tomeydo, tomuhto.

Everybody, tautologically, prefers what he or she prefers. Our job, according to preference Utilitarianism, is to help everyone satisfy their individual preferences to the best of our ability. This ethic does not raise the problems you describe: We can, admittedly within limits, observe people's preferences. We can also observe whether our private acts and our public policies satisfy their preferences. And having done that, we can change our actions and policies to satisfy them more.

Ethical hedonism is the view that increasing pleasure is the greatest good there is (maybe the only good). Put the two together, and you get the normative theory that to do good is to increase people's preference satisfaction. And although the theory's origin is hedonistic, it no longer depends on the precise internal state of mind that we ought to maximise for. Is it physical pleasure, as the hedonists say? Is it peace of mind, as the eudemons say? Is it happiness, as the Utilitarians say? No matter. All we have to look at is people's external behavior.

I think the whole distinction is silly, ivory-tower masturbation. It all but vanishes in practice. (There's a reason Utilitarianism did just fine without it throughout its first 150 years.) When Act Utilitarians apply their theory to the real world, they will quickly find that acts around rules are eating up almost their entire moral calculus. They have such a profound influence on all other acts that you might as well just focus on rule-making, rule-following, rule-breaking, rule-enforcement, and so on.

In short, you're saying that people prefer to do what they prefer to do. There's not a lot of explanatory power in that tautology,

which is probably why Bentham and Mill avoided it in favor of the principle of utility. If you can't identify one thing that everyone prefers, however, you can't make the jump that Bentham and Mill did from the "is" to the "should."

I don't see how that's any different from classical utilitarianism. You say "pleasure" or "preference," Bentham and Mill say "happiness." Tomahto, Tomayto.