Utilitarianism

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It would be interesting to have the poor at the lead for a change

Interesting indeed: then we'd have nothing but urban jungle from sea to shining sea.

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After reading the discussion between pragmatic and Ray, I wish to jump to the defense of utilitarianism, which I feel pragmatic has misrepresented.

I see utilitarianism as the pragmatic implementation of an idealistic morality. After all, its goal is happiness for all, the end of all suffering! I don't think you can get much more idealistic than that...

It is not about stepping on the little guy, bowing to majority opinion, or accepting the injustices of the world. It is about working to minimize suffering.

To restate, in my opinion the basis of utilitarianism is found in these three assumptions:

(1) Pain is bad.
(2) Pleasure is good.
(3) All things that can experience pain and pleasure should have their interests equally considered.

First of all, does anyone think these assumptions are wrong?

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djbt

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I see utilitarianism as the pragmatic implementation of an idealistic morality. After all, its goal is happiness for all, the end of all suffering! I don't think you can get much more idealistic than that...

I don't agree with utilitarianism, although I see in it a very valid effort to build a moral system that does not depend on religion.
But there are always some points in utilitarianism that I think are assumed without critical analysis.
Example: happiness. How do you define happiness? A rapist can be happy raping a girl. A martyr can be happy being crucified because of his faith.
I think you identify happiness with pleasure. In the examples above, the rapist is happy and feels pleasure, but the martyr feels happy and feels pain.
Pain is not always bad. If you are being tortured by the state police and still you resist and don't denounce your friends, you feel pain but you are happy.
And pleasure is not always good. If the rapist of my example has some consciousness left, some values, he feels pleasure in the physical action of the rape, but feels morally miserable.

People are different. Some people believe that having lots of money is a source of pleasure. Others, like Epicurus, that the greatest possible pleasure is absence of pain. Some people find that their greatest pleasure is to collect stamps. How to define what pleasure is good and what pleasure is bad? By the option of the largest number of persons? But why?
Do you believe that the truth of a statement depends on the number of people who accept it?

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Just wanted to say that, after the terrorist attacks in London this morning, I hope that no-one at A2K has been affected. I live in London, but have been fortunate in that neither myself nor anyone I know has been hurt. I hope this is true of everyone here too.

While events like this are certainly humbling, they do make me think that the discussion of ethics is all the more important, even on a seemingly inconsequential level such as this.

Moralising aside over.

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val wrote:

People are different. Some people believe that having lots of money is a source of pleasure. Others, like Epicurus, that the greatest possible pleasure is absence of pain. Some people find that their greatest pleasure is to collect stamps. How to define what pleasure is good and what pleasure is bad? By the option of the largest number of persons? But why?
Do you believe that the truth of a statement depends on the number of people who accept it?

For the purposes of this discussion, I'll throw in draft definitions of pleasure and pain:
Pain: A sensation that one wishes not to experience again.
Pleasure: A sensation that one wishes to experience again.

I fully accept that what causes these sensations differs greatly from person to person , and across species. This is something any utilitarian has to remember, but it does not harm the central assumptions. Since utilitarianism is only concerned with experiencing beings, it is the individual experience, whether one of pleasure or pain, of these beings that weighs towards the good or the bad, not what anyone else thinks that experience should be.

The examples you give, of the rapist, the martyr, and the noble torture victim, are all examples of pleasure and pain being experienced simultaneously. In each case, the pleasure sensation is good, and the pain sensation bad. At the level of core assumptions, I'm talking only about the sensation of pleasure being good, and pain bad. I'm not yet talking about specific causes of these sensations (whether they be stamp collecting, rape, or crucifixion), since, in my moral system, the goodness or badness of such causes can only be determined by their consequences on the sensations of experiencing beings.

I hope that helps to clarify my position.

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1) Pain is bad.
(2) Pleasure is good.
(3) All things that can experience pain and pleasure should have their interests equally considered.

First of all, does anyone think these assumptions are wrong?

Not quite, but it's their application and reasoning of these concepts that are wrong. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but utilitarianism (when it started) did not hold its idea in the same manner as you did. It holds that ethics should concern the "greatest amount" of happiness. There are however a mountain of complications. If two people found "pleasure" in the distress of another is that ethical? Should one man be sacrificed against his will for a larger number of people? Also, what is meant by happiness or pleasure? Is it the same as the Epicurean notion, the Cyraenian, or the Eudaimonians'? Should a person who is unhappy merely throws his life away? And how do you measure the greatest amount of good when ultimately the future has to be considered?

Edit: just realized that val had pointed out the happiness complex. Smile

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For the purposes of this discussion, I'll throw in draft definitions of pleasure and pain:
Pain: A sensation that one wishes not to experience again.
Pleasure: A sensation that one wishes to experience again.

But some people might have a mental disorder in which they want to experience physical pain, and addicts want to experience 'high' or want the substance because they feel substance-dependent regardless of the harm it might do to their body.

Although I find Utilitarianism as a pretty good attempt, I don't find it to be good enough. I believe that our action must be judged in respect to humanity (which means everyone instead of "majority" or "minority").

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djbt

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For the purposes of this discussion, I'll throw in draft definitions of pleasure and pain:
Pain: A sensation that one wishes not to experience again.
Pleasure: A sensation that one wishes to experience again.

I think you gave a remarkable definition, within the criteria of utilitarianism, avoiding any metaphysical support.
But see the case of Epicurus: he says that there is no pleasure
superior to the one we feel when pain stops. So in order to experience that pleasure we must experience previous pain.
We all had that experience: if you have a severe migraine you suffer a tremendous pain; but, when it stops you feel euphoric, and we can call that an extreme pleasure.
But that doesn't mean that you want to suffer again under the migraine to reach hours later that pleasure. You prefer not have the migraine. Nor the pain or the pleasure.

The problem remains. Happiness for the greater number of people seems a very vague concept. Unless you impose previously what defines happiness. In fact, I believe that capitalism - and utilitarianism is impossible without capitalism - did exactly that: to impose consumption as a synonym of happiness.

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Ray and Val, thanks for your responses. I'll try to deal with your problems in turn, because while I have certain problems with Utilitarianism (which I'll get to eventually, once through the groundwork), I don't think any of these particular objections is valid. I hope I can explain why, but sadly my debating skills are not as well honed as others on this site, so please bear with me...

Ray wrote:

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but utilitarianism (when it started) did not hold its idea in the same manner as you did. It holds that ethics should concern the "greatest amount" of happiness.

Firstly, I'm not, in this discussion, particularly interested in what other utilitarians may or may not have thought, I can't speak for any one else. I've had a number of arguments that have gone like this:
(1) I make a point.
(2) Someone says 'that's utilitarianism, and there's problems with that'.
(3) I show why the problems aren't valid.
(4) Same person says 'Ah, but that's not utilitarianism, utilitarianism says this...'
Clearly the position I'm defending is a type of utilitarianism, and since it's the type I agree with, it's the only one I'll defend, whatever it is called.

Secondly, I am saying that the greatest amount of happiness is the goal of ethics, where:
(a) An increase in happiness = A decrease in pain and/or an increase in pleasure.
(b) The total amount of happiness can somehow be calculated from the amount of happiness experienced and the amount of beings experiencing it (i.e. the quality and the quantity of happiness).

Ray wrote:

There are however a mountain of complications. If two people found "pleasure" in the distress of another is that ethical? Should one man be sacrificed against his will for a larger number of people?

Problems like this stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism does not say anything is 'good' or 'ethical' (except absolute complete universal joy, so no real thing), only that something is more good or rather less bad than another thing. With your examples, two people finding pleasure in distressing another is less bad than all three being in distress, but much much much more bad than all three feeling pleasure.
One person should only be sacrificed against his will if all other options were worse, for example, if all other options required two or three or a hundred people to be sacrificed against their own will.

Ray wrote:

Also, what is meant by happiness or pleasure? Is it the same as the Epicurean notion, the Cyraenian, or the Eudaimonians'?

I've suggested definitions above.

Ray wrote:

Should a person who is unhappy merely throws his life away?

If there is nothing but endless agony in his future, then yes, I would kill myself in this circumstance. If there is a way he could become happy, by his own actions, or by the actions of others (who, if they were utilitarians, would be obligated to do their upmost to make him happy) then no.

Ray wrote:

And how do you measure the greatest amount of good when ultimately the future has to be considered?

With great difficulty. I never said utilitarianism made ethics easy, in fact it makes it devilishly complicated. But being complex doesn't make it wrong.

I like to think of an analogue with the stock market (please don't overstretch this analogue, I'm not advocating capitalism, just using as an example): Being a utilitarian is the equivalent of investing very carefully, balancing short time gains (smaller but surer) with long term gains (larger but less certain), researching, using experts to help make predictions, trying to use every available resource to make the right decision. Of course, you won't always make the right decision, but you'll make righter (is that a word?) decisions than if you picked shares to invest in at random, or had inflexible rules such as 'always buy x' or 'never buy y'. In the end, you'll make more money like this, or, shifting back from the analogue into ethics, make the world a better (less bad) place.

Ray wrote:

But some people might have a mental disorder in which they want to experience physical pain, and addicts want to experience 'high' or want the substance because they feel substance-dependent regardless of the harm it might do to their body.

If someone enjoys feeling what you happen to call pain, then for them it is pleasure by the above definition. In the case of the drug addict, the high is pleasurable (so weighs towards good), and the harm/comedown/depression etc. is painful (weighs towards bad). I presume you agree with me that the pain outweighs the pleasure in this instance.

Ray wrote:

Although I find Utilitarianism as a pretty good attempt, I don't find it to be good enough. I believe that our action must be judged in respect to humanity (which means everyone instead of "majority" or "minority").

I'm not sure why you should want to limit your sphere of concern to just humanity, that, for me, is not good enough. Utilitarianism, certainly the version I am advocating, judges actions in respect to everything that can feel pleasure and/or pain. The fact that inescapable circumstance makes it impossible for everything to be blissfully happy all of the time does not stop this being utilitarianism's aim. However, with upmost respect for the interests of all parties affected by a decision, a utilitarian is forced by circumstance to make decisions that do cause some harm - albeit the least possible harm. This is not due to a lack of respect, it is due to a lack of omnipotence.

Val wrote:

But see the case of Epicurus: he says that there is no pleasure superior to the one we feel when pain stops. So in order to experience that pleasure we must experience previous pain. We all had that experience: if you have a severe migraine you suffer a tremendous pain; but, when it stops you feel euphoric, and we can call that an extreme pleasure.
But that doesn't mean that you want to suffer again under the migraine to reach hours later that pleasure. You prefer not have the migraine. Nor the pain or the pleasure.

An excellent example of utilitarian thinking - you weighed up the pleasure against the pain, and decided that the pain outweighs the pleasure. I would have come to exactly the same conclusion.
As a side point, I am generally interested in the workings of pleasure and pain, I tried to start a thread on the subject, but it died before it got anywhere. If you are suggesting pleasure and pain are purely relative, I disagree. Epicurus may have been wrong, also. Modern analysis of pleasure and pain in the human brain might be able to explain the euphoric feeling of a release from pain in chemical terms, and thus show that it is possible to feel this without the pain beforehand. But that's another debate...

Val wrote:

The problem remains. Happiness for the greater number of people seems a very vague concept. Unless you impose previously what defines happiness. In fact, I believe that capitalism - and utilitarianism is impossible without capitalism - did exactly that: to impose consumption as a synonym of happiness.

I think complex would be a better description than vague. Also, it's 'the greatest happiness for the greatest number', and it's a soundbite simplification, not the whole idea. To attack utilitarianism by attacking just this one sentence is to attack a straw man, much like creationists do when they attack a dictionary definition of evolution, as if a few words in a sentence could capture the whole concept.
Also, I have suggested a definition of happiness (increase in happiness = increase in pleasure and/or decrease in pain, see above).

I cannot see why you say utilitarianism is impossible without capitalism. Can you explain that please?

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Firstly, I'm not, in this discussion, particularly interested in what other utilitarians may or may not have thought, I can't speak for any one else. I've had a number of arguments that have gone like this:
(1) I make a point.
(2) Someone says 'that's utilitarianism, and there's problems with that'.
(3) I show why the problems aren't valid.
(4) Same person says 'Ah, but that's not utilitarianism, utilitarianism says this...'
Clearly the position I'm defending is a type of utilitarianism, and since it's the type I agree with, it's the only one I'll defend, whatever it is called.

Sorry, I should've considered this.

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Secondly, I am saying that the greatest amount of happiness is the goal of ethics, where:
(a) An increase in happiness = A decrease in pain and/or an increase in pleasure.
(b) The total amount of happiness can somehow be calculated from the amount of happiness experienced and the amount of beings experiencing it (i.e. the quality and the quantity of happiness).

So no pain = happiness? I can live with that definition. I don't think you can calculate the amount of happiness though. There have been attempts at using mathematical formulas to derive such a calculation, but I don't know how that went.

Consider all the factors in the world. How do you quantify the degree of the senses?

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Problems like this stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism does not say anything is 'good' or 'ethical' (except absolute complete universal joy, so no real thing), only that something is more good or rather less bad than another thing. With your examples, two people finding pleasure in distressing another is less bad than all three being in distress, but much much much more bad than all three feeling pleasure.
One person should only be sacrificed against his will if all other options were worse, for example, if all other options required two or three or a hundred people to be sacrificed against their own will.

That's also obviously the mainstream idea today's society has accepted.

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If there is nothing but endless agony in his future, then yes, I would kill myself in this circumstance. If there is a way he could become happy, by his own actions, or by the actions of others (who, if they were utilitarians, would be obligated to do their upmost to make him happy) then no.

But the person wouldn't know if there is endless agony in his future.

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With great difficulty. I never said utilitarianism made ethics easy, in fact it makes it devilishly complicated. But being complex doesn't make it wrong.

Of course.

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If someone enjoys feeling what you happen to call pain, then for them it is pleasure by the above definition. In the case of the drug addict, the high is pleasurable (so weighs towards good), and the harm/comedown/depression etc. is painful (weighs towards bad). I presume you agree with me that the pain outweighs the pleasure in this instance.

It would be a mental disorder for them to like it. A person cutting their skin, trying to ignore the pain just to induce a certain chemical in their brain? Don't you think that perhaps some chemical reaction is mistakenly triggered so as to make people think such actions might be worth pursuing(some people dont' even consider it worth pursuing but pursued it anyways)? In this instance we see a difference in two feelings, an induced want feeling hyperactively stimulated by the presence of dopamine or other stimulating chemicals, and a normal calm feeling of a normal person.

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I'm not sure why you should want to limit your sphere of concern to just humanity, that, for me, is not good enough. Utilitarianism, certainly the version I am advocating, judges actions in respect to everything that can feel pleasure and/or pain. The fact that inescapable circumstance makes it impossible for everything to be blissfully happy all of the time does not stop this being utilitarianism's aim. However, with upmost respect for the interests of all parties affected by a decision, a utilitarian is forced by circumstance to make decisions that do cause some harm - albeit the least possible harm. This is not due to a lack of respect, it is due to a lack of omnipotence.

I'm not trying to limit it at all. It's hard to explain what I believe in, because it's intertwined with epistemological and metaphysical beliefs, and I'm scared that it might sound weird. Back to the point, a maxim that I uphold to is this:

"Treat people as an end, never as a means to an end."

Thus, if there are three people taken hostage, and that they would be saved if I were to sacrifice an innocent bystander against his or her will, I wouldn't do it. If I were to sacrifice the bystander, I would be throwing his or her life away as something expendable, something that is to be used, and that for me is not right.

However, if I were to sacrifice my life, it wouldn't be ethically wrong. It would be "preferable" for a person to sacrifice his or her lives, but there is no strict moral obligation for the person to do either way, and it'd be ethically wrong to physically force the person one way or the other when the person has done nothing at all. My point for a respect for humanity, is to respect beings capable of thought, as beings that are non-expendeable (and of course this would not only apply to humans, but every being capable of thought).

My ethical belief is based on a universal sense. You see that I'm highly influenced by some of kant's philosophy, but there are differences.

BTW, what are your objections to Utilitarianism?

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Ray wrote:

So no pain = happiness? I can live with that definition.

I don't quite agree with this. Happiness is not a quality that is either possessed or not, it is possessed to varying degrees. You can be more happy, or less happy, but there's no dividing line that says 'this = happiness', just as there's no dividing line that says 'this = high' or 'this = hot'.

Ray wrote:

I don't think you can calculate the amount of happiness though. There have been attempts at using mathematical formulas to derive such a calculation, but I don't know how that went.

Consider all the factors in the world. How do you quantify the degree of the senses?.

It's worth thinking hard about, but no, I suspect we will never be able to exactly calculate the total amount of happiness of a given situation. Nor can we exactly quantify the intensity of a pleasure/pain experience. But the fact that we can't do it exactly doesn't mean we can't do it at all. I can still say, with a fair amount of confidence, that a headache is less bad than a migraine, without assigning quantities to either. I can still say the pleasure of eating eggs is less than the pain of a chicken living in a battery farm. I can still say the extra cost of buying fair trade goods is less painful than starving because produce can't be sold due to floods of subsidized imports. I can still say that the inconvenience of me doing someone a favour is less that the trouble they'll be in if I don't do it. Etc. etc. etc.

We don't have to do something perfectly for it to be beneficial to do it.

Ray wrote:

But the person wouldn't know if there is endless agony in his future.

Which is why a utilitarian would be obliged to prove to him that there could be happiness in his future.

Ray wrote:

It would be a mental disorder for them to like it. A person cutting their skin, trying to ignore the pain just to induce a certain chemical in their brain? Don't you think that perhaps some chemical reaction is mistakenly triggered so as to make people think such actions might be worth pursuing(some people dont' even consider it worth pursuing but pursued it anyways)? In this instance we see a difference in two feelings, an induced want feeling hyperactively stimulated by the presence of dopamine or other stimulating chemicals, and a normal calm feeling of a normal person.

I see where your getting at, I suspect the wording of my definition of pain is at fault here (damn the English language! So imprecise!). I think we can all differentiate between a pleasurable experience and a painful one. In this example, you say the person 'tries to ignore the pain', if this is the case, clearly it is pain, and they would not wish to repeat it. The release of chemicals is pleasurable, it would seem (knowing a little about self-harm, having been a small part in a study on it, I would say the release of chemicals acts to dumb emotional pain, which is considered by the self-harmer to by worse than physical pain).

In any case, the point is that in my definitions of pleasure and pain, I was talking about the particular moment of experience being either pleasurable or painful, in the definitions the act that caused the experience is irrelevant. So examples like this, where both pain and pleasure are caused by the same act, are not a problem for the theory, only a problem for someone applying utilitarianism. And when I say 'A sensation that one wishes to experience again', I don't mean to suggest that there is anything rational about the wish to experience it again, only that it feels good, or feels bad.

Ray wrote:

I'm not trying to limit it at all. It's hard to explain what I believe in, because it's intertwined with epistemological and metaphysical beliefs, and I'm scared that it might sound weird.

Oh, go on, I've got a few weird metaphysical ideas myself, I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours...

Ray wrote:

Back to the point, a maxim that I uphold to is this:

"Treat people as an end, never as a means to an end."

Well, I almost agree with this. I would say:

"Always treat experiencing beings as an end, and never just as a means to an end. Treat nothing else but experiencing beings as an end".

I thinks it's OK to treat people as a means to an end sometimes, as long as you do treat them just as a means to an end. It's OK, for example, to ask my neighbours to look after my cats, even though that's using them as a means to an end.

The second part I consider important because it means that nothing abstract, no material goal, no religious belief, no moral code, no abstract concept at all matters except in how it affects experiencing beings, the only ends.

Ray wrote:

Thus, if there are three people taken hostage, and that they would be saved if I were to sacrifice an innocent bystander against his or her will, I wouldn't do it. If I were to sacrifice the bystander, I would be throwing his or her life away as something expendable, something that is to be used, and that for me is not right.

Here, I think, is the crux of our disagreement.

Let us assume there are no other possible options, you either have to let three people die, or kill one person. Also, let's assume that none of the people have done anything wrong, and this takes place in an totally isolated place, so there are no complicating repercussions to factor in.

Here is how I see it: You are in a position of responsibility. It is in your power to decide whether three people die, or one. The fact that you did not decide to be in this position does not reduce your moral responsibility. Your actions will either kill three people, or one person.

None of the people live's are expendable. To let the three people die is to say two of their lives are expendable. In fact, to say that you should let those three people die to avoid having to kill one is to say that:

keeping your conscience clear + saving one life > saving three lives.
It seems to me that this only makes sense if you put greater value on your own peace of mind and feelings of moral superiority than the value you put on two people's lives. You are saying that those two people's lives are so expendable that they are worth less than you feeling good about yourself.

Whatever you actions, one person will die, this you cannot avoid. You have the power to avoid two extra deaths. If these people's lives are not expendable, then surely you must stop these deaths.

That's how I see it, anyway.

Ray wrote:

My point for a respect for humanity, is to respect beings capable of thought, as beings that are non-expendeable (and of course this would not only apply to humans, but every being capable of thought).

Why is capability for thought important? And what does it mean? Does it mean the same as my criteria of being capable of experiencing pleasure and/or pain? If not, how does it differ?

Ray wrote:

BTW, what are your objections to Utilitarianism?

They not so much objections as problems, complications. Mainly to do with the trade off between quality of happiness and quantity of happiness.

For example, if a headache is 1/10th as bad as a migraine, (if nothing else is affected by these) which is worse, ten people having a headache or one having a migraine?

If one having a migraine is worse, what if the headaches were 1/5th as bad, or 1/2 as bad, or 9/10th as bad?

I guess the question could be reworked to: which would I prefer, a migraine for one hour, or a headache for ten?

Related, I have thoughts to do with equality, and whether there is a built in trend towards equality in utilitarianism. Also I have questions about whether pleasure can weigh against pain, or whether only pain can weigh against pain.

Generally, to deal with these problems, I ask myself, if I were to experience the life of every single experiencing being, what would be the best/least bad way for things to be?

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It's OK, for example, to ask my neighbours to look after my cats, even though that's using them as a means to an end.

Well since you're asking them, you're not treating them as a means. If your neighbour refused would you force him or her? I don't think you would. I guess it depends on the purpose of the action?

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Here, I think, is the crux of our disagreement.

Let us assume there are no other possible options, you either have to let three people die, or kill one person. Also, let's assume that none of the people have done anything wrong, and this takes place in an totally isolated place, so there are no complicating repercussions to factor in.

Here is how I see it: You are in a position of responsibility. It is in your power to decide whether three people die, or one. The fact that you did not decide to be in this position does not reduce your moral responsibility. Your actions will either kill three people, or one person.

None of the people live's are expendable. To let the three people die is to say two of their lives are expendable. In fact, to say that you should let those three people die to avoid having to kill one is to say that:

keeping your conscience clear + saving one life > saving three lives.
It seems to me that this only makes sense if you put greater value on your own peace of mind and feelings of moral superiority than the value you put on two people's lives. You are saying that those two people's lives are so expendable that they are worth less than you feeling good about yourself.

Whatever you actions, one person will die, this you cannot avoid. You have the power to avoid two extra deaths. If these people's lives are not expendable, then surely you must stop these deaths.

I don't see it that way. It's not about saving anyone's conscience, nor is it about moral superiority complex. It's about doing what's right. The person, is innocent, and although it is the preferred action to have a person sacrificed him or herself, it is not ethical to force or diminish another person just because they wouldn't. The situation would have to be resolved in some other way, even though we may not be able to control the result. I don't know, that's just what I think, it's tough...

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Oh, go on, I've got a few weird metaphysical ideas myself, I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours...

Sure, unravel your mind djbt!

My turn first (apologies for length):

My metaphysical view sounds cliche but I think that it is important to be understanding of it. I see people as a part of a whole, the universe. I believe that it is false to put more importance to one person over another.

Here's where my epistemology intertwines. A person is a rational creature, yes we have emotions, but we do have the capability of reason. We are creatures capable of thought and ultimately of knowledge because we are rational. Knowledge is derived both from empirical observations, and rational connections. Without the senses, reason does not have anything to connect, and without reason, a bunch of colours would merely be a show of colours, and we would not "know" what it is. So both faculties depend on each other for an awareness of the universe, of what is true.

Primitive animals can sense, yet they merely react. We, understand the negative impacts of what some of our emotions can do, and we even question it.

I believe that an action must be deemed right or wrong in relation to the truth. How do we know what is true? We use our capability of reason. When we see other people living their lives, we have to see that they are "like" us. We can understand what it's like to feel "pain", and thus pain is bad, not just to a person but to every person. We can see this because reason is constituted of two factors, identity and universality. We can also see that our lives has importance in that we are thinking creatures, creatures of spirit(not talking about immortal soul), meaning creatures who are aware. As such, looking at the facts(including phenomenal sense experience), we can conclude that to cause pain is wrong, that to treat people as lower than a being of worth is wrong. It is not a selfish or selfless view, but a universal view.

To deny the very knowledge and true association would mean to live in a lie. It would mean to blind ourselves of what is true.

Finally, if you think what you read is weird so far, this is where my view gets really weird and maybe bordering on faith Rolling Eyes

, I believe that we are all the universe being aware of itself. When we die, our being is integrated into the sleeping whole, where consciousness cease to exist except in those who are conscious, and in this way, we are experiencing every being's life as they live it.

Embarrassed

well that's my view in progress... your turn.

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What!? Are you crazy? You weirdo, stay away from me, stay away from my family...

Only joking...

In fact, some of your ideas fall into the same kind of ball park as mine. I'll take the plunge and go through them... but not quite finished with utilitarianism yet, so is it OK if I open another thread ('vague metaphysical ideas', or something), and quote you there?

Ray wrote:

I don't see it that way. It's not about saving anyone's conscience, nor is it about moral superiority complex. It's about doing what's right. The person, is innocent, and although it is the preferred action to have a person sacrificed him or herself, it is not ethical to force or diminish another person just because they wouldn't. The situation would have to be resolved in some other way, even though we may not be able to control the result. I don't know, that's just what I think, it's tough...

It is tough. A few points, though.

Firstly, in the hypothetical you gave, there were no resolutions other than you killing one person, or three people dying. Were there even the slightly possibility of resolving this 'some other way' then, as a utilitarian I would do all that is possible to look for it. Were it the case that the result of me not shooting that person might not be the three people dying, then perhaps I would shoot them. In reality, I would probably never shoot them, because I would never be sure (a) the three people would be saved by this, and (b) the three people would die if I didn't.

However, in this hypothetical I am sure of these things, and there is no other way. Saying your moral position would look for 'some other way' is dodging the point - I would think all moral positions would look for some other way, but the point of the hypothetical is that there isn't one. You can't sneak out of the ethical dilemma like that!

Secondly, you refer to the person who would have to kill as 'innocent', as if that gives their life more worth. Are the other three you don't mind condemning to death not 'innocent'? Why is it OK to sacrifice them? What have they done wrong? It seems to me that the only reason you could prefer to kill three people rather than one person is that you would not feel so responsible, you could pass the buck of guilt to the hostage taker. But the doesn't make any better for the three people you have just forced, diminished and sacrificed. Remember that you know that whether or not they die is in your hands, you know that your actions will decide, so you know that if you choose that two more people should die you are sacrificing them for something. I don't think one should ever sacrifice life.

Thirdly, I should make a distinction between legal obligations and moral ones. I certainly don't think that a person should be punished for not saving life as they might be for killing (although I don't agree with punishment anyway, but that's another point). In the hypothetical, were I there, I probably wouldn't be able to shoot the one person to save three, even if I were very sure of the facts, and knew that I should. However, while there is a legal distinction between killing and not saving, in terms of deciding the right thing to do, I don't think there is a moral one. If you have the power to save a life, you are obliged to.

Fourthly, in these kind of hypothetical, people often say things like 'what gives you the right to decide who lives or dies? Who can decide that?'. For me it is not a question of having the right, but having the responsibility. In the hypothetical, our person didn't choose to be in the position where their actions would decide who lives or dies, they found themselves in it. But, as Peter Parker's grandad aptly put it, with great power comes great responsibility...

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In fact, some of your ideas fall into the same kind of ball park as mine. I'll take the plunge and go through them... but not quite finished with utilitarianism yet, so is it OK if I open another thread ('vague metaphysical ideas', or something), and quote you there?

Sure, I'll start a thread asking about people's metaphysical ideas and you can post your views there.

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However, in this hypothetical I am sure of these things, and there is no other way. Saying your moral position would look for 'some other way' is dodging the point - I would think all moral positions would look for some other way, but the point of the hypothetical is that there isn't one. You can't sneak out of the ethical dilemma like that!

Secondly, you refer to the person who would have to kill as 'innocent', as if that gives their life more worth. Are the other three you don't mind condemning to death not 'innocent'? Why is it OK to sacrifice them? What have they done wrong? It seems to me that the only reason you could prefer to kill three people rather than one person is that you would not feel so responsible, you could pass the buck of guilt to the hostage taker. But the doesn't make any better for the three people you have just forced, diminished and sacrificed. Remember that you know that whether or not they die is in your hands, you know that your actions will decide, so you know that if you choose that two more people should die you are sacrificing them for something. I don't think one should ever sacrifice life.

I'm not trying to dodge it... I was stating that I would not sacrifice the other person's life, and that whatever happens then is uncontrollable, because you have an obligation to not use the person's life as a substitute for the others. Secondly, by "innocent", I mean that the person is not the one committing the crime, and is not the one responsible for the crime. Moreover, he or she, as a person, is priceless, and not like money where 3 dollars are worth more than one dollar. In the latter case, money is an object with distinctive applied value, but when dealing with subjects, I don't believe that people are tradeable like that, I believe that they are valuable-in-themselves.

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Thirdly, I should make a distinction between legal obligations and moral ones. I certainly don't think that a person should be punished for not saving life as they might be for killing (although I don't agree with punishment anyway, but that's another point). In the hypothetical, were I there, I probably wouldn't be able to shoot the one person to save three, even if I were very sure of the facts, and knew that I should. However, while there is a legal distinction between killing and not saving, in terms of deciding the right thing to do, I don't think there is a moral one. If you have the power to save a life, you are obliged to.

I don't agree with punishments also. An eye for an eye is an evolutionary leftover from when we were primitive animals without concepts.

The last sentence is the point of major disagreement. If you have the power to save a life, you are obliged to, so long as a life uninvolved in the committing of the action, is not shed.

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Fourthly, in these kind of hypothetical, people often say things like 'what gives you the right to decide who lives or dies? Who can decide that?'. For me it is not a question of having the right, but having the responsibility. In the hypothetical, our person didn't choose to be in the position where their actions would decide who lives or dies, they found themselves in it. But, as Peter Parker's grandad aptly put it, with great power comes great responsibility...

Great power comes great responsibility, true. On the other hand, just because you have to power to do something, does not mean that you should...

Cool

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Umm... after a long break from this thread, I still disagree with Ray on that one fundamental point...

Anyway, resurrecting this because I feel it's more useful than the 'a definition of morality' thread I started (as I realised that said definition was really utilitarianism in disguise), and I still think utilitarianism hasn't taken as much damage in this thread as the general ill-feeling towards it suggests that it might.

So, any thoughts?

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djbt wrote:

I still think utilitarianism hasn't taken as much damage in this thread as the general ill-feeling towards it suggests that it might.

I agree. I can think of cases where the utilitarian formalism produces "judgments" I would find unjust. But these tend to be tough cases that have no clear-cut answer anyway, and where alternative frameworks of ethics are just as unpersuasive (as in killing some people to save others, or some period of indentured servitude to pay off the captain of your ship to America.)

I guess that much of the ill-feeling towards utilitarianism exists for the same reasons other people like it. It is at its core a mechanic construction that can work entirely independent of the moral sentiments that we want justice to satisfy. Utilitarianism is an amoral theory of morality, and that makes people uncomfortable about it.

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Thomas wrote:

I guess that much of the ill-feeling towards utilitarianism exists for the same reasons other people like it. It is at its core a mechanic construction that can work entirely independent of the moral sentiments that we want justice to satisfy. Utilitarianism is an amoral theory of morality, and that makes people uncomfortable about it.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean that, after assuming the general moral rule that pain is bad (and pleasure good), utilitarianism does not necessarily confirm to ideas about justice/fairness/punishment/equality which can seem like 'common sense' moral sentiments?

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djbt wrote:

Do you mean that, after assuming the general moral rule that pain is bad (and pleasure good), utilitarianism does not necessarily confirm to ideas about justice/fairness/punishment/equality which can seem like 'common sense' moral sentiments?

Mostly I mean that many people are uncomfortable with the assumption in the first place. Many religiously motivated ideas of good and bad, for example, believe that too much pleasure is bad. H.L. Mencken had a point when he defined a puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Converseley, religious folklore is ripe with examples of marthyrs whose suffering is held up as a moral example -- not necessarily because their suffering created greater happiness for the survivors.

Even areligious people like myself, who make your assumption as a general rule, are rarely willing to follow it to their final conclusions. Consider, for example, the ethics of income redistribution. There is a good case to be made that an extra dollar of income makes some people much happier than others. Poor people get much more extra happiness out of a dollar than rich people do, so utilitarian calculus demands that the government take some money from rich people and give it to poor people. Nothing wrong so far. But Gordon Gecko of the movie "Wall Street" also gets much more happiness out of an extra dollar than Mother Theresa, so the same utilitarian argument commands that the government tax Mother Theresa and give the money to Gordon Gecko. This utilitarian conclusion seems patently unjust to me.

But my direct answer to your question lies mainly in my first paragraph.

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Thomas

I don't want to be boring and repeat what I have said here many times.
But it is not only a matter of religious motivation.
I am not religious, my family was not religious, so I have not a religious problem.
But I am opposed to utilitarianism.
As you say, it is an amoral philosophy of moral. That, in itself is good, because prevents the theory from becoming circular, trying to demonstrate what has already been accepted as axiom.
But there are problems not only in the practical consequences of the theory but, above all, in its premises.
Happiness for the greatest number of people ... but how are we going to define happiness - in utilitarianism we have not a previous philosophy that allows us to give definitions like that. And the concept of happiness is not univocal.
And why must "the great number of people" prevail onto individual happiness? Happiness to the majority frequently implies suffering to minority. What is the criteria?

This is the problem of utilitarianism, because I think we cannot get a answer within the theory itself.

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val wrote:

Happiness for the greatest number of people ... but how are we going to define happiness - in utilitarianism we have not a previous philosophy that allows us to give definitions like that.

I agree that utilitarianism has that problem -- but its competitors have the same problem even more than utilitarianism does. "Natural law" theory does not define what life, liberty, and property exactly mean, nor what constitutes an infringement, nor how I am permitted to defend my rights against people who infringe on them. "Just do what your conscience tells you to do" is very ambiguous if different consciences tell different people to do different things. "Just do what the Bible tells you to do" is much more precise, but the outcomes are not necessarily just.

Utilitarianism is imperfect, but it's still the best tool I know for thinking consistently about ethics.

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