Postmodern Beatnik wrote:
Note: this thread is for the purpose of Advocatus Diaboli. If you are unfamiliar with our local holiday, click here.

To secure an objectively valid moral theory requires an intrinsic good. Not only is happiness just such a good, it is the only such good. While there may be other possible answers to the question posed in this post's epigraph--we could, for example, be so specific that the sprite cannot but grant our request as expected--only happiness qualifies as an answer that can be given by every person. After all, so long as one is displeased, the wish has not been granted; and once the wish has been granted, one can no longer be displeased.

Moral actions, then, are those that maximize this intrinsic good. Regardless of whether or not the hedonic calculus is practically feasible for any given individual, that which it would recommend is morally right. And we must take note that "right" in this case means obligatory, for it would be morally wrong to do anything that did not maximize the intrinsic good of happiness. Thus we can do away with the oft-used, but ultimately misleading, terms "permissible" and "supererogatory." Actions are right or wrong, plain and simple. This is precisely the kind of black and white clarity that morality requires, and only Utilitarianism can grant it. All forms of moral nonobjectivism--including that subjectivist theory known as Divine Command Theory--are morally vague for quite obvious reasons. Deontology, however, also admits of an amoral class of actions and of instances where more than one action may be considered "good," with one action being "more good" than another, and yet decrees that either action is permissible (the latter, of course, being supererogatory).

Odin wrote:

What matters is where the fuel takes you. Just because happiness is one of many traits that tends to lead me in the right direction toward accomplishing my goals and purposes in life (there is an objective purpose of life), it does not mean that we base every action off its tendency to create happiness in the world. And there's no reason that I have to care at all about whether my actions maximize other's happiness. Even if I said "happiness is intrinsically good," nothing about that statement obligates me to perform actions that create greater happiness on a universal scale. It is actually more logical to conclude that I should do everything to maximize my own happiness, and let others worry about maximizing their's.

Buddahchuck wrote:


A very eloquent defense of hedonism, but somewhat missing the point. When the OP says that "Happiness is intrinsically good", then he is saying that the only thing that everyone could wish for with a [/i]guarantee[/i] of being moral would be happiness. In this way, one could not wish for one's own happiness at the cost of everyone else's happiness (according to a Utilitarian ethic) for that would defy the Greatest Happiness principle, allowing for a deficit of happiness for the world as opposed to the surplus we are looking for.

The only reason any of this would be obligatory is simply due to morality. Morality is by definition what is right, and if it is intrinsically right to do good things, and the only universally good thing that exists is happiness, then the only obligation that exists for EVERYONE is to wish for happiness.

I sort of expect PMB to respond to the desire for sadness as being a sort of joy in itself. Just as if pain causes happiness, then pain would be good; if sadness causes happiness, then sadness is good. Still, to say that sadness is an intrinsic good seems a little ridiculous, for there are many people the world over who consider sadness to be a bad thing, however productive it may be. Not everyone is a depressed egomaniac looking for solace within the wounds of their own heart.

I did so hope that I could have not made the comment above, for I did so want to engage the conversation that touches on a metaphysical level: what if there is no true human happiness, and it is merely a fleeting hope that we all strive for but never obtain? Would the sprite then reveal this truth to us and thereby dash our hopes for happiness that feed into our being human? Sadly (the bad kind of sad), I do not feel that I can maintain this argument after just admitting that I see the sense in promoting happiness to even those who are morbidly sad, for even those who are depressed do not wish to be depressed as their condition is nearly defined by wishing they were happy. Also, it would not be fair to the thought problem to wantonly say that we could wish everyone in the world were sad and have this be intrinsically good, when we clearly know that even those who are sad wish to be happy, for sadness is almost defined by happiness and the desire for it.

Buddahchuck wrote:

And you don't find this hedonistic? Do you not see the argument as being either choose happiness for yourself (hedonism) or happiness for the world (utilitarianism)?

Perhaps you are changing the definition of good in my argument. Let's use your definitions and say that the former is a description of "the good" and the latter is a description of "the greater good". Is it not possible to mean both "the good" and "the greater good" at the same time in the statement you quoted? My understanding, with regard to PMB's argument, is that morality is a dynamic entity that changes with each person. In spite of these laws changing, the one thing that remains constant is happiness. So I think it an unnecessary confusion to enter into a conversation of morality being derivative of happiness or happiness being derivative of morality, for when we are talking about the greatest happiness principle, it is quite clear that the maximization of happiness defines morality rather than the notion that morality makes people happy. So rather than confuse the argument being presented, let's say that for this argument, Happiness is necessarily the "greater good".

Of course all of this is contingent upon clarification by PMB, IMO.

PMB wrote:

Question: A devious sprite grants you one wish. You know that the sprite is bound by unbreakable laws to grant your wish, but that he will do everything possible to avoid the result being what you expected. What can you wish for that the sprite cannot ruin?
Answer: Happiness.

To secure an objectively valid moral theory requires an intrinsic good. Not only is happiness just such a good, it is the only such good. While there may be other possible answers to the question posed in this post's epigraph--we could, for example, be so specific that the sprite cannot but grant our request as expected--only happiness qualifies as an answer that can be given by every person. After all, so long as one is displeased, the wish has not been granted; and once the wish has been granted, one can no longer be displeased.