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Utilitarianism is Objectively Valid

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Utilitarianism is Objectively Valid

Postmodern Beatnik
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Posted 06/04/07 - 12:04 PM: Subject: Utilitarianism is Objectively Valid	#1
Note: this thread is for the purpose of Advocatus Diaboli. If you are unfamiliar with our local holiday, click here. 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. 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). To be sure, there are numerous practical, first order problems that must be worked out for us to fully appreciate what specific actions Utilitarianism requires of us, but these problems do not reflect on the stability of the metaethical position described above. That the hedonic calculus is difficult to apply says nothing about whether or not its calculations are correct. In the meantime, the most practical approach is to act in those ways that we believe will maximize happiness, trusting that we will be, for the most part, correct in our judgments. Edited by Postmodern Beatnik on 09/11/07 - 10:53 AM. Reason: historical note
"The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided." --Casey Stengel

Cadrache
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Posted 06/04/07 - 07:31 PM:	#2
And when the djinn, after countless eons, finds a God, or goddess that wishes the universe destroyed for she or he hears every thought in the universe and is unhappy because of this? The djinn must surely destroy the universe! Since the god or goddess is all that is left, and this god/goddess is now happy then this wish has been fullfilled. The requirement is to have only the end product of the wish to be in happiness.
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

Postmodern Beatnik
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Posted 06/04/07 - 07:55 PM:	#3
Presumably, a deity would not need the sprite/djinn to destroy the universe. It could destroy the universe on its own. Reagrdless, the tale of the sprite is only to demonstrate that happiness is the highest good. The sprite itself is not an instrument of the hedonic calculus. Besides, that a particular entity might desire the destruction of the universe is immaterial. For one thing, it is unclear that the fullfilment of said desire will actually result in the deity's maximal happiness. As such, if the deity asks for happiness, and not for the destruction of the universe, another outcome than the one you envision may result. For another thing, it is almost certainly the case that the destruction of the universe will not result in the overall maximal happiness possible. The happiness of a single being can be immoral if it requires the sacrifice of many others' happiness. Edited by Postmodern Beatnik on 09/11/07 - 11:21 AM. Reason: removed redundant note
"The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided." --Casey Stengel

Landlady
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Posted 06/04/07 - 08:24 PM:	#4
Pain is also considered as intrinsically bad. What if I, a sadistic megalomaniac, happen to stumble upon this magical sprite? It makes me immensely happy seeing thousands (no, make it millions) of people in the throes of pain and suffering. Should I still ask for my happiness and ignore the happiness of the multitude?
There is time to laugh and there is time not to laugh, and this is not one of them. - Insp. Clouseau. Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. - Frankl.

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Posted 06/04/07 - 10:02 PM:	#5
Landlady wrote: Pain is also considered as intrinsically bad. What if I, a sadistic megalomaniac, happen to stumble upon this magical sprite? It makes me immensely happy seeing thousands (no, make it millions) of people in the throes of pain and suffering. Should I still ask for my happiness and ignore the happiness of the multitude? There is no morality. If you felt that the pain of millons made you happy, you would call it right, and if everyone else disagreed with you, they would call it wrong. It is all a matter of personal opinion, which your position highlights clearly. There is no physical ubnit of morality that can be measured, so all we can used to judge morality are the numerous individual claims made by people who say things are right or wrong. Opinions that are not supported my any facts.
Nobody ever became a famous philosopher by being a champion of ecumenical hybridism Daniel Dennett Freedom Evolves

dclements
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Posted 06/05/07 - 06:47 AM:	#6
Postmodern Beatnik wrote: 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. John Stuart Mill wrote: It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied." Happiness is 'good' is a biased assumption. In order for your statement to be true you have to prove it which can not be done for moral statements with our current understanding of the world. All moral statements are opinions and can not proven true or false without a much higher level of understanding. Postmodern Beatnik 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. If I was this sprite I would put you into a coma where you spend the rest of your life in a dream where you know nothing but happiness.
No, you don't get it, thats why I'm telling you. You think you get it, which isn't the same as actually getting it. Get it?-Kakashi Hatake Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometimes by action dignified-Friar Lawrence The state of mind that questions is much more important than the question itself.Any question may be asked by a slavish mind, and the answer it receives will still be be within the limitations of its own slavery...Freedom of desire for an answer is essential for the understanding of a problem-Krishnamurti

Postmodern Beatnik
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Posted 06/05/07 - 07:01 AM:	#7
Landlady wrote: Pain is also considered as intrinsically bad. Not on this account. The above only finds pain bad if it does not maximize happiness. And while that is likely to be the case most of the time, there will be cases where pain will be necessary to maximize happiness. In such cases, pain is good. Landlady wrote: What if I, a sadistic megalomaniac, happen to stumble upon this magical sprite? Then you would probably make an immoral wish. But as I have already stated, the sprite is not an instrument of Utilitarianism. It is only a thought experiment meant to show the intrinsic goodness of happiness. Landlady wrote: It makes me immensely happy seeing thousands (no, make it millions) of people in the throes of pain and suffering. Should I still ask for my happiness and ignore the happiness of the multitude? Of course not. And again, nothing said above implies otherwise. The moral choice would be to ask the sprite to maximize happiness. But that is neither here nor there. The point of the thought experiment is to show that happiness is an intrinsic good. John Stuart Mill wrote: It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. Mill distinguishes between "happiness" and "contentment," and that is the context of this quote. (I believe the original comparison is between Socrates and a fool, though.) Regardless, I believe that Mill was wrong and that Bentham's "Pushpin is as good as an Opera" statement is more accurate. Mill was a brilliant philosopher, but he was unable to draw the right conclusions from his own premises. I suggest that this may be due to a certain snobbery on his part. He could not understand how someone might have different pleasures than his own, thinking his were objectively more pleasurable in the end. This, however, is false. Only happiness is objectively good. dclements wrote: Happiness is 'good' is a biased assumption. Apparently you haven't read the OP. I have already shown that happiness is intrinsically good. It is not an assumption at all. dclements wrote: If I was this sprite I would put you into a coma where you spend the rest of your life in a dream where you know nothing but happiness. Fantastic. I have no objection to that. Of course, many would not like that, so the sprite would either have to keep the truth from them or not follow this course of action. Otherwise, he would not be granting the wish. (See the works of J.J.C. Smart and J.L. Mackie for more on this kind of supposed objection. Particularly good is Mackie's "The Disutility of Act-Utilitarianism," in which he demonstrates that any objection against Utilitarianism based on the grounds that it entails we do something which does not maximize utility--and is thus internally inconsistent--is nonsensical. If something does not maximize utility, it cannot be recommended by Utilitarianism. Such an approach is necessarily a non-starter.) Edited by Postmodern Beatnik on 09/11/07 - 11:10 AM
"The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided." --Casey Stengel

Buddahchuck
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Posted 10/18/09 - 08:59 AM:	#8
PMB wrote: He could not understand how someone might have different pleasures than his own, thinking his were objectively more pleasurable in the end. This, however, is false. Only happiness is objectively good. Certainly we can understand that happiness is "objectively good", but I see obvious conflicts with accepting anything as "objective". As concerning good: while we may accept that good is an intrinsically relative term, and thus stating that we can have an objective truth about relative statements/entities, this fails to take into account that some people are simply incapable of happiness, or actually feel uneasy about being happy. It would be difficult for me to articulate this into any sort of metaphysical account, but in lieu of begging the thought problem, how can we truly be sure that "happiness" is the ultimate good for everybody? Perhaps those that are chronically depressed are so depressed because, for them, depression is a fact of life and the conditioning that would bring others to enjoying the facets of life actually brings others to avoiding them. Further, concerning the sprite, there seems a bit of a division between Utilitarianism in that once can be hedonistic, and then one can be Utilitarian. I hardly expect anyone to be as altruistic as to accept the problems of the world so that the world can be, on a greater scale than the individual, happy. But conversely, would this same person be able to accept his own personal happiness if the clever sprite simply lowered his IQ to 10. In this way, said individual would be able to enjoy having a piss in his pants and eating his own fecal matter. Perhaps this could turn into an identity problem as the average individual with the IQ of 110 making this wish would in no way be happy that the post-sprite individual was consuming bodily waste, whereas the Individual with the IQ of 10 would probably not even care what the pre-sprite individual thought. Even further, could the sprite change metaphysical laws? Could it, say, simply make it so that the world was one orgasmic collision of forces void of contemplation? If so, where does this sprite live, Scotland? If you say Siberia, I may just have to forgo the experience meeting this sprite. And finally, perhaps an alternate answer: pure being. I don't mean to put on the air of existentialist elitism, but it seems like happy without illusion is preferable to happy with illusion; so wouldn't it be more prudent to wish for something more like nirvana than simple happiness (which may or may not take the form of blissful ignorance)?

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Posted 10/18/09 - 09:16 AM:	#9
Oh, I almost forgot about morality (duh). 1) Can the individual making the wish really be held morally culpable for the actions of the sprite granting the wish? 2) What if the granting of the wish for happiness ultimately does end the Universe prematurely (I believe this was asked before, but in a strange way)? Would that mean that the person who asked the wish is then responsible for the destruction of the universe? Would that be a moral action? I suppose there is no real sanctity of life when applying the Greater happiness principle, though I would want to follow the transmutation line of thought. 3) Is wishing for happiness not just a long way to get to morality? Couldn't everyone simply wish for morality and by definition arrive at a moral wish?

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Posted 10/18/09 - 09:20 AM:	#10
Postmodern Beatnik wrote: 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. Why is happiness, and not sadness nor anything else, the only intrinsic good?

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