/lit/ - Literature

>doesn't understand how thought experiments work
stop making threads

>>17730928
Literature btw.

>>17730935
Fpbp

>>17730935
seethe

>>17730935
beat me to it

>>17730928
What's worse is that in a sense, utility monsters do exist. Humans are utility monsters compared to non-human animals, yet we take no issue with prioritizing the interests of the former over the latter. This is because utilitarianism is correct. Most thought experiments objecting to it seek to defamiliarize the reader to ethically natural situations and make them feel uncomfortable rather than actually presenting any cogent arguments against the core idea of utility as a value to be maximized.

>>17730935
If your thought experiment proves nothing besides what your gut reaction to something that doesn't and conceivably couldn't exist then it's not a good thought experiment

>consoom product, get excited for next product to consoom, forever
plebean ethics

>>17731020
I’m always disappointed to see these dumbass threads pop up every time I check /lit/ but the critical responses are often funny enough to make me think the dynamic as a whole is ultimately worth it

>>17730928
What an astonishingly garbage thread. The absolute fucking state of this board.

>>17731635
>anti-utilitarians have no argument
As usual

>>17731557
>conceivably couldn't exist
What are you basing this on?

Some people are more sensible than others.

>morality is objective

>>17732871
Utilitarianism was directly influenced by the writings of Hume lol

>>17732936
Clearly didn't read closely enough, since they do try to derive ought from is.

Just because it may be true that you desire happiness for most people or that most people desire happiness for themselves, it does not logically follow that there is a moral obligation to pursue that happiness. Rationalizing your emotional impetus doesn't close that gap.

>>17730928
the best argument against utilitarianism is that every method of calculating utility is quantitative and quantity is gay.
>>17730935
based

>>17730928
If I didn’t totally flush all of the knowledge I got in my ethics 101 class last semester I would fucking btfo you right now in intellectual debate, but alas I cannot.

>>17732980
>every method of calculating... is quantitative
I'm also anti-utilitarian, but that is a weird take.

>>17732974
There are categorical ethical facts tho lol

>>17730928
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oImjjYN-OFA

>>17734334
>white dude with a ponytail

pass

>>17730928
Why are utility monsters even bad? Pic related could be considered a utility monster, but I would gladly take it over my current existence.

>>17730935
>thought experiments are valid

atheism was a mistake

>>17734347
but that is your existence right now

>>17730928
Carlyle.

>>17734371

>>17734376

>>17734383

>>17734388

>>17734416

>>17734371
>>17734376
>>17734383
>>17734388
>>17734416
>>17734424
Just quote it anon

>>17730928
If that thing that is real wasn't real, everything would be arbitrary anyway, rendering this discussion pure nonsense.

>>17732974
>Just because it may be true that you desire happiness for most people or that most people desire happiness for themselves, it does not logically follow that there is a moral obligation to pursue that happiness.
It doesn’t need to. This just comports the best with our scientific understanding of the world, which is the modern foundation of epistemic authority.

>>17736427
>This just comports the best with our scientific understanding of the world
Being scientific doesn't imply caring about the greatest good for the most people, or anything essential to utilitarianism.

>>17736736
Utilitarianism is based in physical phenomena rather than abstract metaphysical notions and rationalizations. It also doesn’t rely on a single epistemic authority like a pope or a dictator as the highest arbiter of all ethical decision-making based on some quasi-divine right to be as such. Instead a system of agreed-upon standards and principles is referenced instead, which decentralizes the process.

Science operates this way as well and for good reason.

Modern ethics doesn't understand what is ethics is.

>>17736836
That isn't enough for something to be considered scientific.

>Instead a system of agreed-upon standards and principles is referenced instead, which decentralizes the process.
That is social construction. A completely physicalist ethical system could be construed in the same way about, say, the maximization of individual human beings or hamsters.

>>17734367
If that is my existence right now, why is my life so shit?

>>17736886
I didn’t say it was scientific, I said it comports the best with it.
You’re making your case from an a priori standpoint and that’s not what I’m talking about.

>>17736908
>I didn’t say it was scientific, I said it comports the best with it.
No, amoralism or social constructivist views of morality comport best with science, where science is understood to be entirelly physicalist as I guess from your posts. Since moral laws don't function as natural laws do.

>a priori standpoint
What is my a priori standpoint?

>>17731102
>This is because utilitarianism is correct.
No, it's b/c we are utility monsters and seek utility over objectivity. What a weird post, first you admit a fundamental fallibility and then suggest it is a proof of the opposite.

>>17736936
Utilitarianism can be entirely physicalist as well, which is part of the reason it comports so well. And we’re talking about from the standpoint of society where some system of norms needs to be in place.
Even if you’re going by mere empirical observation, we can see universally that societies have norms. There’s no AMORAL civilization, a civilization with no social norms.

>What is my a priori standpoint?
You’re arguing that utilitarianism doesn’t follow from science, but that’s not what I’m claiming anyway.
Think of utilitarianism as a numerical solution rather than an analytical one.

>>17730935
fpbp
utility monsters don't need to exist to be useful

>>17734376
>>17734416
Poo

>>17737061
Negative utilitarianism avoids the utility monster. It also avoids the thornier question of what actually makes people happy rather than suffer.

>>17736989
>Utilitarianism can be entirely physicalist as well, which is part of the reason it comports so well.
Any number of ethical systems can be entirely physicalist. And there are physical entities more quantizable than pleasure and pain, so utilitarianism doesn't even come ahead.

>And we’re talking about from the standpoint of society where some system of norms needs to be in place.
Even if you’re going by mere empirical observation, we can see universally that societies have norms. There’s no AMORAL civilization, a civilization with no social norms.
If we're taking the social constructivist route then, we can construe utilitarianism as being morally wrong. The goals of society and civilization are themselves a product of those and they aren't necessarily utilitarian goals. There is a general trend of convergence on goals like self-propagation, because groups are subjected to environmental selection same as individual organisms are. What has a greated fitness function depends on the particular point in time and space, and something that increases suffering in the long-run (like struggling to live) can have a positive fitness value. This is evidently true when we see evolved organisms suffer. If suffering didn't have a generally positive fitness function it wouldn't be such a widespread faculty. Though it is sensed as unpleasant, pain is usually a useful signal. Likewise, unpleasant aspects of society can be useful to maintain and propagate society, to approximate the usual goals societies have. So having utilitarianism, as a sytem of norms, in place can hurt society.

>>17731102
doesn't that mean utilitarianism is incorrect tho? we are applying it incorrectly if we're the utility monsters who can't properly conceive of the general utility calculus function.

it's only "correct" in the local domain of humans qua humans but not outside it, therefore it's incorrect.

>>17737135
>Any number of ethical systems can be entirely physicalist.
Such as?
I also said it was part of the reason, not the only one.

>If we're taking the social constructivist route then, we can construe utilitarianism as being morally wrong.
All social norms are socially constructed.
This is not unique to the ones which are a product of utilitarianism.

>What has a greated fitness function depends on the particular point in time and space, and something that increases suffering in the long-run (like struggling to live) can have a positive fitness value.
We’re not talking about fitness, we’re talking about ethics. People do unfit things all the time, but most people would agree locking someone in prison because they ate a cheeseburger would be unethical.

What’s fit for the physiology of the human body is very well understood. Suffering definitely isn’t one of those things. Suffering causes stress, actually, and is bad for your body.

People should have life experiences, but suffering in itself has no utility. It is a warning sign to avoid some stimulus.

> If suffering didn't have a generally positive fitness function it wouldn't be such a widespread faculty.
That doesn’t follow.
It’s a warning sign from evolution. The sign is helpful for alerting the organism to danger and to get away from it, but suffering in itself affords no benefit.

> Though it is sensed as unpleasant, pain is usually a useful signal.
To get away from danger. The pain in itself is not what’s good about it. You are conflating two different things.

>Likewise, unpleasant aspects of society can be useful to maintain and propagate society, to approximate the usual goals societies have. So having utilitarianism, as a sytem of norms, in place can hurt society.
I don’t follow this argument. If these things were good for society, then utilitarianism would actually endorse them. Just like a vaccine. The needle hurts, but it protects you from disease. Utilitarianists aren’t opposed to vaccination.

It doesn’t sound like your worldview is well-grounded in empiricism, no offense.

>>17737124
That's not true at all, suffering is full of subjectivity.

>>17737208

>What’s fit for the physiology of the human body is very well understood. Suffering definitely isn’t one of those things. Suffering causes stress, actually, and is bad for your body.

>People should have life experiences, but suffering in itself has no utility. It is a warning sign to avoid some stimulus.

Goddamnit Sam Harris

The first one is totally absolutely wrong. No, we do not understand physiology to the degree of detail you wish, not even close, not even to the point of universally applying heuristical arguments, let alone realizing any kind of utility function for physiological optimization (hilariously enough, I wonder what would be YOUR criteria for optimization? Longevity? Strength? Some bullshit term that accounts for everything you know and does not know at this time?).

The second one shows utilitarians are dangerously far away from actual analytical thinking using any sort of actual mathematical formalism (in spite of co-opting the language of utility functions for their sordid attempts at philosophy). Utility simply and utterly does not REQUIRE you to jump across the is/ought gap. That is, you are not even supposed to pretend a certain utility function has any predefined notion of what utility, IN GENERAL, ought to be.

To put it in terms that even Ben Shapiro would understand, you cannot claim all the examples you do in that post and single out "suffering" as a measure of what another, this time "universal", utility function might look like. It is all always conditioned to the relevant utility function to the given ethical system/event you are currently trying to model. "Suffering" has to be defined and its definition is always contingent on the remaining assumptions of the ethical system - a.k.a the very notion of utility does not imply "absolute", constant, or especially universal definitions. Or it would be like this if utilitarianism actually modelled anything, but of course, it doesn't.

>>17737264
Neurophysiological responses to pain and even symptoms of depression can be observed. That’s not to mention assumptions about base physiological states (the human body needs food and water to function, etc.).

>>17737301
None of that contradicts my statement. Furthermore it's possible to observe pleasure or happiness within the brain as well.

>>17737284
>No, we do not understand physiology to the degree of detail you wish, not even close, not even to the point of universally applying heuristical arguments, let alone realizing any kind of utility function for physiological optimization
You don’t need an approximation like that. Although I’m sure AI will get us closer to one.

>That is, you are not even supposed to pretend a certain utility function has any predefined notion of what utility, IN GENERAL, ought to be.
The human body dies without food. This has been observed countless times.
Somebody starving reports he’s in pain from a lack of food.
There are numerous physiological symptoms of stress that emerged once the individual started starving.

Sounds like an easy thing to determine to me. Easier than interpreting something an ancient carpenter once may have said anyway.

>the very notion of utility does not imply "absolute", constant, or especially universal definitions
It doesn’t need to. Like I said, it’s more like a numerical solution than an analytical one.

The AI will get us closer to an optimization of human ergonomics though, I’m sure.

>>17737321
>it's possible to observe pleasure or happiness within the brain as well.
I never said otherwise. It’s just easier to pick out pathology and dysfunction.

>>17731557
The utility monster can absolutely exist, and the "gut reaction" is a valid objection, since utilitarianism is also based on a mere intuition (namely that pain is bad - which is a claim that has never been grounded on an a priori foundation, but only on its unpleasantness).

>>17732936
Ok, but Hume wasn't an utilitarian. The ultimate moral criterion for him is the moral sentiment, not util calculus

>>17737208
>Such as?
Mohism would be a clear one. It uses much more objective metrics (number of people) than there are for pleasure and pain.

>This is not unique to the ones which are a product of utilitarianism.
Didn't say it was unique to utilitarianism, I'm arguing there is nothing uniquely adequate about utilitarianism.

>most people would agree locking someone in prison because they ate a cheeseburger would be unethical.
Most people throughout history would agree with slavery and torture.

>Suffering causes stress, actually, and is bad for your body.
Microlesions, ackshually, make your body stronger as it heals from them. But my point is below

>suffering in itself has no utility. It is a warning sign to avoid some stimulus.
You know that is what I meant by suffering. Suffering is the warning plus the whole behavior module triggered by it and all those things are useful. Wanting to avoid painful things is itself a function of pain and you don't have one without the other.

>If these things were good for society, then utilitarianism would actually endorse them.
If you define utilitarianism around the most good then it's tautological, circular logic.

What I mean is that things you'd probably oppose on utilitarian grounds can help society approximate it's own goals, which are not the same as your goals. Socities aren't necessarily about making most people happy or keeping people from feeling bad. Slave societies, for instance, value the happiness of non-slaves above the happiness of slaves. Pretty much every society valued the happiness of it's own members over the happiness of outsiders. And plenty of societies condoned asceticism and condemned hedonism.

I'm not sure what you mean by empiricism.

As I don't want to just be reactive I'll put up my own problem: Why take society's standpoint? Why take any standpoint over another?

>>17734347
That's not the utility monster, it's the pleasure room thought experiment (dont remember if this was the right name and i cant be bothered to check it), which was also treated by Nozick. The point isn't that everyone would choose or reject the room, rather it's that since it is concievable that someone might reject that option, it becomes clear that pleasure cannot be treated as the highest intrinsic good in the utilitarian perspective. Those who reject the room are doing so due to other intrinsic goods that are comparable to the one of pleasure.

>>17737406
>The Mohist ethical theory bears a similarity to rule utilitarianism, but is probably better characterized as “practice consequentialism” or, even more appropriately, “dao (way) consequentialism.” For the Mohists, as for other classical Chinese thinkers, the salient unit of human activity and the focus of ethical reflection is not individual acts but dao (way), a general notion referring to a way, style, or pattern of life or of performing some kind of activity. Dao may be very broad in scope, including practices, institutions, and traditions, along with the rules, techniques, styles, attitudes, and dispositions associated with them. Since, as a way of life, a dao includes dispositions, and thus virtues, Mohist consequentialism incorporates some of the characteristics of motive consequentialism.
So it’s utilitarianism mixed with some metaphysics about dao.
It lacks the physicalism I mentioned earlier.

> Didn't say it was unique to utilitarianism, I'm arguing there is nothing uniquely adequate about utilitarianism
It’s more adequate in a scientific society than anything else. No, it probably wouldn’t be adequate in a pre-literate tribe from the past.

> Most people throughout history would agree with slavery and torture.
You’re comparing slavery and torture to eating a cheeseburger?

> Microlesions, ackshually, make your body stronger as it heals from them.
But it’s not the pain itself that’s good, that’s my point.

> Suffering is the warning plus the whole behavior module triggered by it and all those things are useful. Wanting to avoid painful things is itself a function of pain and you don't have one without the other.
No, I would not necessarily include that in suffering.
And you can avoid a rattle snake before it bites you, so avoiding painful things is not necessarily a function of pain either.

> If you define utilitarianism around the most good then it's tautological, circular logic.
You define it based on what would produce the most happiness. Preventative measures like a vaccine would increase happiness by reducing the potential for a disease.

> What I mean is that things you'd probably oppose on utilitarian grounds can help society approximate it's own goals
Such as?

> I'm not sure what you mean by empiricism.
I definitely don’t mean the popsci factoids and mathematical language you tried to shoehorn in this time.

> Why take society's standpoint? Why take any standpoint over another?
I have no idea what you’re asking.

>>17737419
A psychological hedonist would say the person would reject it because he would know it’s fake, hence diminishing the pleasure of it.

Every decision can be framed as a way of maximizing happiness,
But yes, negative utilitarianism such as consequentialism avoids silly thought experiments like this very easily.

>>17737360
Our ability to measure something is independent of the significance of that something. A world without microscopes still has bacteria.

>>17737618
Sure, and avoidance of suffering is arguably the prime mover of all human activity. It’s at the very least a significant thing in anyone’s life and seems natural to craft an ethical system around.
But even still, the invention of microscopes modified our behavior and changed how we all saw the world (and avoided the suffering caused by disease).

All ethical systems are Utilitarian though. That's the part you don't get.

>>17730935
Based

>>17737615
>Every decision can be framed as a way of maximizing happiness

People should refrain from this tautology. I believe the majority of human action is egoistic -- in a group/society, it's generally mutually-beneficial egoism -- but I recognize the existence of altruism, just that's it's rare and begs the question.

>>17737667
> It’s at the very least a significant thing in anyone’s life and seems natural to craft an ethical system around.
But even still, the invention of microscopes modified our behavior and changed how we all saw the world (and avoided the suffering caused by disease).
Fair enough.

>Sure, and avoidance of suffering is arguably the prime mover of all human activity.
I don't agree at all. People aren't that rational, even if they effectively understood their suffering (they don't) they also don't know and don't act according to such knowledge how to mitigate it. I'd sooner say avoidance of suffering is the simplest mover of human activity, rather than the prime. That is to say, it might be fundamental, but it isn't the major in terms of cause or incentive.

>>17737801
>>17737801
I’m talking about psychological hedonism.
You can be a hedonist without being a utilitarian and vice-versa. I’m not sure what makes it a tautology though.
>I believe the majority of human action is egoistic
Then you’d probably find psychological hedonist an easy leap to make.

>>17737847
>even if they effectively understood their suffering (they don't) they also don't know and don't act according to such knowledge how to mitigate it.
You don’t need to understand it or know how to mitigate it for it to motivate you somehow.

>it might be fundamental, but it isn't the major in terms of cause or incentive
I don’t really have a strong opinion on it. It seems like a likely candidate though at the very least.

>>17737615
Even if it is diminished, it is still far greater than any pleasure you can experience in your life (according to the hypothesis). So, the fact that it being fake is relevant refutes the utilitarian stance for which pleasure is the highest intrinsic good.

>>17730928
The simplest counterexample for utilitarianism is gang-rape. 5 people get intense pleasure at the expense of 1's intense suffering, and global utility is increased. Most people would say that gang-rape is immoral, but I would assume that you're a true utilitarian and see nothing wrong with this picture.
Now a small scale utility monster would be me. The act of me raping you would condense the total pleasure of the 5 gang rapists into one being - me. Thus I as a singular being get more utility from raping you than you lose from being raped. This makes me a utility monster, albeit on a smaller scale.
Are you going to tell me that I don't exist?

>>17737493
>So it’s utilitarianism mixed with some metaphysics about dao.
Mozi's dao is no more metaphysical than "the greater good". It's just his notion of what comes naturally, like hedonic calculation to utilitarians.

You could also make up a more striped-down system like I mentioned before: maximizing humans or maximizing hamsters. Why not make those ethical cores? Why isn't the paper-clip maximizer ethical?

>It’s more adequate in a scientific society than anything else.
As above.

>You’re comparing slavery and torture to eating a cheeseburger?
Yes. And considering there were predominantely vegetarian societies that practiced slavery, there were millions of people (pre-colonization hindus) who would've argued eating cheeseburgers was a worse crime than slavery. And they'd be right within their societal frameworks as much as you'd right to tell them they were wrong within a framework of your choosing.

>No, I would not necessarily include that in suffering. And you can avoid a rattle snake before it bites you, so avoiding painful things is not necessarily a function of pain either.
Fear is within suffering. It produces avoidance behavior against the anxiogenic stimuli. Humans do it even without feeling fear of snakes themselves because we relate snakes to our fears of being hurt. Without unpleasantness there is no impetus to avoid unpleasantness. We care about avoiding suffering because we are sufferers; suffering would otherwise have no valence. It's like how creatures without curiosity can't get bored.

>You define it based on what would produce the most happiness.
>Such as.
Such as when societies practice slavery because a group within those societies can use the productivity of slave labor to expand and protect those societies. Because the group has a vested in interest in expanding and protecting that society, the goals of that society are more closely aligned with those of that group than with the goals of most individuals. And even if you say that for other groups within that society it is right to rise up, and I'd agree that would likely be a goal those groups would tend to converge on, within those groups you'd find subgroups and individuals that would prioritize their own advancement or security than the advancement or security of greater groups, which would decourage them from risking themselves for the greater group and upturning societal order, and that following those goals would be no more or less arbitrary than following the goals of the class or of the greater society.

>popsci factoids and mathematical language you tried to shoehorn in this time.
Bro, you were throwing out numerical solution and analytic solution

>I have no idea what you’re asking.
I'm asking you for your metaethics. You admit morality is socially construed, but you treat your opinion on what should be the organizing principle (happiness maximization) for that construction as if it were a natural law.

Utilitarianism:

Killing somebody and fucking the corpse before disposing of the body is moraly preferable to just killing somebdoy and disposing of the body, because more pleasure is brought into being in the first case without more pain being caused than in the second case. Because corpses don't feel and if the corpse isn't discovered the matter can't offend anybody.