defend the indefensible: utilitarianism

As paths towards happiness

Utilitarianism is first and foremost a theory about what makes things morally good/bad/right/wrong. Anyone who accepts a utilitarian position on that question is a utilitarian, regardless of how they actually conduct themselves as a moral agent. A person can fail to live up to their theoretical commitments, as we all know.

Most utilitarians do want to live up to their commitments though. There's a common caricature of how this is supposed to work, which is that it involves pausing to make impersonal utility calculations before every decision.

I don't think this caricature is accurate, though. I think a committed utilitarian can recognize that thinking carefully about the foreseeable consequences of actions is not always the right approach from a utilitarian perspective. There isn't always time for it, and even when there is, it can be hurtful to treat people in your life in this detached sort of way. I think a utilitarian can respond to this predicament by seeking to develop qualities of character that would be conducive to utility in these situations. Like a reflexive tendency toward compassion, for example.

This doesn't make someone any less of a utilitarian, since it's done for utilitarian reasons, in accordance with utilitarian theoretical commitments. I don't think this person is "living by the utility principle" any less for taking this approach. I also don't think they're allowing their moral sense to "outweigh their utility function". And I think taking this approach is highly desirable.

i think the issue is how it can have a stance toward those [thick ethical] concepts which is both principled and pre-theoretically, ethically acceptable

It can't. Every normative theory revises pre-theoretical judgments to some extent. That's a big part of what makes them interesting. And they probably need to, or else contradict themselves.

The utilitarian idea seems to be that since, definitionally, a world where utility is k+ε is better than a world where utility is k, therefore we must all necessarily act in such a way where we choose the former world over the latter.

But that therefore doesn't convince me. I might be misrepresenting the game here, but if I am, I'd like to know how it actually goes.

I think you are misinterpreting the game. All that follows from that premise is that utility is one thing of moral value.

But your interpretation doesn't give us any idea of how to live!

I don't think that's true. It doesn't give you a decision procedure for every situation, but it shouldn't. Life is too complicated for that. It does, however, give you a specific idea of what you should be aiming for. And this does, arguably, have some radical consequences. Singer is famous for some of these--about the use of animal products, about euthanasia, and about giving to charity, for example.

I also think focusing on utility offers a valuable, clarifying perspective on lots of issues. Take discussions about rape jokes, for example. Feminists tend to make utilitarian-type arguments on this subject, pointing out that rape jokes promote real emotional and physical harm. The arguments from the other side, however, tend to be about how unjust it is to expect comedians to be considerate, how this would infringe on their rights and on the very nature of the art form, and so on. I think utilitarianism helps you to see that, aside from often being confused or disingenuous, these arguments invoke considerations that are of no intrinsic standing. Which in turn helps you to see that the pro-rape-humor camp is just looking to rhetorically justify its enjoyment of hurting people.

surely a proper utilitarian should be working towards a world in which no-one wants to be selfish, rather than contradictorily trying to shoehorn selfishness into their theory?

I think a utilitarian can work towards a world in which no one wants to be selfish while acknowledging that selfish desires exist and need to be taken into account. Can you explain why you think this is contradictory?

Sorry if I missed someone's point, it's hard to keep all the objections straight.

What's better than happiness, though? Or to put it another way, if all suffering was removed, what would the loss be that outweighed the gain?

what if there were no suffering, no learning, no art, no beauty, no love, no friendship, no music, no science, no knowledge...

Again, in service of what though?

Are those things only valuable insofar as they produce happiness? Would a full of zombie-like humans 100% blissed out through having their pleasure centres directly stimulated be just as good as one full of humans leading happy, loving, enriched, artistic, enlightened lives?

Ah sure it depends on yr perspective i guess, we're all different and you cant please everyone!

but what if you could...

xxp i think the broad (and empirically supported) consensus of what happiness is includes emotions like excitement, curiosity, and passionate interpersonal connectedness. there's so much sci fi that warns us about a progression towards a completely opiated existence, but the objection being raised therein isn't actually that happiness isn't the most important thing worth pursuing: it's rather that an opiated existence wouldn't really make people happy in the long run, because it doesn't allow for those aforementioned emotions. if on some level that's a semantic distinction between "narrow-minded" and "broad-minded" happiness, it also has tangible consequences when people come to elide the two. like when people focus on their distrust of the opiated, shallow, short term kind of happiness--the kind ledge is talking about--they often throw out the broader definition with it, rationalized by other pursuits--esp. "ambition," careerist, artistic, or otherwise--that research suggests are not very important for a long term kind of happiness.

most objections to utilitarianism follow the same line of analysis: "utilitarianism is so macro-minded that it leads to horrible things being done to a group of people just because that group of people is relatively small." but you don't have to object to those situations from a non-utilitarian framework! that situation probably represents a false economy in the conclusion reached by utilitarian reasoning--one that doesn't account for people's values of freedom and non-intervention. "the most good for the most people" seems p innocuous to me, but the more difficult, nuanced, important work is figuring out what "good" actually means.

admittedly i haven't read through this thread completely, so sorry if i'm strawmanning (or repeating an argument that's already been made)!

http://blog.givewell.org/2013/11/26/change-in-against-malaria-foundation-recommendation-status-room-for-more-funding-related/

love when utilitarians refer to 'humans' (in the comments)

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/24/8457895/givewell-open-philanthropy-charity

I realize it might be a bit contradictory that I think Peter Singer is just horribly wrong and Nick Bostrom is enjoyable but Peter Singer clearly believes his own dumb conclusions whereas Nick Bostrom could plausibly just be fooling around. Though given Bostrom's involvement with the lesswrong crew that's maybe doubtful.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/06/what-is-the-greatest-good/395768/?utm_source=nextdraft&utm_medium=email

EA is like catnip for technocratic current-moment thinkpiecers

http://bostonreview.net/world/emily-clough-effective-altruism-ngos

Broadening the scope of what effective altruists deem the “best available evidence” is a good start. But from a consequentialist standpoint, it is not enough for effective altruists to simply tweak their approach to RCT design. They must contend with the fact that the state remains the primary provider of basic social welfare for most poor citizens in most poor countries, and that pumping money into a parallel set of providers—even good ones—without a plan for reaching the coverage or scale of a state may do serious harm to the poor who are left in the state system.

The politics of state service provision for the poor is a messy business. The simplest thing for far-away philanthropists is to simply sidestep politics and fund programs that appear, on the surface, to be positioned outside the political arena. But it is clear that this neat separation between civil society and the state is a fiction. If the movement is to meet its own consequentialist standards, its leaders and philosophers must make room for the state and for the politics of service provision among its calculations for identifying recipients for its aid.

christianity for managers

― j., Friday, August 2, 2013 2:55 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

marry me

I slept on that tbh

recently finally read a couple things on moral antirealism; turns out I'm probably a moral error theorist

They must contend with the fact that the state remains the primary provider of basic social welfare for most poor citizens in most poor countries

is this is true? i was under the impression that states in poor countries were uh poor and didn't have much $ for social welfare programs

J-PAL are doing god's work imo

RCTs only capture a narrow view of impact. While they are good at measuring the proximate effects of a program on its immediate target subjects, RCTs are bad at detecting any unintended effects of a program, especially those effects that fall outside the population or timeframe that the organization or researchers had in mind. For example, an RCT might determine whether a bed net distribution program lowered the incidence of malaria among its target population. But it would be less likely to capture whether the program unintentionally demobilized political pressures on the government to build a more effective malaria eradication program, one that would ultimately affect more people.

this reads as grossly cynical to me. are the "political pressures" it is demobilizing people dying from malaria?

http://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9124145/effective-altruism-global-ai

I identify as an effective altruist: I think it's important to do good with your life, and doing as much good as possible is a noble goal. I even think AI risk is a real challenge worth addressing. But speaking as a white male nerd on the autism spectrum, effective altruism can't just be for white male nerds on the autism spectrum. Declaring that global poverty is a "rounding error" and everyone really ought to be doing computer science research is a great way to ensure that the movement remains dangerously homogenous and, ultimately, irrelevant.

lol i peeped a facebook comment today from a onetime student of mine who went on to move in elite academic circles and became an EA mover/shaker, and it did the exact same thing - downplayed every single potential catastrophic threat to human existence EXCEPT POSSIBLY THE HOSTILE AI

these dorks and their ~rationality~ smh

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/2015-06-16/plunder-africa?cid=soc-tw-rdr

For those who insist that foreign aid to Africa compensates for the role that rich countries, big businesses, and international organizations play in plundering the continent’s resource wealth, Burgis has a ready rejoinder. “In 2010,” he writes, “fuel and mineral exports from Africa were worth $333 billion, more than seven times the value of the aid that went in the opposite direction.” And African countries generally receive only a small fraction of the value that their extractive industries produce, at least relative to the sums that states in other parts of the world earn from their resources. As Burgis reveals, that is because multilateral financial institutions, led by the World Bank and its International Finance Corporation (IFC), often put intense pressure on African countries to accept tiny royalties on the sales of their natural resources, warning them that otherwise, they will be labeled as “resource nationalists” and shunned by foreign investors. “The result,” Burgis writes, “is like an inverted auction, in which poor countries compete to sell the family silver at the lowest price.”

Man, I keep saying I need to get a foreign affairs subscription.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/peter-singer-charity-effective-altruism/

Rather than asking how individual consumers can guarantee the basic sustenance of millions of people, we should be questioning an economic system that only halts misery and starvation if it is profitable. Rather than solely creating an individualized “culture of giving,” we should be challenging capitalism’s institutionalized taking.

oh god... don't give money to poor people, abolish capitalism! is almost self parody

otm

imo

they're both wrong probably

I mean the Jacobin critique doesn't even entertain the EA/preference utilitarian argument on its own terms so it's kinda useless, I mean like

Effective Altruists gloss over important social relations, obscuring the morality (and efficacy) of giving to charity, or commanding others to do so, in the first place.

this is just ignoring the consequentialist premise instead of attacking it, "obscuring the morality" is meaningless, Singer makes specific claims about what is moral, viz., it is moral to do things that reduce the suffering of other beings and to not do them is immoral.

The reason Singer is wrong is because consequentialism is wrong, not because his ethics don't direct him towards the overthrow of capital (whatever that's supposed to look like)

^yes agree

perhaps the argument takes the form it does because it's meant to address the utilitarian position re doing the most good

Well in that case it's still ridiculous because "doing the most good" is a vacuous idea. Like whatever reason. I mean it's not wrong that resources, human energy, and (lol) capital are limited and people effectively altruizing might not have time or inclination to overthrow capital. Jacobin's Official Premises always just seem hilarious to me as an outsider I guess.

haha for a vacuous idea it is proving surprisingly rhetorically effective at converting a bunch of college educated randos with disposable income

college educated randos are susceptible to some dumb ideas (cf. fascism, etc)

like of course lawyers, bankers, and programmers are gonna fall in for the social project that flatters their "rationality"

If I.E. is a dumb idea, it must be one of the most beneficial dumb ideas ever!

actually silby i was thinking that EA's vogue among my philosophy-teaching friends might have something to do with their burning shame/need to feel effective (teach a student to fish kind of thing)

Haha, jeez, I meant E.A. in my post of course. (Where did I get I.E. from?)

Ineffective egoism?

it is moral to do things that reduce the suffering of other beings and to not do them is immoral.

a strictly utilitarian approach to the reduction of suffering in others will do some marginal good, but it is almost bound to have consequences less effective than what one imagined and the good effects will likely come mixed with unintended consequences that merely substitute another kind of suffering for the suffering one was looking to reduce.

it's not worthless, for example, to provide clean drinking water to a village that lacked it. this charitable act should have benefits one can see and quantify in terms of improved health in that village, and most people would agree that improved health is good in and of itself. but suffering is far more complex than good or bad health, pain or lack of pain, hunger or satiety, and its source will not be touched by providing someone with clean water. so, if you make reducing others' suffering the touchstone of your morality, you'd better be prepared to think about the source of suffering more deeply than Effective Altruism or utilitarianism does, or you'll just be engaged in a Sisyphean task.

The observation that many efforts to reduce suffering will be less effective than expected, or will have unintended consequences, is consistent with utilitarianism.

I don't know how to respond to the second part because I don't know what you think utilitarianism says about the sources of suffering.

actually silby i was thinking that EA's vogue among my philosophy-teaching friends might have something to do with their burning shame/need to feel effective (teach a student to fish kind of thing)

― j., Tuesday, August 25, 2015 8:12 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

are they not able to soothe themselves with "teaching people how to think critically and systematically" anymore? bc like joking aside I think that's maybe a real thing and a totally reasonable reason to teach analytic philosophy. Though as Jacobin ably demonstrates it's not like Anglo-American analytic thinking will fly in every sphere. (I'm tired and talking out my butt but utilitarianism makes me angry).

no, i think that economic pressures within academia are disillusioning them about that - if it was ever real, and enough, it's not now, so they need to have a credible sale to make to institutions/students that they can deliver the change we so ardently need

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/08/heres-why-no-one-cares-about-modern-philosophy

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2015/08/so-much-for-trying-to-bring-philosophy-to-the-public.html

gawd reading through this and masochistically skimming through tannsjo's 'understanding ethics' book makes me embarrassed to have any association with the thing called 'philosophy'

lol 'If I were feeling generous, I would describe the response as pathetically stupid.' our main PR guy folx

Imagine for a second that the Genesis story is actually true. Under the actualist view, Adam and Eve could have morally refrained from having children, even if, had they decided differently, billions of billions of happy persons would have been around!

Can't actualism make an exception for cases where you're the anointed progenitor of all mankind?

billions of billions of happy persons

nb: this is not an actual number

yes it is, it's quintillions

The reason Singer is wrong is because consequentialism is wrong...

― go hang a salami I'm a canal, adam (silby), Tuesday, August 25, 2015 8:47 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i never studied philosophy and would actually like to know what this means

here's the flopson defence of utilitarianism, plz tell me why its wrong

- quantities we care about in moral considerations are denoted in different units

- for example: having money makes me feel good, and having free time to do nothing also makes me feel good

- if you wanted to determine whether i was better off in two different states in the world, one in which i worked 12 hours a day and had lots of money, and one in which i worked 8 hours a day, had less money but more free time, you can't just do that by comparing money OR free time. if you do it comparing only money, the best world would be one where i work every waking hour. if you do it comparing only free time, the best world is one in which i sit on my ass all day. despite liking both things, i don't like either of those worlds

- the solution is to define some mapping (norm or ordering) from a 2-dimensional money-free time space to a 1-dimensional space... hey, why don't we call it utility? B-)

i don't see how you can make a moral statement in the context where you have quantities measured in different units without implicitly using utilitarianism.. but curious to find out