Zulu

As an aside, from the little pyschology that I've read it appears as though hedonistic lifestyles do not result in greater happiness, ironically enough.

-Zulu

Secular Pinoy

I'm personally interested with the idea of rule utilitarianism.

Alonzo Fyfe

Desire utilitarianism conveniently deals with what is considered to be a significant objection to rule utilitarianism -- that nothing prevents rule utilitarianism from collapsing into act utilitarianism.

Rule utilitarianism states that the right act is that act which conforms to the best rules, that the best rules are those which produce the best consequences, and that ultimately the best consequences are what is important.

But what happens when the act that is in accordance with the best rules does not produce the best consequences? Since ultimate importance is in producing the best conseqeunces, then in these circumstances we should ignore the rule and perform the best action.

That is to say, rule-utilitarianism collapses into act-utilitarnianism. The only way around this is to say that acts done in accordance to rules has some sort of value independent of conseqeunces, but if value independent of consequences can exist then why measure rules by their consequences? Perhaps rules too can have value independent of consequences.

Desire utilitarianism (mixed with a little bit of compatibilism), on the other hand, cannot collapse into act-utilitarianism the way that rule-utilitarianism does.

Why?

"Ought implies can" is a central principle of moral philosophy. The claim "you ought to cure cancer with a snap of your fingers" can be rejected because to say that you "ought" to do something implies that you "can" do it. Because it is not the case that you "can" cure cancer with the snap of your fingers, it makes no sense to say that you "ought" to do so.

Now, let us look at the rule-utilitarnianism, act-utilitarianism problem, where an act that breaks the rules has better consequences than the act that follows the rules. However, let us now say that the rules are coded into the brain in such a way that an act in violation of the rules is simply not causally possible. Ought implies can, and since under this assumption it is not the case that a person can break the rules, it is not the case that he ought to. Thus, it is no longer the case that he ought to have performed the act-utilitarian alterantive to the rule-utilitarian best action.

Desires are rules encoded in the brain that do not allow for exceptions, so they do not allow for the collapse to act-utilitarianism. A desire may be outweighed by a greater concern suggesting a different act, but it is still present, still looking for its own opportunity to exercise an influence on a person's action.

As it turns out, these are exactly the arguments I cover in Part VII and Part VIII of the Ethics Without God series that I am posting in one of the other forums. Look there, particularly in Part VIII, if you want to see this argument covered in more detail.

Sarpedon

The problem with thought experiments is that they often turn into straw-man arguments because the arguer chooses to construct a faulty analogy. In your experiment, alonzo, how could a mother choose an option that would make her believe that her son is being tortured, but is actually prosperous? The situation is so utterly absurd as to be useless for rational inquiry. The parent will always choose what they believe will be best. A person can be tricked, but they can't choose to be tricked.



Hedonism is not a complete theory. It was made at a time of imperfect understanding of the human mind and motivations. It is much like Darwin's theory of natural selection before the knowledge of genetics. It is not incorrect, merely because it is incomplete. It is typical for dogmatic persons to dismiss incomplete theories as being useless, while they themselves hold beliefs that are even less well grounded. These theories are still useful, and can be informed by our greater present knowledge.

What if we changed the word "pleasure" to "good". So that all is judged as proportional goods and bad? Gain in the long run being worth certain renunciation. That is what utilitarianism is all about. Your equating it with hedonism seems strange.

Alonzo Fyfe

We live our lives with "thought experiments". Virtually every choice we make (if not every choice in fact) is based on thought experiments. They generally cause us no trouble.


Make something up, it does not matter. Hypnotism. Microsurgery on the neural connections in the brain. It does not matter. All that matters is the assumption that the hypothetical is true, "if at time t I select option O, then at time t + n I will believe P with certainty." How this happens is completely irrelevant.


This is not a defense. It does not good, in defending Newtonian physics against Einsteinian physics to say that Newtonian physics is an incomplete theory that has not worked out all the details, not if Einsteinian physics actually does a better job of explaining and predicting observable phenomena.

BDI (Belief - Desire - Intention) theory does a far better job than hedonism at explaining observable behavior. My "thought experiment" is simply an illustration of something that can, with sufficient attention to detail, be easily demonstrated when applied to observable behavior. It plays the same role that a calculation involving frictionless pullies and massless strings has in illustrating the principles of physics.

The fact that frictionless pullies and massless strings do not exist is no objection to the standard practice of using "thought experiments" involving frictionless pullies and massless strings in order to illustrate the principles of physics.

Hedonism, like neutonian physics, was not a bad first guess of a bygone era, but we have moved far beyond these theories today.

nermal

Neither does it see anything wrong with imposing a MAJOR sacrifice on a group of people in order to obtain a minor benefit for a different group, so long as the first group is sufficiently small, and the second group sufficiently large. This is why I reject Utilitarianism outright.

Ed

Alonzo Fyfe

Three points of response.

(1) As a general reaction to utilitarianism, this type of rejection requires postulating some sort of intrinsic value property -- some sort of strange metaphysical entity that makes it the case that some sorts of actions have value independent of their consequences -- a metaphysical "ought to be doneness" that exists independent of desire. Postulating the existence of such an entity requires a stronger argument than, "I want this type of entity to exist."

Or, the person raising the objection is simply asserting his own desire in such a way that he is saying, "I want this, and imposing a large cumulative cost on other people is not irrelevant, as long as I get what I want."


(2) Desire-utilitarianism avoids these types of objections substantially by focusing on what a person should want, rather than what a person should do. A good desire is that desire which is compatible with the fulfillment of other desires that exist in society; a bad desire is in conflict with the desires of others. The desire to find a cure for cancer is good, the desire to torture and kill is bad. And no value exists independent of desire.

The desire-utilitarian looks at this conflict you described as a conflict of desires. A likely description is that there is a conflict between a widespread but weak desire and a very uncommon but strong desire. The way to counter this conflict is to discourage the development, through socialization, of the more easily changed desire (probably the widespread but weak desire, but not necessarily so). Thus, eliminate (or reduce) the conflict and reduce the need for sacrifice of any type.


(3) Instances of widespread but minor benefit matched with localized but significant costs are actually quite common, if you look. We have industries that produce minor benefit to a large number of customers, but which release carcinogens that increase the chance of extreme suffering and death in a few people by a very small percentage. We have a highway system that provides people with a small benefit, at the cost of at least 20,000 lives per year. We could, if we wanted to, outlaw candy and use the money in diabetes research, or outlaw restaurants and use the money to feed the starving. Yet, people generally are quite comfortable with the idea at allowing these minor but widespread benefits even where we could, instead, by working to reduce more localized but very significant costs.

nermal

Point 1. Doesn't Utilitarianism pose some axiomatic intrinsic value property also? Can you prove that "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" is best without circularity?

Point 2. Your "desire-utilitarianism" seems to me like a modified Kantian ethical system "act in such a way as you would desire all others to act." I can't argue with that. I subscribe to Kantian ethics.

Point 3. The highway system is a small benifit? I would argue it saves more lives than it costs, by a very large margin.
Re: the candy and restaurant examples. This is not a zero sum game. If you eliminated these industries, would you really have the money they take in to spend on the stated humanitarian ends? I think not.

In any event, the thread opened asking about Utilitarianism, not desire-utilitarianism. My criticism of capital U Utilitarianism is relevent. If not address it specifically.

I liked your mother in prison example. It put me in mind of another hypothetical analogy:

An "evil" scientist discovers that if you extract a sufficiently large but nonlethal blood sample from a torture victim at precisely the right moment in his torment, it contains a nonsynthesizable hormone mix which cures Aids. Before a subject dies from repeated torture/extraction, he produces enough serum to cure,oh, pick a really big number, of people.
What does capital U Utilitarianism have to say of this? I will admit to ignorance, but my understanding is that you could find no basis in Utilitarianism for saying the utilization of a small population of people (let's pick the homeless, shall we?) to the elimination of Aids is unethical. In fact, I think Utilitarianism would say it is unethical to do otherwise.

Thoughts?

Ed

Alonzo Fyfe

Most do, but it is not required. Those that do, I reject on that basis alone. There is even an intrinsic-value version of desire utilitarianism, but that is not the version I am defending.


You are talking about eudaemonistic utilitarianism. This is one version that uses an axiomatic intrinsic value, and a version that I reject. So, I am not interested in proving it.

Also, can you prove that E=MC^2 is true without circularity? Or "survival of the fittest" is true without circularity? The basic statement of any scientific theory is circular -- no term in a science can be defined except in reference to other terms which, themselves, are defined by reference back to the original terms.

But it is called a virtuous circle, as opposed to a vicious circle. It is proved by how well the theory as a whole predicts and explains observable phenomena.


To give credit where credit is due, you will find a presentation of Motive Utilitarianism theory in the Journal of Philosophy (1976) article by Robert Adams. Also, I think that it provides the best interpretation of Mill's "Utilitarianism". I add a lot of details though that are my own work.

It is not fully Kantian, because Kantian categorical imperatives are another form of "intrinsic value" and intrinsic value does not exist.

However, the ultimate hypothetical imperative (value relative to all desires) does share some of the traits that Kant wants to attribute to his categorical imperative without the intrinsic value elements, so I think there is some area of common ground between them.


The utilitarian would say that you first want to begin by asking for volunteers -- there is no reason to force people into this as long as volunteers are available. You would take your volunteers from people who are suffering anyway -- people with incurable and painful diseases such as pancreatic cancer. To whatever degree possible, you would not increase in suffering but harvest the consequences of the suffering nature imposes upon him. These people (or their decendents) would be offered a great deal of compensation for their efforts and sacrifice, and we would honor them as heros for their sacrifice. Given these conditions, I do not see what the problem is.

nermal