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By Poelmo
#14265721
Potemkin wrote:And the good of society as a whole is not necessarily identical to the good of the individual members of that society. For example, the Industrial Revolution transformed British society and vastly expanded its forces of production, yet at the same time (and necessarily) it immiserated the majority of the population.


This is precisely the problem: why would you say the industrial revolution was a good thing if it immiserated the majority of the population? Do you count the happiness of generations that come after the industrial revolution, if so, you still care about the majority (you just increased the sample size)

Eran wrote:How do you compare, aggregate, add, subtract, measure or quantify happiness? Without being able to do the above, how can you work your way from the happiness of individuals to the "greater good"?


I prefer the thought experiment I mentioned above (placing yourself in the POV of the unborn). Satisfaction can be gauged through democratic means (one (wo)man, one vote prevents a utility monster from manipulating a democratic election), studying human nature and having a high level of personal freedoms helps a lot. But to be honest I'm content with having a society that doesn't base everything it does on a single principle: human nature isn't that simple.
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By Potemkin
#14265725
This is precisely the problem: why would you say the industrial revolution was a good thing if it immiserated the majority of the population? Do you count the happiness of generations that come after the industrial revolution, if so, you still care about the majority (you just increased the sample size)

Future generations don't exist. The only majority whose interests we can or should take into account is an actual, existing majority. And, as I pointed out, the interests of that majority and the interests of society as a whole are not necessarily the same. For example, it is in the interests of the majority (considered as individuals) for the state to stop spending money on the nation's armed forces and just give it as a free handout to its citizens. Would this be in the interests of that society as a whole?

I prefer the thought experiment I mentioned above (placing yourself in the POV of the unborn). Satisfaction can be gauged through democratic means (one (wo)man, one vote prevents a utility monster from manipulating a democratic election), studying human nature and having a high level of personal freedoms helps a lot. But to be honest I'm content with having a society that doesn't base everything it does on a single principle: human nature isn't that simple.

This is an essentially liberal, Rawlesian position. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it has little to do with utilitarianism or libertarianism (or even Marxism or fascism, for that matter).
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By emmitt
#14265731
Poelmo wrote:This is why, there's nothing irrational about listening to your own emotional response in this case.

I think you might be confusing descriptive ethics with normative ethics. Normative ethics should always strive to be intersubjectively ascertainable to a certain degree. If you only rely on ad-hoc rationalizations of your emotional response, it's entirely pointless to argue about it. And I'd say you'd be just doing descriptive ethics.

There's nothing with descriptive ethics but if you want intersubjectively ascertainable results, you should try to use reason (even if that means you'll end up with a conclusion you don't find appealing).

The inability to use quantitative measures for happiness does not preclude the use of qualitative ones.

Quantitative research methods are used to find out about people's subjective well-being. If you only used qualitative methods, you'd be doing interviews which would be analyzed afterwards. But that's not the way it's done (most of the time).
(You could use grounded theory or something else to analyze your interviews.)
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By Eran
#14265734
Fasces wrote:The inability to use quantitative measures for happiness does not preclude the use of qualitative ones. Not every inquiry has to be rooted in positivist theories of knowledge, and when it comes to describing human societies, to expect that is absurd.

I agree. In fact, Austrian Economics is very clearly in agreement with your point. It routinely rejects positivist theories of knowledge as (presumptiosly) applied to human societies.

The difference between you and I is your utter lack of trust that one can communicate with other human beings effectively, and that other human beings can make informed decisions that serve the interests of their fellows.

In the context of organising a large, modern society, people's ability to communicate with others is strictly limited. Take any question of public policy, such as speed limits, amount of spend on national defence or safety thresholds for drug approvals.

Each of those represents a trade-off between cost and convenience on the one hand, and safety on the other.

How do you propose that millions of citizens effectively communicate their risk preferences to government decision-makers?

I wonder how you would explain the relationship between a parent and their child, if you are so fundamentally an individualist. Does a parent not have a right to give their children chores? Make them eat their vegetables? Force them to attend school?

Excellent point. A parent is trusted to make decisions on behalf of a child due to confluence of four factors:
1. The child lacks the ability to make such choices for themselves
2. The parent knows the child intimately
3. The parent loves the child, and can be expected to act in the child's best interests
4. Families are small, and the trade-offs between the interests of family members are simple enough to comprehend and assess qualitatively

Non-libertarians invariably wish to extend the parent-child model and build an analogous government-subject model. The latter fails on all three points:
1. Most adults are perfectly able to make choices for themselves
2. Government decision-makers don't know the individuals they seek to control
3. Government decision-makers do not love their subjects, and can be expected to act in their own, rather than the subject's interests
4. Societies are large, and the trade-offs between the interests of its members are far too complex to be comprehended and assessed qualitatively.

Potemkin wrote:Utilitarianism is no more or less rational than libertarianism; they merely start from different premises, that's all.

In what sense is any fundamental ethical theory "rational"?

To be clear, once you set your starting point, you can rationally draw conclusions. But the starting point is never rational. It is always arbitrary and subjective.

There are objective factors which can be evaluated to determine the good of a given society as a whole - for example, the strength of its forces of production, its ability to defend itself from external attack, its social and ideological cohesiveness, and so on.

How do you "objectively" evaluate any of those factors?

For example, what is the optimal level of productivity? We could force people to work 80 hour weeks, and society would be more productive (though people, presumably, less happy). We could abolish all TV and movies, diverting resources towards stronger defence from external attack.

I'm not even sure what social and ideological cohesiveness even mean.

Ethical choices are always about priorities. How do you "objectively" prioritize work-week length, amount spent on defence, or any other choice impacting the "good of society"?

Usually, they are either lying or deluding themselves, but sometimes it happens that they are right (as the British ruling elite in the early to mid 19th century were), and by acting in their own narrow class interests they also serendipitously act in the interests of society as a whole (though not necessarily in the interests of the majority of the individuals in that society).

I agree. But if they are usually either lying or deluding themselves, why should we want a system which gives elites the power to override the well-being choices of individuals?

Poelmo wrote:I prefer the thought experiment I mentioned above (placing yourself in the POV of the unborn). Satisfaction can be gauged through democratic means (one (wo)man, one vote prevents a utility monster from manipulating a democratic election), studying human nature and having a high level of personal freedoms helps a lot. But to be honest I'm content with having a society that doesn't base everything it does on a single principle: human nature isn't that simple.

I don't see how using this thought experiment resolves anything. As a libertarian, I would like a society in which the unborn (once born) as maximal freedom from aggression by others. I believe such society maximises human flourishing and satisfaction by giving people the greatest possible scope to pursue their own happiness (consistent with similar freedom given to others).

As a liberal, you obviously see things differently. Utilitarians, Marxists and fascists, I have no doubt, would find support for their perspective in your thought experiment as well.

How is the thought experiment at all helpful, other than in rejecting aristocratic theories based explicitly on unequal starting points?
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By Potemkin
#14265739
In what sense is any fundamental ethical theory "rational"?

In the sense that it adopts certain premises as a starting point, and then uses logical reasoning to derive conclusions from those premises.

To be clear, once you set your starting point, you can rationally draw conclusions. But the starting point is never rational. It is always arbitrary and subjective.

Agreed. This is, indeed, precisely what we mean by 'rationality'.

How do you "objectively" evaluate any of those factors?

For example, what is the optimal level of productivity? We could force people to work 80 hour weeks, and society would be more productive (though people, presumably, less happy). We could abolish all TV and movies, diverting resources towards stronger defence from external attack.

Most of the factors I mention can be quantitatively measured.

I'm not even sure what social and ideological cohesiveness even mean.

A society riven by class conflict or by sectarian conflict is going to be politically unstable and vulnerable to external influences or even attack. Witness Syria right now, for example.

Ethical choices are always about priorities. How do you "objectively" prioritize work-week length, amount spent on defence, or any other choice impacting the "good of society"?

By quantifying some of the factors I've described, seeing where your society is weakest, and rectifying that weakness.

I agree. But if they are usually either lying or deluding themselves, why should we want a system which gives elites the power to override the well-being choices of individuals?

Because nobody has come up with a better system? Even the Soviet Union had its own, rather venal ruling elite.
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By Eran
#14265746
Most of the factors I mention can be quantitatively measured.

Not on a single scale that allows comparisons and trade-offs.

How do you compare hours of leisure against productivity? How do you compare defence spending against probability of enemy attack?

A society riven by class conflict or by sectarian conflict is going to be politically unstable and vulnerable to external influences or even attack.

OK. This is a parameter which is virtually impossible to quantify, and very difficult to affect using public policy.

By quantifying some of the factors I've described, seeing where your society is weakest, and rectifying that weakness.

Please be more specific. How do you objectively determine the appropriate length of the work-week, the interstate speed limit, or the safety thresholds for new drugs?

Because nobody has come up with a better system?

Many people came up with better systems. Those systems weren't implemented because such implementation was against the interests of the ruling elite.
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By Poelmo
#14265753
Eran wrote:As a liberal, you obviously see things differently.


Not by that much, liberals and libertarians have more in common than not (we both want to maximize liberty, we just use slightly different definitions of the word, for example liberals think that need is a reduction of liberty).

Eran wrote:Utilitarians, Marxists and fascists, I have no doubt, would find support for their perspective in your thought experiment as well.


No, I think they wouldn't be utilitarians or fascists if they valued the thought experiment. For Marxists I don't know. And again: the common basis of liberals, libertarians (and perhaps Marxists) is broad and already defines a society as very different from other systems before you fill in the details that make the common base diverge into the two (or three) closely related ideologies.

Eran wrote:How is the thought experiment at all helpful, other than in rejecting aristocratic theories based explicitly on unequal starting points?


Rejecting aristocratic theories is very, very helpful, in addition the experiment also rejects bigoted theories (these two fundamentally transform society). Democratic elections help to fill in the details according to the most popular definitions of "liberty" and "equality".

Eran wrote:For example, what is the optimal level of productivity? We could force people to work 80 hour weeks, and society would be more productive (though people, presumably, less happy). We could abolish all TV and movies, diverting resources towards stronger defence from external attack.


This is something liberals and libertarians agree on: there is no objective "optimal" division between health care and education spending and many other issues. Liberals want this division to be left to the public via democratic elections, libertarians want it to be left to the public via the free market (voting with your feet).
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By Poelmo
#14265760
Potemkin wrote:Future generations don't exist. The only majority whose interests we can or should take into account is an actual, existing majority. And, as I pointed out, the interests of that majority and the interests of society as a whole are not necessarily the same. For example, it is in the interests of the majority (considered as individuals) for the state to stop spending money on the nation's armed forces and just give it as a free handout to its citizens. Would this be in the interests of that society as a whole?


How can there be a difference in this case? Spending money on defense is either good because it protects the lives of individuals or bad because it brings no effective additional protection to individuals. If somehow the state could be defeated in a war without individuals being harmed then what incentive would there be for individuals to pay for national defense? It sounds like you changed "society" into a utility monster. What do I care if a foreign nation invades, replaces the flags, changes the colors of our passports and changes the name of our state (killing "society" on paper), but otherwise does not harm us or our liberties?
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By Julian
#14265795
there are rather few politicians who advocate utilitarianism in its pure form.

however the question is nonetheless interesting. I don't know the answer but I suppose my take is that in a democracy where people are guided by a general concern for the common good, discussions of overall utility are useful in informing discussions but are not in thenselves the sole answer.

In a democracy the majority may well recognise the needs of the utility monster and go someway towards meeting them but the majority are not bound to accept the more extreme results of applying utility theory if they produce unreasonable conclusions

a good example is possibly people who require very expensive medication and surgery

or villagers living in a remote settlement who nonetheless want cable TV laid to their door

we may agree that both these claims are worthy of consideration but are not claims we would necessarily agree to meet because they are not ultimately reasonable

in a sense, Rawls provides a argument - in that he asks us whether the demands made on society are ones which a reasonable and disnterested third party would support.
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By Eran
#14266110
Poelmo wrote:Liberals want this division to be left to the public via democratic elections, libertarians want it to be left to the public via the free market (voting with your feet).

I appreciate your spirit of conciliation, emphasizing the many similarities between liberals and libertarians as contrasted with those advocating tight authoritarian control.

In practice, of course, large scale representative democracy is a very weak and unreliable mechanism for querying and acting upon popular will.
1. Individual voters, knowing that their vote has, in practice, zero impact on their lives, are rationally ignorant, not caring to study the issues and rely instead on very superficial impression of the candidates

2. Voting gives each citizen about one bit of information to transfer every four years. That is a very low level of information content. There is no way that a refined set of preferences can be transferred.
3. The well-known political economy issue of concentrated benefits vs. dispersed costs, in consequence, is unavoidable. Small, organized groups can easily apply pressure resulting in large gains to them, with costs being to low to be noticed by the majority. While liberals typically think of corrupt corporations and banks in this context, the description holds equally for labour unions and environmentalists, as well as groups representing racial minorities, gays, handicapped, etc.



But even granting a perfect mechanism for conveying the majority opinion on to effective leadership, and even assuming that the leadership will act upon that general will, rather than their own interests, I fail to see why, having determined that certain issues (such as relative expenditures on health and education) have been wrestled from individual control and placed under central control, the fact that I have one vote in 200,000,000 in determining (very indirectly) that allocation is any improvement over a scenario in which an authoritarian leader does the same.
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By Poelmo
#14266235
Eran wrote:I appreciate your spirit of conciliation, emphasizing the many similarities between liberals and libertarians as contrasted with those advocating tight authoritarian control.


These similarities get forgotten too often: the fundamental shift produced by notions such as "equality for the law" and a right to privacy and personal liberties such as freedom of speech are taken for granted by many but they were revolutionary at one time and a lot of people died for them.

Eran wrote:1. Individual voters, knowing that their vote has, in practice, zero impact on their lives, are rationally ignorant, not caring to study the issues and rely instead on very superficial impression of the candidates


This is a consequence of living in a large society and respecting equality, libertarianism doesn't solve this either, even makes it worse: voting power would effectively be distributed based on wealth, not personhood, so most people would have less of a voice than they do now, the frequency at which they can "vote" does increase but that's equally true of the "voting" done by those with opposite interests.

Eran wrote:2. Voting gives each citizen about one bit of information to transfer every four years. That is a very low level of information content. There is no way that a refined set of preferences can be transferred.


There are usually multiple elections in a democracy (a lot more in Switzerland) and protests and opinion polls have an influence. Also, the idea is that the people elect like-minded people who get to vote on things daily.

Eran wrote:3. The well-known political economy issue of concentrated benefits vs. dispersed costs, in consequence, is unavoidable. Small, organized groups can easily apply pressure resulting in large gains to them, with costs being to low to be noticed by the majority. While liberals typically think of corrupt corporations and banks in this context, the description holds equally for labour unions and environmentalists, as well as groups representing racial minorities, gays, handicapped, etc.


This wouldn't change in a libertarian society, the groups that get a bad deal would just shift around a little. In general democracy represents a power shift towards the disadvantaged compared to libertarianism and popular opinion seems to be that that's a good thing, probably because the majority is part of some relatively disadvantaged group, but also because most people are intuitively uncomfortable with capitalism (it goes against our basic instincts): the way the amoral market creates winners and losers, with vast differences in reward between them, from groups of seemingly similar people and the way money can decide who lives and who dies (even without physical violence) is unsettling to most people on a fundamental level, they feel like the rich don't "deserve" to be as rich as they are, that's why opposition to libertarianism is so strong, perhaps libertarianism is more suited to another species.
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By Eran
#14266582
This is a consequence of living in a large society and respecting equality, libertarianism doesn't solve this either, even makes it worse: voting power would effectively be distributed based on wealth, not personhood, so most people would have less of a voice than they do now, the frequency at which they can "vote" does increase but that's equally true of the "voting" done by those with opposite interests.

No, no, no!

"Voting" means taking part in making decisions that impact society at large.

In an anarchy, nobody is "voting". People can only make decisions impacting their own property, not that of others.

Every person gets 100% of the votes regarding their own property. Nobody, not even the wealthiest, gets to impose their will on others.

There are usually multiple elections in a democracy (a lot more in Switzerland) and protests and opinion polls have an influence. Also, the idea is that the people elect like-minded people who get to vote on things daily.

Having multiple referenda helps, but only marginally. It is still the case that only a tiny fraction of government decisions are brought to popular vote. As for protests, they tend to exacerbate the issue I brought up, giving small but interested (and vocal) minority a disproportionate voice.

In general democracy represents a power shift towards the disadvantaged compared to libertarianism

I disagree. Democracy represents a power shift towards disadvantaged compared to aristocracy (which it generally replaced).

However, even in a democracy, certain people have greater political influence than others, either because they are wealthy, popular or well-spoken. These people tend to be advantaged, not disadvantage. Those people will naturally use the machinery of government to their benefit, at the expense of the disadvantaged.

In an NAP-based society, nobody can benefit at the expense of another. People only benefit by serving others.

most people are intuitively uncomfortable with capitalism (it goes against our basic instincts)

"Most people" have held a wide range of views over the centuries. Many of which now appear to us to go against our basic instincts. People backed the Divine Right of Kinds, slavery (typically, but not invariably, of foreigners), racial discrimination up to (and including) genocide, heavy protectionism, blood-letting, witch hunting and so on.

Societies have learned to adopt values and principles that go against our "basic instincts". Which is excellent.

they feel like the rich don't "deserve" to be as rich as they are

Partially because, due to government intervention, many rich people indeed don't deserve to be as rich as they are.

But then, people did feel, for centuries, that aristocrats and monarchs did "deserve" their status, despite being obviously unearned. Again, people's feelings do change.
By Baff
#14270735
Eran wrote:No, it isn't. In modern capitalist society, many things are sacred. Human life, the environment, the well-being of animals and the equal rights of racial minorities are all considered "sacred" by large portions of the population, an attitude that is often reflected in institutions, practices and laws.

Profitsssssss are sacred.

Being a socially productive human being... holy.

Eran wrote:
In an NAP-based society, nobody can benefit at the expense of another. People only benefit by serving others.


Nonsense. Resources are finite.
In all societies we can't all benefit from the same potato.

We compete for our share of finite resources. Those who fail to get their share... die.
Rivalry is inherant in the nature of man. Conflict assured.
There is no way in which you can live without benefitting at the expense of others.

And so we divide those others into "people we love" and "people we do not love". And then we prioritise amongst them.
Last edited by Cartertonian on 31 Jul 2013 18:41, edited 1 time in total. Reason: Back-to-back posts merged
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By Eran
#14270808
Nonsense. Resources are finite.

Resources are finite? Nonsense.

Economically-relevant resources (the only kind relevant to discussions about human society and its use of resources) are anything but finite. New economically-relevant resources are created all the time through exploration and extraction.

In all societies we can't all benefit from the same potato.

No, but we can grow new potatoes...

We compete for our share of finite resources. Those who fail to get their share... die.
Rivalry is inherant in the nature of man. Conflict assured.
There is no way in which you can live without benefitting at the expense of others.

On the contrary - our survival is conditioned on cooperation with others. Without such cooperation, the vast majority of humanity would die in days.

And so we divide those others into "people we love" and "people we do not love". And then we prioritise amongst them.

Not if we have access to markets. Those allow us to benefit from cooperation with billions of people all over the world.
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By Sceptic
#14297461
Potemkin wrote:The 'absurdity' of the utility monster is that it maximises the total amount of happiness in the world, but all of that happiness happens to reside in one individual. Everybody else is miserable. This is unacceptable to most people because it violates the sense we have of the incommensurability of individual human life. I am not you, and you are not me. Utilitarianism erases the (dare I say it, 'sacred') boundaries between individuals and looks only at 'happiness' as a totality, detached from any actual human subjectivity, as though it were a kind of 'ocean' in which we all swim. This is, in fact, absurd. Happiness is not an ocean, it resides (or not) within each individual as an individual. As Mohammed once said, to kill one individual is the same as killing the entire world. This was an assertion of the inviolability, the sacredness of each individual and of the sacredness of the boundaries between individuals. Utilitarianism simply erases those boundaries and is, to that extent, a 'totalitarian' ideology.


There's a better solution to the 'problem' of the utility monster that crude/'act' utilitarianism neglects. Simply that as a rule, individuals within a society follow the postulates of rule utilitarianism to meet their own self-interested needs, there is, of course as you say it a boundary between each individual, although there is no inherent 'sacredness' or value behind this boundaries. Now as a collective, it seems individuals within a society will benefit from the whole being 'happy' and 'productive' since this will contribute towards a valuable 'pool of resources' fulfilling both material and emotional/symbiotic needs. However this is a less direct form of a 'utility ocean' as you put it. If an individual does something that violates that ocean of utility, from which others may benefit, for his own personal gains, well it is in the interests of other individuals within the collective to restrict that behaviour not because there is something intrinsically wrong with the behaviour but because it does not match those individuals personal goals and interests. The same goes for the utility monster, it does not matter how much utility he personally acquires, it is simply that his goal to munch and chew on human beings is detrimental to/antagonistic towards human goals to not be munched or chewed. It's not immoral therefore for the monster to obtain his goals, no more so than it is for any individual to prevent those goals being realised. Furthermore, it is not violating any demands of utilitarianism (as the logical consequence of moral nihilism) to violate that monster's desire to chew up and spit out human beings. How many utils are acquired (is such a thing measurable in the first place), whether the monster is 'happier' than all humans combined or not, is entirely inconsequential.
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By Eran
#14298818
What is left of the notion of "maximising total utility" in the solution you describe?
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By Sceptic
#14299673
I don't think I mention anything about "maximising total utility", rather I would say it is more accurate to point out that in any community the cultural norms that arise are the resulting intersection between the aims and objectives (moral or otherwise) of individuals with influencing power. The results of this can be as simple as a handshake becoming the customary manner of introduction between two males, or the use of the word 'please' when asking a favour (since power does not just include force or the threat thereof). In more extreme matters, they can also involve legal institutions in punishing what powerful individuals have determined to be a crime such as rape or murder. In a democracy, everyone has at least some power (vote) but we shouldn't forget the role wealth and power play in political games in the community: the power play is still far from equal.
Last edited by Sceptic on 16 Sep 2013 23:51, edited 1 time in total.
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By Potemkin
#14299676
I don't think I mention anything about "maximising total utility"

Solving the 'problem' of the utility monster by abandoning the core principle of utilitarianism is not really a 'solution' to the problem at all, but merely an admission that the problem is fatal to the philosophy of utilitarianism.
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By Sceptic
#14299684
Potemkin wrote:Solving the 'problem' of the utility monster by abandoning the core principle of utilitarianism is not really a 'solution' to the problem at all, but merely an admission that the problem is fatal to the philosophy of utilitarianism.


I'm saying that that is not really utilitarianism at it's core but a very crude form of utilitarianism ('act utilitarianism'). Rule utilitarianism is actually derived from nihilistic premises, which start from the point of view that there is in fact no inherent morality but that there is a social context in which a relative morality is developed. It is power games that determine that relative morality, unsurprisingly, since individuals with power will compete with other powerful individuals to ensure there morality but in a manner which avoids unnecessary conflict.

There is no inherent value in "maximising total utility" from an idiosyncrative perspective, therefore the utility monster 'problem' is actually nonsense. The idea that there is any inherent value in such a thing is in fact a normative statement and therefore not nihilistic and not utilitarian (in the sense derived from the Hobbesian individualist social contract)! If more powerful individuals than the monster practice a morality that renders the monster's objectives immoral, then the monster's aims cannot be realised and indeed are immoral from a relative standpoint.

ronimacarroni wrote:Well if the Utility monster could puke out all or part of its happiness units back then it'd make sense to feed him.
You give it 1 point and it turns it into 100.




The whole idea of the utility monster is nonsense anyway. Who the hell divides happiness into units and then makes out like it's a measurable phenomenon - if you lose 5 utils, I'll get a hundred, therefore I get to eat you?

Nozick has set fire to the utilitarian strawman.

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