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I won’t criticize you because your ideas. Still, I’d like you to know how a society would work if we were more aligned to think like that. There is a governmen

I won’t criticize you because your ideas. Still, I’d like you to know how a society would work if we were more aligned to think like that. There is a government philosophy called utilitarianism. It’s based on the premise that a policy is good if and only if it increases overall happiness in a society thus, ends justify the means. It’s totally valid to be an utilitarian. Nonetheless, you have to accept two premises. 1. There is no individual rights. 2. Measuring happiness is a trivialization of human experience (ex. How many people would need to be given an iPhone in order to justify the torturing an assassination of a child?). Try reading Justice by Michael Sandel if you want to learn more.

curryst 5y ago
One of the more grave flaws of utilitarianism is that I've yet to hear anyone define utility in a quantifiable way. People often substitute 'happiness', but how does one measure happiness in a way that it can be calculated? Is it an absolute scale or is it relative to your own baseline? Happiness is also heavily subjective. People in the first world often feel like they're missing out if they don't feel like they have the latest and greatest iPhone, while someone in an extremely poor area would be happy to have running water. Is the utility of a new phone really the same as giving someone running water, or do we take into account that the need for a new phone is a somewhat self-inflicted societal standard? I like the concept of utilitarianism, but find that it's basis in statistics means that you can typically justify any position by tinkering with the parameters of how you measure utility.