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On the other hand, I have always found the simplistic utilitarism you described to be just too trivialized to use for any worthwhile conclusions. In particular,

On the other hand, I have always found the simplistic utilitarism you described to be just too trivialized to use for any worthwhile conclusions. In particular, your last example assumes that "utility" adds up linearly. I claim that "utility is a linear quantity" should sound preposterous to anyone that has worked in physics, biology, engineering, or some other form of study of dynamical systems. This is the "spherical cow in vacuum on a frictionless plane" of philosophy. Edit: My message, devoid of tone, sounds glib and antagonistic. My bad! I actually find your line of reasoning important and interesting, even if I consider it "obviously" flawed.

walleeee 6y ago
Yes, not only is naive utility-maxing preposterous, it can also launder questionable ethical decisions: "for the greater good", etc. Unexamined consequentialism breeds infinite self-justification, imo As far as I can tell claims to objectivity in ethics tend to translate to "I'm happy to theorize situation X so long as X never happens to me." In the last century this attitude begot a professional class of social engineers working in tandem with state security apparati to optimize for... what exactly?
comex 6y ago
I completely agree; it's very oversimplified. Utility is not a scalar, and to the extent averagism is correct, the "average" is not a literal arithmetic mean. As just one counterexample, I think there is some moral or at least aesthetic value in a breadth of life experiences existing. If the aforementioned one person or one million people were the only people in the universe, the million people would have a much wider breadth of experience, leading to a more interesting society. On the other hand, if we assume a total population of billions, I'd say the significance of this factor dwindles to near nil. Also, I believe utility maximization is only one of many moral precepts in the first place.

walleeee 6y ago

Yes, not only is naive utility-maxing preposterous, it can also launder questionable ethical decisions: "for the greater good", etc. Unexamined consequentialism breeds infinite self-justification, imo As far as I can tell claims to objectivity in ethics tend to translate to "I'm happy to theorize situation X so long as X never happens to me." In the last century this attitude begot a professional class of social engineers working in tandem with state security apparati to optimize for... what exactly?

comex 6y ago

I completely agree; it's very oversimplified. Utility is not a scalar, and to the extent averagism is correct, the "average" is not a literal arithmetic mean. As just one counterexample, I think there is some moral or at least aesthetic value in a breadth of life experiences existing. If the aforementioned one person or one million people were the only people in the universe, the million people would have a much wider breadth of experience, leading to a more interesting society. On the other hand, if we assume a total population of billions, I'd say the significance of this factor dwindles to near nil. Also, I believe utility maximization is only one of many moral precepts in the first place.