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Most ‘don't be utilitarian’ arguments are really ‘don't be a stupid utilitarian’. If a course of action where you do some amount of harm to mitigate a larger am

Most ‘don't be utilitarian’ arguments are really ‘don't be a stupid utilitarian’. If a course of action where you do some amount of harm to mitigate a larger amount of harm would clearly result in a worse world, then you are NOT actually summing up all the resulting negative utility in your so-called-utilitarian calculations. It is in fact the case that we do often do bad things for more important goals. We kill people in wars. We support legal systems that we know sometimes imprison innocent people. The government takes money from people against their will for their own purposes, which isn't stealing mostly only because it's written in law. What's the difference? Well, in those latter cases, it is actually considered better in sum for that action to be taken. For most of the examples in the post, there are simple and clear arguments that it is not better in sum, and the only reason the article is claiming otherwise is that the author is pretending to be dumber than they are by not mentioning the rest. So don't do that. (And for some cases, though you wouldn't know it from the article, the full utilitarian calculus does actually say that uncomfortable things are the right thing to do, and in those cases you should just bite the damn bullet.)

taneq 5y ago
> If a course of action where you do some amount of harm to mitigate a larger amount of harm would clearly result in a worse world, then you are NOT actually summing up all the resulting negative utility in your so-called-utilitarian calculations. This is a really good point and one that doesn’t get raised enough.
roenxi 5y ago
And in the "don't be stupid" line of thought - the examples are fundamentally unrealistic because examples have to be. For example, the murdering doctor example assumes that there are no dangerous second order consequences to randomly murdering people. That isn't a safe assumption. A doctor might reasonably conclude there is enough value in having trustworthy institutions that the locally optimum choice is different from the globally optimum choice after evaluating the risks. A utilitarian could make either choice in any of those examples if they disagree with the assumptions implicit in the question - which isn't really allowed in this sort of thought experiment. The situation is artificial because the author is allowed to create certainty and constraints which don't map to the reality where these problems will be encountered. Any moral framework will give weird results if applied to artificial situations, so the construction of artificial situations where the author objects the utilitarian answer is unless as evidence.
- danbruc 5y ago
  No, those unrealistic scenarios make it easier to see the problems without having to deal with all the real world complications. Many of the examples just try to point out that utilitarianism allows you to treat one group as badly as you want as long as you overcompansate their suffering by just making another group happy enough. It's a stupid idea in its pure form.
  - lanternfish 5y ago
    A utilitarian would absolutely say that causing one group severely negative utility is worth a corresponding positive utility in another group. However, they'd also say that these are useless examples to apply knee-jerk aesthetic analysis to, because they're practically impossible. The aversions we have to this kind of inhumane utility juggling are because we instinctually recongize the second order and knock-on effects without needing to specify them. Dehumanization, inequality, precedence - these are all utility-real things which a responsible utilitarian incorporates into their utility calculus as major negative impactors. When you strip the situation of any practical relevance, of course the conclusions are 'stupid' because the criteria you apply to determine that stupidity are based on a practical reality.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  "Don't be stupid" unfortunately is not a practical rule for making judgements, as you have no way to determine what is stupid. It is just a hand-wavy dismissal of the argument.
ZephyrBlu 5y ago
> Most ‘don't be utilitarian’ arguments are really ‘don't be a stupid utilitarian’ Someone being a "stupid utilitarian" a subjective judgement. > then you are NOT actually summing up all the resulting negative utility in your so-called-utilitarian calculations Well that's the trick isn't it. What's the correct calculation? There is no objective answer to this. You can change the calculation to suit your opinion.
- lanternfish 5y ago
  The question of how one actually resolves the utility calculation (once weighing bases are determined) is a question of applied ethics, not normative ethics. Consider: it could be entirely consistent for a Utilitarian to make the utility justified decision that utility calculus is outside of their capability, and a Deontological framework would serve as their best in-situ heuristic. They would still be a Utilitarian, even thought their black-box criteria resembles a deontology.
  - ZephyrBlu 5y ago
    Sure, but that still contradicts with the GP saying "just don't be stupid and calculate the utility properly".
    - Veedrac 5y ago
      I don't see the contradiction. There is, after all, no one true utilitarianism. What you're not allowed to do is say, as the article did, that X has the highest utility when strawmanning a utilitarian, only to turn around and say X sucks once the strawman is over.
  - edflsafoiewq 5y ago
    What exactly is the point of utilitarianism then? What can you say about utilitarianism itself? Under this scheme, it seems to possess no qualities.
    - lanternfish 5y ago
tshaddox 5y ago
> It is in fact the case that we do often do bad things for more important goals. We kill people in wars. I may not be a utilitarian, but I do think war is a bad thing, so I’m not sure how this is a great example.
missingrib 5y ago
>If a course of action where you do some amount of harm to mitigate a larger amount of harm would clearly result in a worse world, then you are NOT actually summing up all the resulting negative utility in your so-called-utilitarian calculations. This is kind of missing the point. Even if it were to result in a "better world", the intuition is that it is still wrong to murder the innocent man to save 5, just prima facie. This is a problem for the utilitarian. Their best response might be to just bite the bullet, but it significantly weakens their argument overall.
- edanm 5y ago
  > Their best response might be to just bite the bullet, but it significantly weakens their argument overall. I disagree. To me it seems fairly obvious that it is morally correct to murder one innocent person to save 5 innocent people. Not only that, but we often as a society make this exact decision (e.g. send young people to fight in armies, send firefighters to rescue people despite potential harm to themselves, etc). I don't know why this supposedly weakens utilitarianism - the whole point of the philosophy is exactly to point out that this is the morally correct choice. The problem with this and the other examples in the article is that there's a big difference between the hypothetical examples often given, which assume no other effects, and the real world. In the real world, we often only allow these kinds of decisions in society-wide settings - e.g. the examples I gave above (armies, firefighters). We don't allow people to just choose on a case-by-case basis who should live or die, because it would cause far more problems (and thus, negative utility) to do so.

taneq 5y ago

roenxi 5y ago

And in the "don't be stupid" line of thought - the examples are fundamentally unrealistic because examples have to be. For example, the murdering doctor example assumes that there are no dangerous second order consequences to randomly murdering people. That isn't a safe assumption. A doctor might reasonably conclude there is enough value in having trustworthy institutions that the locally optimum choice is different from the globally optimum choice after evaluating the risks. A utilitarian could make either choice in any of those examples if they disagree with the assumptions implicit in the question - which isn't really allowed in this sort of thought experiment. The situation is artificial because the author is allowed to create certainty and constraints which don't map to the reality where these problems will be encountered. Any moral framework will give weird results if applied to artificial situations, so the construction of artificial situations where the author objects the utilitarian answer is unless as evidence.

danbruc 5y ago
No, those unrealistic scenarios make it easier to see the problems without having to deal with all the real world complications. Many of the examples just try to point out that utilitarianism allows you to treat one group as badly as you want as long as you overcompansate their suffering by just making another group happy enough. It's a stupid idea in its pure form.
- lanternfish 5y ago
  A utilitarian would absolutely say that causing one group severely negative utility is worth a corresponding positive utility in another group. However, they'd also say that these are useless examples to apply knee-jerk aesthetic analysis to, because they're practically impossible. The aversions we have to this kind of inhumane utility juggling are because we instinctually recongize the second order and knock-on effects without needing to specify them. Dehumanization, inequality, precedence - these are all utility-real things which a responsible utilitarian incorporates into their utility calculus as major negative impactors. When you strip the situation of any practical relevance, of course the conclusions are 'stupid' because the criteria you apply to determine that stupidity are based on a practical reality.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
"Don't be stupid" unfortunately is not a practical rule for making judgements, as you have no way to determine what is stupid. It is just a hand-wavy dismissal of the argument.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago

> Most ‘don't be utilitarian’ arguments are really ‘don't be a stupid utilitarian’ Someone being a "stupid utilitarian" a subjective judgement. > then you are NOT actually summing up all the resulting negative utility in your so-called-utilitarian calculations Well that's the trick isn't it. What's the correct calculation? There is no objective answer to this. You can change the calculation to suit your opinion.

lanternfish 5y ago
The question of how one actually resolves the utility calculation (once weighing bases are determined) is a question of applied ethics, not normative ethics. Consider: it could be entirely consistent for a Utilitarian to make the utility justified decision that utility calculus is outside of their capability, and a Deontological framework would serve as their best in-situ heuristic. They would still be a Utilitarian, even thought their black-box criteria resembles a deontology.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  Sure, but that still contradicts with the GP saying "just don't be stupid and calculate the utility properly".
  - Veedrac 5y ago
    I don't see the contradiction. There is, after all, no one true utilitarianism. What you're not allowed to do is say, as the article did, that X has the highest utility when strawmanning a utilitarian, only to turn around and say X sucks once the strawman is over.
- edflsafoiewq 5y ago
  What exactly is the point of utilitarianism then? What can you say about utilitarianism itself? Under this scheme, it seems to possess no qualities.
  - lanternfish 5y ago

tshaddox 5y ago

> It is in fact the case that we do often do bad things for more important goals. We kill people in wars. I may not be a utilitarian, but I do think war is a bad thing, so I’m not sure how this is a great example.

missingrib 5y ago

>If a course of action where you do some amount of harm to mitigate a larger amount of harm would clearly result in a worse world, then you are NOT actually summing up all the resulting negative utility in your so-called-utilitarian calculations. This is kind of missing the point. Even if it were to result in a "better world", the intuition is that it is still wrong to murder the innocent man to save 5, just prima facie. This is a problem for the utilitarian. Their best response might be to just bite the bullet, but it significantly weakens their argument overall.

edanm 5y ago
> Their best response might be to just bite the bullet, but it significantly weakens their argument overall. I disagree. To me it seems fairly obvious that it is morally correct to murder one innocent person to save 5 innocent people. Not only that, but we often as a society make this exact decision (e.g. send young people to fight in armies, send firefighters to rescue people despite potential harm to themselves, etc). I don't know why this supposedly weakens utilitarianism - the whole point of the philosophy is exactly to point out that this is the morally correct choice. The problem with this and the other examples in the article is that there's a big difference between the hypothetical examples often given, which assume no other effects, and the real world. In the real world, we often only allow these kinds of decisions in society-wide settings - e.g. the examples I gave above (armies, firefighters). We don't allow people to just choose on a case-by-case basis who should live or die, because it would cause far more problems (and thus, negative utility) to do so.