Test my belief system

[Pyrrho]

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Pyrrho: what is a benefit is a complex question, yes. Something that improves someone's quality of life. I make the determination using my judgement and experience. I have a lot of previous data to draw on regarding what is generally likely to improve the quality of someone's life. Of course everything is a sliding scale and includes probability judgements, I can never be sure of the total effect of my actions. I can just do my best. I want to help people enjoy their life, be happy, be healthy, save them unecessary suffering and discomfort. It's true that caring about the environment could well be covered as an indirect way of caring about humans and animals, yes. I suppose I think of it as distinct, but the reason I care about it is the knock-on effect on life. So you're quite right.

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I still do not know what you mean by "benefit," as "quality of life" is equally perplexing.  Perhaps giving specific examples of what you mean might help with this.

I hesitate to make suggestions about this, as I do not want to lead you away from whatever it is you are thinking.  You might want to formulate a couple of examples that help clarify your meaning before reading on, to avoid any influence from what follows.

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I will ask a couple of questions even though it might lead us off on some tangent.

How would you select between someone having a really enjoyable, short life, and one that is longer and enjoyable, but not as intensely enjoyable?  Which is more "beneficial" for the person?  And would it be a good idea for me to take a massive dose of morphine that would be very enjoyable, but may quickly end my life?  (That is hypothetical, as good morphine is not easily available.  Also, you need not worry about me blindly doing whatever you suggest; were the morphine at hand, I would decide for myself regardless of what you say.)

Since you said originally that the consequences are what matters, would it be a good idea to just kill everyone as quickly as possible, to prevent their future suffering, and the suffering of those not yet born?  Granted, one also prevents their future pleasures, but people (and animals generally) are more capable of feeling pain than pleasure.  Since I have posted on that before, I will simply quote myself:

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Nothing really good or really bad lasts a long time.
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I disagree with that saying.  David Hume expressed it well, so I will simply quote him:

Admitting your position, replied PHILO, which yet is extremely doubtful, you must at the same time allow, that if pain be less frequent than pleasure, it is infinitely more violent and durable. One hour of it is often able to outweigh a day, a week, a month of our common insipid enjoyments; and how many days, weeks, and months, are passed by several in the most acute torments? Pleasure, scarcely in one instance, is ever able to reach ecstasy and rapture; and in no one instance can it continue for any time at its highest pitch and altitude. The spirits evaporate, the nerves relax, the fabric is disordered, and the enjoyment quickly degenerates into fatigue and uneasiness. But pain often, good God, how often! rises to torture and agony; and the longer it continues, it becomes still more genuine agony and torture. Patience is exhausted, courage languishes, melancholy seizes us, and nothing terminates our misery but the removal of its cause, or another event, which is the sole cure of all evil, but which, from our natural folly, we regard with still greater horror and consternation.

Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part 10, David Hume.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4583/4583-h/4583-h.htm

Humans, and animals generally, are much more capable of experiencing pain than pleasure.  You cannot have a continuous orgasm, but you can be in continuous agony.

Maybe the U.S. should use all of its nuclear weapons to try to destroy all animal life, or as much of it as possible, in order to prevent future suffering.  (If we do not use them, it will be the biggest waste of money in the history of the world, but as you have not said anything about wasting money, that may be irrelevant to your system.  However, the waste of money does bother me, as some of my money has been spent on such things, whether I wanted them or not.)  If we could strategically kill everyone with them, should we?  Granted, it does not make people happy and healthy, but it does save them from unnecessary suffering.  Indeed, the only realistic way to prevent all suffering is by dying, and since one can die right away, that means that future suffering is unnecessary.

If you would rather reply to any of this in a PM or email instead of here, go ahead.

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