Anti-Utilitarianism

[theVOID]

Firstly, this is only applicable to one form of Utilitarianism, Pleasure Utilitarianism.

No, it is also applicable to pain or any utility that requires consciousness.

Then perhaps you should rephrase the claim.

To experience feeling happiness requires individual feelers of such happiness. Every feeler experiences happiness separately because their consciousnesses are separate. They cannot be aggregated together.

We can make statements about individual atoms, molecules and neurological structures, consciousness is a neurological structure and thus there is no reason why it should be excluded. When we evaluate the colour of houses on a street we do not need to combine them into a mega-house, we simply need a comparative evaluation of the colours, consciousness is exactly the same.

1000 people with 1 point of happiness is just 1000 people separately experiencing a happiness of 1. It is not 1000 times better because not one of them experiences more than a happiness of 1. None experiences a happiness of any more.

Agreed, and in a circumstance where each person experiences h1 towards P is not the same as some people experiencing h1 towards p while an equal amount of people experience h2 towards P, in that circumstance the people who experience h2 towards P experience more happiness as a group, you satisfy MORE individuals.

There is no more experienced happiness at all because such happiness requires an individual conscious of it. Any happiness that is aggregated is illusory because no one is there to experience that additional aggregated happiness, everyone only experiences their own.

That DOES NOT mean we can't evaluate their happiness comparatively, you DO NOT need to experience aggregated happiness to make a factual claim about what other people are experiencing.

It depends how unhappy or happy any of the individuals are. My point is that the happinesses of different individuals being aggregated together makes no sense because no one is there to experience such aggregated happiness: Such aggregated happiness doesn't exist.

Yes it DOES depend how happy or unhappy they are as individuals and when you have that information there is NOTHING preventing an evaluation.

And again, you DO NOT need someone to experience the collective happiness to make comparative evaluations about what the individuals are experiencing. The experience of happiness is related to a certain type of neurological pathway, more happiness looks different than less happiness. Keep in mind our lack of ability to make highly accurate claims about these neurological pathways does not mean that it cannot be done in principle.

If 10,000 people experience a pain of 1, say a pinprick, that doesn't equate to a pain of 10,000 because it makes absolutely no sense to aggregate the 10,000 people experiencing the pinprick pain of 1 together.

Taking action P (pinprick) with x (severity) 1 towards a population of 10,000 causes more pain than taking P*X1 towards 5,000 people, not towards the individual, but in terms of the number of people experiencing P*X1.

If you had to inflict P*X1 towards either a group of 10,000 or 5,000 and wanted to know which choice would cause the least suffering (S) you can easily determine the answer. P*X1*10,000 = S10,000 vs P*X1*5,000 = S5,000, there are objectively more suffering experiences in the former.

Every single person experiences a pain of 1. Not one, none experience any more than that. This is the same with aggregating any emotion, it makes no sense when you aggregate different individuals with separate consciousnesses.

They DO NOT need to individually experience more than their own pain in order for some comparative claim to be made about the two opposing states of affairs!

It is exactly like doing that because happiness requires consciousness and consciousness requires individual consciousnesses which are separate. It makes no sense to aggregate them. As I explained above.

Happiness requires consciousness (it's an emergent property of consciousness) but EVALUATING two states of affairs with different quantities and/or qualities of happiness DOES NOT. You could hook the two groups up to a machine that can recognise certain activity on certain neurological pathways qualitatively in individuals and quantitatively as a group and that machine COULD tell you what group experienced a higher level of happiness by evaluating the quantitative/qualitative properties of these neurological pathways.

False analogy since that is not a matter where the fact of separate consciousness is relevant (since happiness is dependent on consciousness and such consciousness is a matter of separate consciousnesses and therefore separate happinesses that can't be added together in any meaningful way).

It IS NOT a false analogy, Happiness is an emergent property of consciousness and so is like and dislike! If you think you can't determine which action makes the most people happy because they are emergent properties of consciousness then you should also believe that we cannot make the same claims about which food the most people like, it is EXACTLY the same kind of evaluation.

It's simply a matter of diplomacy and practicality to please the larger group,

Pleasure IS happiness, if you can practically determine which action will cause the most pleasure you can ALSO determine which action causes the most happiness.

it is irrelevant to the matter of aggregating theri happinesses. Let's say if we introduce the olives it will make one person with an olive allergy die very quickly guaranteed. Then it doesn't matter if there were an infinite amount of people who mildly disliked the yoghurts,

Yes it does, a finite amount of pain on one hand is comparable to an infinite amount of pleasure on the other, you might be uncomfortable with the reality of the death of one person being outweighed by the pleasure of others but it's simply a fact of a comparative evaluation.

it makes no sense to aggregate their dislike together, not one of them experience more than mild dislike, but the one person who will die from the olives is the only relevant thing.

If that is the case you should believe that a man who needs to rape 10,000 women to live is the only important thing, because their pan for being raped is a more mild pain than his death, and we can't possibly evaluate their combined suffering because that's meaningless!

We prioritize things based on who suffer the most and who are the happiest and what is most practical and diplomatic, the aggregation of happinesses or preferences or sufferings makes no sense when they are all dependent on separate consciousnesses that can't actually be aggregated in reality.

They CAN be, as I have more than demonstrated already.

I maintain your bullshit argument is confused.

I've proved that emotions can be compared quantitatively and qualitatively and showed an ABSURD consequence of your ideas.

You are not aggregating quantities of individual utility dependent on separate consciousnesses (e.g : emotions like pleasure and pain)? What are you doing then?

Making a comparison, an evaluation between contrary options relative to their ability to bring about pain and pleasure. They way you've been using the term aggregate is abnormal, you DO NOT need to aggregate to compare.