Anti-Utilitarianism

[Edwardo Piet]

No, they don't.

If, say, pain or pleasure isn't experienced how would it be painful or pleasurable? Well, we could still consider unconscious, unexperienced pain or pleasure to still be pain or pleasure, however I don't care about non-experienced pain or pleasure since they effect no one.

IT DOES EXIST, it exists inside the brains of the individuals being examined.

My whole point is that it does exist to the individuals but the aggregate doesn't exist. The aggregate of pain or pleasure is experienced by not one individual, by none, no one. And because it's experienced by no one it doesn't exist. The aggregate doesn't exist.

We DO NOT need to have some means to simultaneously experience all the pain to make statements about it in terms of quantity OR quality,

My point is that we can't aggregate them. See above.

It does not fucking matter, ANY conscious experience can be evaluated, especially relative to OTHER experiences.

But they cannot be aggregated because the aggregation doesn't exist in reality.

And it DOES exist, INSIDE THEIR BRAINS.

To each individual yes. But no aggregated pain or pleasure exists.

Again, it IS experienced.

Again, yes, to the individuals but the aggregate is non-existent because it is non-experienced.

Each individual DOES matter,

Yes, that's what I said.

they CONTRIBUTE to data used in the evaluation.

Not if it's aggregated data, unless you're interested in nonsensical data. Nonsensical because it doesn't exist because it isn't experienced.

I DO NOT REQUIRE THAT THE PAIN BE COLLECTIVELY EXPERIENCED TO MAKE STATEMENTS ABOUT THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF THE DISTRIBUTION.

If you aggregate properties together that require experience but those experiences can only exist separately and individually and fundamentally cannot be aggregated, that makes no sense.

Which group contains the more suffering individuals?

Besides the point. I'm not questioning the amount of sufferers, I'm saying that the quantity of sufferers cannot be aggregated because it makes no sense.

At which point in this evaluation did the suffering cease to exist?

Never. My point is that the aggregate suffering you believe in never existed and never exists. You're playing with numbers. You may like aggregating together the individual experiences of individual sufferers but it is still the case that not one, none suffers more than the individual suffering most, and it makes no sense to aggregate them because the aggregate would require an aggregated consciousness, it would have to be experienced by the aggregate rather than just the individuals, otherwise the aggregate pain doesn't exist, as it doesn't.

The aggregated pain is experienced by not one, none, no one. The aggregated pain therefore doesn't exist because experience is a prerequisite for pain. Got it?

I'm fucking over this, it's like jamming chop sticks up my nose and into my brain whilst banging my head against a brick wall.

And why are you so frustrated simply because I disagree with you?

It DOES EXIST...

The aggregate doesn't exist in reality. You're playing with numbers. See above.

[...]You have a man who is going to die an excruciating death with a suffering value of 10 unless he rapes 10 women - The individual experience of rape is less painful that the death this man will face, with a suffering value of 5. You have to make a decision about whether you will let this man out of his cell and into the rooms with the women.

[What do you chose? Why?

The greatest number of suffering is to the man. That's why I would choose to save the man if I was to choose the more moral option.

If you chose to let the man rape the 10 women then not only are you WRONG,

I'm not wrong.

but you're fucking DANGEROUS,

No, because saying what I think is the most moral is a matter of philosophical opinion and entirely different to whether I'd actually do it or not.

DELUDED and INSANE and should NEVER be elected into or given ANY form of power EVER.

Irrelevant to the fact that I'm right. Ad-Homs on top of your appeal to your own bewildered opinion that my points are absurd. On top of your committing of the Argument from Personal Incredulity. How relevant (!)

I've already showed you WHY that's complete bullshit, the experience DOES exist and we CAN make meaningful evaluations.

I never denied the individual experiences. See above. I denied and am denying the existence of aggregate experience (because no one experiences it), once again, see above.

No, my argument makes perfect sense, your objection is what is complete bullshit.

The aggregation makes no sense. It's based on nothing.

Why do we aggregate money and things like that together? Because with, say - to continue the example - money, we make the rules. We decide that when you get two one dollar bills together, that's worth two dollars.

It would be very possible for us to invent the rules so that money couldn't be aggregated together, but that would make money useless.

The difference with consciousness is, we don't make the rules, because, in reality, consciousness really is separate. Well, we can still make the rules and pretend that consciousness isn't separate, but why on earth would you want to do that if you're really trying to address the pain and pleasure that is actually experienced by conscious individuals that are fundamentally separate by nature and so it is nonsensical to aggregate them together?

It isn't logical, your main objection, that for us to make meaningful comparisons about experiential phenomenon we need to experience all relevant experience ourselves is completely wrong,

I never said we had to experience it ourselves. When did I say that? I say that the individuals suffer but the aggregate doesn't because the aggregate doesn't exist... so why should we aggregate the individual experiences?