Anti-Utilitarianism

[Edwardo Piet]

Because pain and suffering are arbitrary conditions

In what way are they arbitrary?

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Desires on the other hand are the source of all values and morality is a subset of value theory dealing with 'us' values, the values that have reach beyond our own experience and impact others.

For example:

To say you value equality is to say you desire a state of affairs in which the proposition "everyone is equal" is to be made or kept true.

To say you value a hammer (aside from sentimentally) is to say the hammer is something that is instrumental to bringing about your desire for a piece of furniture.

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I can see that desires are very easy to evaluate and are relevant but I don't see that they are as relevant as the evaluation of pain and pleasure regardless of the fact that pain and pleasure may be more difficult to evaluate. I think getting straight to the matter of pain and pleasure is getting straight to the matter of morality.

I disagree that aggregate is the right word, it's a comparative evaluation, they are subtly yet significantly different things. In Desirism we look at what desires tend to thwart or promote the most/strongest desires amongst all desires, in that sense it is the same as comparatively evaluating suffering/happiness or like/dislike, but we are taking into account the desires of all people and making an evaluation about what desire, if applied to everyone, would tend to thwart or promote more desires, what desires would tend to have the greatest increase or decrease in net value amongst the most people.

The best for the majority might not be the best though. Hence why I see it that it doesn't matter how many people are unhappy experiencing pinpricks, or even how many desires are being thwarted due to an extreme number of pinpricks, pinpricks are still only pinpricks and one mere person experiencing rape is worse. It's worse because it's more painful in intensity and duration of pain than a pinprick to all people who suffer it regardless the amount of pinpricks or rapes being experienced and regardless to the desires thwarted or not - you can get straight to the point simply by the fact that rape is a more painful experience to all who suffer from it regardless of the numbers.

Yeah, that's dead right.

Well, I find that interesting because although in terms of ideals I'm a Consequentialist because the result of the matter is ultimately what matters, getting there is another matter, and I am quite attracted to virtue ethics when it comes to getting to the Conquentialist's ideal position.

Sure, I agree with that, it does not however mean that it is incorrect to say that the net suffering in the pinprick situation is greater - There is objectively more suffering in terms of pinpricks vs rape

There isn't in terms of actual existent suffering. Because suffering needs to be consciously experienced for it to actually exist, and so it only exists to the separate individuals because conscious experience is separate. So there is not any more suffering besides the individual sufferings, the total suffering does not exist in reality to anyone.

What specifically was the evaluation you used to determine that, morally, infinite pinpricks < finite rapes?

Simply that the suffering is more intense to all individuals that are being raped. It's worse to every single one of them.

In reality things are different, and I think one of the reasons why we treat greater numbers as worse is, in my opinion, because the greater the numbers of people the more likely it is that someone is suffering more (since in reality you don't get numbers of people with exactly identical suffering).

In reality if I knew of a group of 3 people being raped and another group of 10 people being raped, I'd see the group of 10 people being raped as needing to be saved first simply because it's more likely that the greatest sufferer(s) is amongst the group of 10 than amongst the group of 3.

In reality they would not be suffering absolutely identically.

In hypothetical scenario's when the suffering is identical however, it makes no difference. The group of 10 and the group of 3 being raped, if suffering identically is really just 13 people with exactly identical experiences. You try and save as many as possible, but if one person was to suffer more then that person would be the priority to be saved over all 13 people because that person is suffering more than every single other sufferer.