Anti-Utilitarianism

[theVOID]

Because pain and suffering are arbitrary conditions

In what way are they arbitrary?

Because we've simply selected two antithesis that are important to us and used them as the negative and positive of the scale. It's precisely the mistake Sam Harris made with flourishing, he can't in any way argue for flourishing or the lack there of being the source of value, he simply uses an argument from intuition and appeal to emotion to make his case, where he says "Imagine a state of affairs where everyone is suffering as much as possible" which is the worst state of affairs in many evaluative methods, in terms of pain/pleasure, preferences, desire fulfilment, and the abilities of desires on other desires, it's not so much as an argument for his evaluation as it is a statement of fact about the worst conceivable state of affairs, so his conclusion is a non sequitur.

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.

It's an arbitrary constraint. If desires are the source of all value then pain and suffering are only two subsets of value. Since our conflicting desires are the subset referring to morality then our conflicting pain and suffering is only a subset of moral value. They needed to be taken into account but there is no reason at all to restrict moral evaluations to one subset and nobody has ever made a successful argument for it, anyone who tries it either gives up or ends up with 'intrinsic value', value that is in and of it's self, suffering is intrinsically bad and pleasure is intrinsically good. Intrinsic values don't exist, and suffering isn't intrinsically bad, it's contingent upon desires. Something that is suffering to one person could be pleasure to another depending on their goals. Someone who is psychotic, for instance, may desire to saw their ear off.

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.

Best? No. Most? Yes. Attaching values to suffering makes no sense in some situations, as I've said.

I agree that it is worse, but why do you think it is worse? I can give you a comprehensive case for why, you've so far not presented anything as far as the method for evaluating is concerned.

I can show you the flaws of suffering as an evaluation with the below example, one that will contradict the rape/pinprick example:

You have a choice:

You can cut 2 toes off one person, suffering value 2 per person.

You can cut 1 toe off 100,000 people, suffering value 1 per person.

What do you do?

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.

Desirism is consequentialist too, the consequence being the impact the desire has on it's ability to promote or thwart other desires.

What virtue ethics would you use?

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.

1. The suffering does exist
2. The suffering is being experienced

The total suffering is an evaluation of two different scenarios with quantitative and qualitative values.

You seem to treat suffering in pain like some magical thing, almost in a dualist way, yet you wouldn't say we can't evaluate like and dislike without experiencing the total like and dislike ourselves would you? Why should one emergent property of the brain be excluded and one allowed?

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

And? You're lacking one hell of a lot.

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).

That not only doesn't make sense, it's not the way that anyone I'm familiar with looks at things.

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.

That assumption you necessarily make for your evaluation to work breaks down in principle.

Each woman is suffering identically from their rape.

Now what is your conclusion?

In reality they would not be suffering absolutely identically.

I would be fair to say that given no other information that the group of 10 women likely has one suffering more than the group of 3, simply from statistical probabilities, however what if you were told that group 3 had one woman who was experiencing more pain from her rape? Would you forgo the 10 to save the 3?

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.

Say you can only chose 1 group. You chose the 10 for the numbers now? Based on what? Suddenly it seems like the quantitative value has impact does it not?

As for your last point:

You can save 1 person from having 2 toes cut off.

You can save everybody else on earth from having one toe cut off.

You should be required to chose the former from what you've said so far, is that correct?