(July 21, 2012 at 7:11 pm)liam Wrote: Not necessarily true, utilitarianism was created as an attempt to minimise suffering in peoples and Bentham writes TPOMAL in response to suffering, not to production of pleasure alone. Furthermore, it is attributed an equal value in the main aim of the act utilitarian theory, with the greatest good being the maximisation of pleasure and the minimisation of pain. It is not my supposition that these things are antithetical, it is the assertion of utilitarianism itself, as proposed first by Epicurus and later by the modern philosophers (such as Bentham and Mill). No, causing the greatest amount of suffering in the present would be the right choice, whereas in reality their actions would still be those which produce the greatest pleasure, even if not for the current generation.
That is exactly my point. Since the utilitarian theory is based on that assertion, that makes it conditional and not absolute. To the best of our knowledge, that assertion applies only to common human psychology. A simple example would be S&M community where pleasure and pain are not antithetical. Its not hard to imagine other communities or species to which the principle doesn't apply either. Ergo, we can conclude that even though it may seem absolutist, since it is based on a premise that is not always true (and can be shown to be so), it is very much contextual.
