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Anti-Utilitarianism
#11
RE: Anti-Utilitarianism
(March 4, 2011 at 8:45 am)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: I've also got a parallel moral dilemma for you:

You have a choice between saving ten million women from being raped, each with a suffering value of 1000, or saving an infinite number of people suffering a pinprick each with a suffering value of 1.

What do you choose, and why?

I'll respond to the longer post when I have time, for now I'll tackle this.

This is two different questions to me, I'll explain why.

1. In terms of the amount of suffering the infinite pinpricks is a situation with more quantitative suffering and less qualitative suffering, ∞ x 1 > 10,000,000 x 1,000.

2. Does this make it morally good to save the people from pinpricks over the people being raped? No. Why? Because I don't consider pain/pleasure to be objects of moral evaluation, I consider desires to be the object of moral evaluation, and in a specific way, not in terms of desire fulfilment (as in desire fulfilment acts utilitarianism) but in terms of the tendency of desires to promote or thwart more and/or stronger other desires within the context of a universal consideration of all of the desires of all people.

The whole ∞ thing makes the mathematics invalid, talking about ∞ + 10,000,000 people makes absolutely no sense, so for the sake of saving myself a shit load of extra work in clarifications I'll put it in a different way where the suffering from the pinpricks still vastly more in total than the rapes, it should make no difference to the evaluation it's self, it's simply easier to deal with in an efficient manner.

Even though we can ignore suffering for my moral evaluation I'll lay it out all the same:

The number of rapes is 10^10 with a suffering (S) of 1,000 for a total (t) of 10^13tS
The number of pinpricked people is 10^100 with an S of 1 for 10^100tS
The pinpricks quantitatively + qualitatively is 10^83 times more tS .

We have a total of 10^110 people.

Now on to the desires.

Desire to prick someone with a pin is a desire than tends to thwart a single very small desire.
A desire to rape is a desire that necessarily thwarts an absolute desire (it is impossible to desire to be raped)

All of our 10^110 people necessarily desire not to be raped.
We will assume that none of our 10^110 people are masochists, so none of them desire to be pricked with a pin.

To simplify the evaluation we will assume that neither the desire to rape nor the desire to prick someone with a pin is one one that thwarts or promotes any other desires.

If we were forced to chose to promote one of these desires over the other and want to know what choice is the more moral one we need to ask, what would a moral person do?

A moral person is a person with the desires that tend to promote more and/or stronger desires than they thwart. A desire to rape is one that, when applied to all people, would thwart more and/or stronger desires than a desire to prick someone with a pin, thus the moral person would promote the desire to prick someone with a pin.

Thus, the desire that I would promote is the desire to prick someone with a pin.
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#12
RE: Anti-Utilitarianism
Oh dear... such long posts that I would like to see them in hide tags... anyway:


Please give me a home where cloud buffalo roam
Where the dear and the strangers can play
Where sometimes is heard a discouraging word
But the skies are not stormy all day
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#13
RE: Anti-Utilitarianism
Intriguing response Void. May I ask why you choose to evaluate the desires rather than the suffering involved?

Also, when is the aggregation relevant to desirism, if ever? I, like you, would choose the pinpricks as preferable to the rapes regardless of how many pinpricks and how little rapes.

Although, we have different reasons. Yours seems to be to do with what a moral person would do and a moral person is someone who tends to promote more desires that promote more other desires and thwart more desires that thwart more other desires (have I got that right?). So it seems to have some virtue ethics in there because it is also about 'what a moral person would do'. Would you agree with that?

The reason I choose the pinpricks over the rapes regardless of the quantity on either side is simply because all pinpricks are only pinpricks to all that suffer from them (even if it was trillions of people or more), and the experience of being raped (which is obviously significantly worse) is much worse to all who suffer from it even if it's only one person.
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#14
RE: Anti-Utilitarianism
(March 5, 2011 at 9:21 am)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: Intriguing response Void. May I ask why you choose to evaluate the desires rather than the suffering involved?

Because pain and suffering are arbitrary conditions, 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.

Quote:Also, when is the aggregation relevant to desirism, if ever? I, like you, would choose the pinpricks as preferable to the rapes regardless of how many pinpricks and how little rapes.

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.

Quote:Although, we have different reasons. Yours seems to be to do with what a moral person would do and a moral person is someone who tends to promote more desires that promote more other desires and thwart more desires that thwart more other desires (have I got that right?). So it seems to have some virtue ethics in there because it is also about 'what a moral person would do'. Would you agree with that?

Yeah, that's dead right.

Quote:The reason I choose the pinpricks over the rapes regardless of the quantity on either side is simply because all pinpricks are only pinpricks to all that suffer from them (even if it was trillions of people or more), and the experience of being raped (which is obviously significantly worse) is much worse to all who suffer from it even if it's only one person.

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, but suffering/happiness is both a flawed and arbitrary evaluation for morality, and, although usually the two are closely aligned, when the situation is pushed to the extreme, which most dilemmas do, you can find examples of where these arbitrary constraints fall apart, very similar to the discussion we had about adopting/fostering children, the key is consistency rather than being arbitrary where it suits our intuitions or goals.

For instance my intuition towards consensual incest is that it is immoral, yet from the position of Desirism consensual incest is something that promotes far more desires than it thwarts, allowing consensual incest thwarts no great desires of non-incestuous relationships aside from their sheer dislike of it, and sheer like/dislike is one of the lowest rated value claims as it thwarts no other desires. Allowing consensual incest promotes the desire for people to live and love as they like, and that desire is one that is far stronger than disallowing people to live and love as they like simply because we dislike the proposition, a proposition that does not effect how we live and love ourselves - This allowing consensual choice of lifestyle and lovers trumps opinions others have about other lifestyles/lovelifes.

What specifically was the evaluation you used to determine that, morally, infinite pinpricks < finite rapes?
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#15
RE: Anti-Utilitarianism
(March 9, 2011 at 5:00 am)theVOID Wrote: Because pain and suffering are arbitrary conditions
In what way are they arbitrary?




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.

Quote: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.

Quote: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.

Quote: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.


Quote: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.
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#16
RE: Anti-Utilitarianism
(March 9, 2011 at 6:50 am)DoubtVsFaith Wrote:
(March 9, 2011 at 5:00 am)theVOID Wrote: 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.

Quote: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.

Quote: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?

Quote: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?

Quote: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?


Quote: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.

Quote: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.

Quote: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?

Quote: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?

Quote: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?
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#17
RE: Anti-Utilitarianism



And how is appealing to desires not equally an appeal to intuition?

Quote:It's an arbitrary constraint. If desires are the source of all value then pain and suffering are only two subsets of value.
Why appeal to desires?

Quote: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 start from the premise that suffering is bad and that saving the worst suffering/worst sufferers is the priority. The evaluation is about figuring out who suffers most and prioritizing them.

Quote: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.

That's a very powerful example and intuitively I'm inclined to agree with you (and save the 100,000). But starting from the premise that suffering is bad, and the worst suffering is what needs to be saved, I can't agree based on that rationale.

Quote:What do you do?

Intuitively speaking I say, cut off two toes off the one person. OBVIOUSLY. And furthermore, the 'ABSURD' conclusion that I agreed to earlier when I chose to save the man rather than the many raped women, I also would intutively choose to save the women. But it depends if I'm going by my intuition of disgust or if I'm going by the rationale to save those who suffer most (which is also intuitively based, but isn't merely my moral disgust, it's a conclusion drawn from my moral premise that suffering is bad and those that suffer most are the priority to be saved).

Quote:What virtue ethics would you use?

I'm not sure. Virtue ethics just appeals to me.

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

Only separately.

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

But why is it accurate to aggregate those suffering separately when they only ever suffer separately?

Quote: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?

I consider the question "What do you like?" and "What do you dislike?" as the premises to start with. You consider "What do you desire?" and "what do you not desire?" as the premises to start with. Am I correct?

Why choose your premises over mine?


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

I don't get what this statement referred to. I'm lacking what?

Quote:That not only doesn't make sense

It makes sense to me

Quote: it's not the way that anyone I'm familiar with looks at things.

Yeah, I'll grant you that actually.

Quote: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?

Intuitively, based on my moral disgust, I say no, save the 10.

Based on my intuitive premise that suffering is bad and those who suffer the most need to be saved first, I'd say yes, save the group containing the sufferer that suffers most.

Quote: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?

It's merely intuition, there's no argument there. It doesn't matter how it seems without argument to back it up.

Quote: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?

Intuitively, based on my moral disgust I say save everyone on earth.

Based on my intuitive premise that suffering is bad and those who suffer the most need to be saved first, I'd say save the person who suffers the most pain in the long run as a result of it. That could be the person who loses two toes simply because he loses an extra toe so twice the trouble, but given the numbers of the people on earth it's possible that someone losing one toe copes less well than the man who suffers two, so I'd probably also still save everyone else based on that.

That's if I analyse it, otherwise I'd just go by the rationale that the person who loses two toes is worse off so I prioritize them to be saved.
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#18
RE: Anti-Utilitarianism
(March 9, 2011 at 3:51 pm)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: And how is appealing to desires not equally an appeal to intuition?

Because desires are the source of all values, this isn't based on intuition it is based on the fact that every single value statement with basis in the real world can be rephrased as a statement of desires.

Challenge this notion if you like, present a value statement that you don't think can be reduced to desires and if it's a value statement that exists in the real world then I'll concede the point.

Quote:Why appeal to desires?

Because they are the source of all values.

If Desires are the source of all values and morality deals with conflicting values, then morality is necessarily an evaluation of conflicting desires - There is no reason to impose a temporal limit on this evaluation, so it's necessarily consequentialist too.

Quote:I start from the premise that suffering is bad and that saving the worst suffering/worst sufferers is the priority. The evaluation is about figuring out who suffers most and prioritizing them.

I knew all of that, but why?

Quote:That's a very powerful example and intuitively I'm inclined to agree with you (and save the 100,000). But starting from the premise that suffering is bad, and the worst suffering is what needs to be saved, I can't agree based on that rationale.

Well at least you're consistent, but to me that example shows a flaw in using suffering as the evaluation, like all arbitrary constraints it breaks down at extremes.

Quote:Intuitively speaking I say, cut off two toes off the one person. OBVIOUSLY. And furthermore, the 'ABSURD' conclusion that I agreed to earlier when I chose to save the man rather than the many raped women, I also would intutively choose to save the women. But it depends if I'm going by my intuition of disgust or if I'm going by the rationale to save those who suffer most (which is also intuitively based, but isn't merely my moral disgust, it's a conclusion drawn from my moral premise that suffering is bad and those that suffer most are the priority to be saved).

You should always go by the rationale, if you have a moral theory but forgo it in favour of your intuitions then you might as well not have one, period. The problem with intuitions is that they permit a great many people to do many things, not because of any reasoning, but because of their own emotional reactions.

Quote:Only separately.

That isn't in any way a problem. Separate instances of cognitive processes can still be compared, different groups containing separate instances of cognitive processes can also be compared.

Quote:But why is it accurate to aggregate those suffering separately when they only ever suffer separately?

We aren't aggregating them, we're comparing them relative to something we want to know about the situation. If we want to know what situation has more suffering then we evaluate the situation with quantitative and qualitative measures - It's entirely conceptual, there is absolutely no need for an aggregate experience.

Quote:I consider the question "What do you like?" and "What do you dislike?" as the premises to start with. You consider "What do you desire?" and "what do you not desire?" as the premises to start with. Am I correct?

That's because like and dislike are statements about what fulfils a specific desire, such as food stimulating our biochemical systems in the brain, we desire some specific stimulation and then like or dislike things relative to their ability to fulfil this desire.

The premise I start with is that desires are the source of all value, from there the only thing it makes sense to evaluate is desires, in their many subsets.

Quote:Why choose your premises over mine?

Because desires are the source of all value, suffering is only a subset of desires and thus is needlessly and unjustifiably excluding other values.

Quote:Intuitively, based on my moral disgust, I say no, save the 10.

It seems to me like you're using intuition and then trying to distance yourself from the potential chaos of intuitive morality with a half-baked moral theory...

Quote:Based on my intuitive premise that suffering is bad and those who suffer the most need to be saved first, I'd say yes, save the group containing the sufferer that suffers most.

Why, because you have an argument for suffering being the source of moral evaluation, or because of another intuition?

Quote:It's merely intuition

That says it all really.

Quote:Intuitively, based on my moral disgust I say save everyone on earth.

Based on my intuitive premise that suffering is bad and those who suffer the most need to be saved first, I'd say save the person who suffers the most pain in the long run as a result of it. That could be the person who loses two toes simply because he loses an extra toe so twice the trouble, but given the numbers of the people on earth it's possible that someone losing one toe copes less well than the man who suffers two, so I'd probably also still save everyone else based on that.

That's if I analyse it, otherwise I'd just go by the rationale that the person who loses two toes is worse off so I prioritize them to be saved.

Okay then, the suffering value takes into account all future suffering resulting from the loss of toes as well as the initial suffering.

Now do you chose to save the one person?
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#19
RE: Anti-Utilitarianism
;( You make me sad!
Quote:"An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. "
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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#20
RE: Anti-Utilitarianism
How so?
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