I suppose this is where I should introduce myself.

I'm a scientist whose work is mainly focused on the brain's motor control system. My interest in utilitarianism stems from picking up a random book by Peter Singer about 6 years ago - I don't agree with all his positions, but I consider myself to be broadly a utilitarian.

Also, I like singing musical theatre.

So, hi all.

Hey dud

Glad you finally posted, hope to see more of you around here.

Hi Don, do you remember which Peter Singer book it is you read? I've read his book Practical Ethics and I admire how logical and systematic he is about his ethics.

You're working on the brain's motor control system? That's pretty cool. As a first-year medical student, I've learnt the operation of nerves, the basics of the nervous system, the basic anatomy of the brain. Tell me about your research!

Hey there,
Sasha's been nagging me to continue posting...actually, I said I'd post and then didn't, and he reminded me to.
Anyway...

I'm not actually sure whether I'm a utilitarian or not. For example, Kant's position with respect to the rights of the individual makes some sense to me - a good example would be five patients dying incurably of liver, heart, brain, lungs, and kidney failure [or five other random organs] - and a man has walked in off the street to ask for directions. Even if a doctor knew that this man's organs would match those of his patients, I would not approve of the hypothetical doctor's decision to kill the man to harvest his organs. Yet utilitarianism would seem to demand this of the doctor. But I definitely am interested in discussing utilitarian ideas.
I realise that the paragraph above is really, really bad at expressing the concept I have in mind, but it's 2am and I'm tired.

Anyhoo - I'm a huge fan of Peter Singer, even though I only heard his name for the first time earlier this summer - I've read several of his books and they all appealed to me. The only two positions on which I disagree with him are charitable giving [I think he's a hypocrite, but to go into why would take far too long] and voting - I believe that for an individual to vote in the US presidential, or UK general, or Australian federal elections is irrational unless that individual gains enough pleasure by voting to make it worthwhile. He feels it's demanded of us. I lost some respect for him when I read his reasons why [forget the link] because they weren't as well-reasoned as his positions on animal rights, or on the Bush presidency [his book on Dubya was far better-written than any I've read before]

Right. Time to move on to next thread to get through these before I pass out through fatigue.

Sorry, I should have replied way earlier! A few replies in nugget form:

I did indeed read Practical Ethics and really enjoyed it, but I don't agree with Singer on all his points.

My research at the moment is focusing on the state estimate, the idea that the brain uses a prediction of the state of the system plus visual and proprioceptive feedback to produce motor commands that satisfy an action goal. It's more interesting than it sounds.

I don't think I'm a real utilitarian - I'm one of those scientists mentioned by Sasha who uses a vague idea of utilitarianism as a good starting point. For example, in terms of the voting thing, I believe that people should vote to decrease the general suffering in the world as best they can, which is a combination of Singer's utilitarianism and my socialistic tendencies (i.e. the cost of voting is very small to the individual and the potential benefits to a greater number of individuals are very large).

Anyway, discussions for another thread perhaps!

I don't think I'm a utilitarian either, though I suppose I might change my mind when I figure out what it is.

Anyway, I just showed up

Hi, Don!

Hey Febble, great to see you here

Febble wrote:I don't think I'm a utilitarian either, though I suppose I might change my mind when I figure out what it is.

We're working on a catchy tagline to sum up the idea* - and I'm in the middle of writing an argument for my own specific brand - but meanwhile if you're willing to read a bit off the screen, this is a reasonable primer.



(* I'm not kidding, btw)

Hi, welcome Febble.
I think Arepo's introduction to utilitarianism is a bit long and boring.
Personally, what utilitarianism means to me is being sceptical. We don't believe things for no reason. And nor should we believe anything anyone says about ethics automatically, no matter how obvious it seems to be. The only things we know for sure are what we can see for ourselves: feelings. So we should do what makes people feel happy and well.

I hope you enjoy your stay here. Mind, it's not all about utilitarianism. It should become a place to meet online friends*

* online friends should complement, not substitute offline friends

RyanCarey wrote:Personally, what utilitarianism means to me is being sceptical. We don't believe things for no reason. And nor should we believe anything anyone says about ethics automatically, no matter how obvious it seems to be. The only things we know for sure are what we can see for ourselves: feelings. So we should do what makes people feel happy and well.

That seemed to go from something I disagree with entirely to something that makes a lot of sense. I actually wouldn't place much value on some people's feelings; the best example would be that I would prevent a mob from lynching a hypothetical tramp whose life added no benefits, either substantial nor non-material, to anyone, including himself. Actually, I probably wouldn't, but I'd hope the mob stopped when rain fell. But the point is that I would somehow take issue with the crowd's pleasure in the tramp's death. This goes against utilitarianism, but hey.

TraderJoe wrote:

RyanCarey wrote:Personally, what utilitarianism means to me is being sceptical. We don't believe things for no reason. And nor should we believe anything anyone says about ethics automatically, no matter how obvious it seems to be. The only things we know for sure are what we can see for ourselves: feelings. So we should do what makes people feel happy and well.

That seemed to go from something I disagree with entirely to something that makes a lot of sense. I actually wouldn't place much value on some people's feelings; the best example would be that I would prevent a mob from lynching a hypothetical tramp whose life added no benefits, either substantial nor non-material, to anyone, including himself. Actually, I probably wouldn't, but I'd hope the mob stopped when rain fell. But the point is that I would somehow take issue with the crowd's pleasure in the tramp's death. This goes against utilitarianism, but hey.

Possibly classical utilitarianism but this would not be supported by variations of Preference Satisfaction (that excludes external preferences) nor Desire Utilitarianism -that does this without the ad hoc methods of PS too. I am sure that other variants of utilitarianism can handle to this too.

BTW the same goes for the 1 healthy/5 dyling patients argument against classical utilitarianism (CU) but I have lack the time to defend either PS or DU answers - and even variants of CU can avoid the repugnant conclusion.

PPS If anyone wants to start a thread on standard arguments against utilitarianism maybe we can see how our different approaches/versions can handle those challenges?

TraderJoe wrote:But the point is that I would somehow take issue with the crowd's pleasure in the tramp's death. This goes against utilitarianism, but hey.

I think you're (slightly) missing the point here. The prefix you use for utilitarianism specifies what constitutes a 'good' consequence, not what circumstances you approve of specific instances of that consequence. And it's only good in that it's good for the person experiencing it.

So CU just observes that the genuine pleasure experienced by a guy in the lynch mob is better than the absence of that pleasure would be. For eg, if you a CU has a choice between two near-identical lynch mobs (and no other circumstance), one of which is made from unconscious sleepwalkers, one of which is made from conscious people who enjoy the lynching (but both mobs would magically revert to exactly the same people afterwards thus saving you worrying about future consequences), the CU would pick the second mob. The antithesis of CU wouldn't be to say 'don't have a lynch mob' - because lynch mobs don't generate long-term happiness, so no CU would want one in the first place - but to prefer the existence of a less happy mob.

But preferring a happy mob doesn't mean you have to feel comfortable with people taking pleasure in hurting other people, since a) there are obvious utilitarian reasons to find large groups of marauders worrying and b) your emotional reaction to them is separable from your judgement of which scenario you would pick.

[quote=faithlessgod]PPS If anyone wants to start a thread on standard arguments against utilitarianism maybe we can see how our different approaches/versions can handle those challenges?[/quote]

This seems like a very good idea. Maybe best to restrict the OP to the objections themselves to make it easily editable if we think of more, and then give our responses in subsequent posts. I might try and do this tonight, if I can make time.