The Morality Project

[RyukaTana]

You're not using the benefits that modern life gives you - and there's nothing wrong with turning down an opportunity, but if your goal is to not be culled by natural selection, shouldn't you take every advantage you can get?

One could easily say that using medicine goes against 'natural selection'. If one believes the purpose of 'natural selection' to weed out weaker genetics, then being culled by disease is, technically, the way 'natural selection' is supposed to work.

At the very least, utilizing medicine can have clear negative impacts on the ability of the immune system to function without medicine, and as such, allow more individuals with weak immune systems to pass on their genetics.

[snowyowl]

Even assuming natural selection does work that way, if weak immune systems are not a disadvantage in modern society then there's no reason to artificially select against them. And conversely, if weak immune systems are a disadvantage in modern society (e.g. because medicine is expensive), then they'd be naturally eliminated and there's still no reason to artificially select against them.

At best, you'd end up perfectly adapted to live in a world that hasn't existed for millenia. Which is actually the general difficulty I have with mouse's worldview.

[RyukaTana]

Even assuming natural selection does work that way, if weak immune systems are not a disadvantage in modern society then there's no reason to artificially select against them. And conversely, if weak immune systems are a disadvantage in modern society (e.g. because medicine is expensive), then they'd be naturally eliminated and there's still no reason to artificially select against them.

That's overly simplified. First, evolution isn't infallible and doesn't work like that. I think my girlfriend, who has a very weak immune system and thyroid problems would definitely argue that she would rather not have been born that way. It's awful and she is constantly in pain or sick. I don't think she should die, but we both agree she should never procreate.

Second, sociopathy can be very useful survival skill in the modern world, if I had hope for humanity, I would definitely hope that that stopped being true as soon as possible. I definitely wouldn't call it desirable.

[MysticWav]

My morality is largely religiously based from the Christian New Testament. Love thy neighbor, judge not lest you be judged, treat others as you wish to be treated, etc. I don't always live up to this. I have frequently judged, and not once has it failed to come back and bite me. I'd like to think as a result of those lessons I'm getting better at it, but I'm a work in progress.

Once you get away from the religious arena, I like Kant a lot better than many of the other traditional moral philosophers. You can do a lot worse than the Categorical Imperative.

I absolutely hate utilitarianism. Any time you are operating off a moral philosophy that can so easily be used to produce villains, you should probably stop and ask yourself if maybe it's time to find another one.

[RyukaTana]

I absolutely hate utilitarianism. Any time you are operating off a moral philosophy that can so easily be used to produce villains, you should probably stop and ask yourself if maybe it's time to find another one.

Villain is subjective. Hitler would likely not have deemed himself a villain. Kim Jong Il certainly did not.

[Packbat]

More to the point, I'm not sure there has been evidence of any honest-to-goodness utilitarian villains. Utilitarianism doesn't mean "you can do anything that you can claim is for the greater good", it's explicitly about doing the math to maximize good consequences. There are some unsavory views which have been proposed on utilitarian grounds, but any course of action of such a scale and magnitude as to deserve the term "villain" would be almost certainly ruled out on pragmatic grounds by any utilitarian operating in the world that exists. Even if I believed that (say) the political system of the United States would function infinitely better by removing every human being over the age of 40 (an assumption which relies upon beliefs about the immutability of political opinions which I find ridiculous), there's little to no evidence that I could make any useful headway on this goal by any means, much less that the value of the change would exceed the cost of all those deaths.

[MysticWav]

More to the point, I'm not sure there has been evidence of any honest-to-goodness utilitarian villains. Utilitarianism doesn't mean "you can do anything that you can claim is for the greater good", it's explicitly about doing the math to maximize good consequences. There are some unsavory views which have been proposed on utilitarian grounds, but any course of action of such a scale and magnitude as to deserve the term "villain" would be almost certainly ruled out on pragmatic grounds by any utilitarian operating in the world that exists. Even if I believed that (say) the political system of the United States would function infinitely better by removing every human being over the age of 40 (an assumption which relies upon beliefs about the immutability of political opinions which I find ridiculous), there's little to no evidence that I could make any useful headway on this goal by any means, much less that the value of the change would exceed the cost of all those deaths.

Heh, the "Well a utilitarian would have a logistically hard time carrying out some of the more horrible implications of the philosophy" defense isn't the best reflection on it. I agree that you have to have a better rationale than "because" but to the extent that doing such math is even possible, it can still justify some pretty horrible things. Really any philosophy that leaves the "ends justify the means" door open is just asking for trouble.

Just as a fun fictional aside, did anyone see the newest Captain America movie? Weren't the bad guys largely operating on a utilitarian approach to humanity's future?

[Packbat]

Heh, the "Well a utilitarian would have a logistically hard time carrying out some of the more horrible implications of the philosophy" defense isn't the best reflection on it. I agree that you have to have a better rationale than "because" but to the extent that doing such math is even possible, it can still justify some pretty horrible things. Really any philosophy that leaves the "ends justify the means" door open is just asking for trouble.

I know - I can be the absolute worst advocate of an idea you'll ever find. As I always say, I would have had a perfect record in my parliamentary debate tournaments were it not for the round where my opponents showed up late and the judge ruled that it was a forfeit.

The funny thing is, though, that utilitarians don't actually believe the ends justify the means.

What are "ends"? Ends are what you were trying to accomplish, are they not? And the problem with claiming that ends justify means is that the means you use have consequences, regardless of what ends you were trying to seek. If you lead a violent revolution against your government, you establish a rule in your country that violent revolution is acceptable behavior ... and thus, as you lived by the sword, you end up dying by the sword. It is wrong to keep your job by stealing the fruits of your co-worker's labor because this means your co-worker will get no credit for what they did - a manifest injustice - and you will - no less an injustice. I could come up with examples all day, but the pattern would be the same: if you choose to walk down those paths, they will not lead to good places.

In other words, if you actually add up the consequences of the means, you will find that your ends - your desires, your intentions, your goals - are far from the only element in the equation. And utilitarianism is consequentialist - to a utilitarian, all that matters is the consequences of your acts, regardless of how noble or ignoble your motives were in performing those actions.

So, no, classical utilitarians are not going to argue that mass murder is a good thing, even if they can come up with some purported good that would result, because they can also come up with truly horrendous quantities of evil that would result from it. Only evil people - people who see the evil that results from their actions as not important, or as desirable - could possibly argue for such a thing.

[MysticWav]

I know - I can be the absolute worst advocate of an idea you'll ever find. As I always say, I would have had a perfect record in my parliamentary debate tournaments were it not for the round where my opponents showed up late and the judge ruled that it was a forfeit.

Lol.

Maybe I misunderstand utilitarianism then? The classic rebuttal scenario that I'm aware of is something similar to the following:

Suppose we have six people. Same age, same worth as human beings. Five begin to suffer from organ failure through no fault of their own. Suppose there is a healthy individual who is an incredibly well matched donor for all of them, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, etc. They'll be completely cured, suffer no relapses, one hundred percent success rate on the operation, and no ongoing health problems. Utilitarianism says that in the interest of maximum well-being/happiness we should chop the sixth indvidual up, thereby having five healthy happy productive lives and one regrettable pain-causing death, as opposed to one healthy happy productive life and five painful deaths.

Is there some aspect of utilitarianism I'm failing to take in that prevents that scenario?

[snowyowl]

Nope, in that rather contrived scenario, that's what utilitarianism would have you do.

In reality, you'd also have to cope with the fallout of the donor's murder, and the five sufferers might not want to live at the expense of an innocent man's life. Why can't you just kill one of the sufferers and give their healthy organs to the other four?

Also I don't feel that killing one person is worse than allowing five people to die through inaction. In your mind, is it "not your fault" if people die when you were the only one who could save them?