Utilitarianism.

[Rhiannon]

Steve H,

It’s not a foolish question at all if you want to argue for objective morality. Why would you think that the axiom on which this approach rests (that maximal happiness equals maximal good) necessarily identifies an objective moral truth? If you don’t want to overreach into claims of objectivity though, then you may as well accept this axiom as any other. 

Do we? What about selflessness, altruism etc? Or are you hinting here that the dopamine kick that rewards us when we do a “good” deed itself thereby maximises our happiness?

What would that look like even if it wasn’t so nebulous? How for example would you weigh the denial of happiness the smoking ban caused to smokers against the happiness for others derived from non-smoking restaurants and the like? 

So how would you propose to decide upon which rules should apply? Should for example my rule that I like eating steak so killing certain animals is fine carry more or less weight than someone else’s rule that meat is murder?

Don’t get me wrong here by the way. I subscribe to the broad thesis that more happiness is better than less happiness (I consider myself a eudaimonist), but I hesitate to derive from that anything but localised and subjective truths, and as a practical means of acting in the world it seems to me to be beset with problems almost the moment you try to apply it.

Yes, I agree with this. A lot of people get pleasure from flying, but a lot of people are badly impacted by climate change. But the greater good may be the employment opportunities afforded by flying. But then communities are displaced and the environment destroyed to make way for tourism. But the tax take is higher. But local identity is eroded...

How can this be decided objectively?

And the fact is that life isn't always about happiness. Many of us have to make choices that compromise our personal happiness in order to help someone else. Some of us even choose suffering in order to try to make things different. Sometimes the difficult path has to be taken.

You'd think that SteveH would have picked this up when he read the Gospels.

[SteveH]

I don't think that everyone tries to maximize happiness.  I've met a lot of people in therapy who preferred misery.

If they prefer misery, then, paradoxically, misery - or what everyone else would regard as misery - makes them happy.

[wigginhall]

If they prefer misery, then, paradoxically, misery - or what everyone else would regard as misery - makes them happy.

Then your understanding of happiness seems very elastic!   I suppose then if someone is so miserable that they commit suicide, according to you this is extreme happiness.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

Then your understanding of happiness seems very elastic!   I suppose then if someone is so miserable that they commit suicide, according to you this is extreme happiness.

It also seems to step behind the happiness label into a precursor definition of "moral good equates to the greatest number of people acting as they prefer". It's still beset with the same problems though - what if I prefer to eat a steak and someone else prefers that I don't? Whose preference would prevail, and what (and whose) rule could be adduced to determine that?   

[Rhiannon]

I don't think that everyone tries to maximize happiness.  I've met a lot of people in therapy who preferred misery, for all kinds of reasons.    Freud wrote an interesting article called "Those Wrecked by Success", in which he describes a need to fail.   Of course, you could argue that failure made such people happy, but not really.  In fact, this is a massive topic in therapy, as so many people demonstrate it, and the reasons are complex, for example, self-sabotage, avoiding envy, shame, etc..

Yes, people sometimes want to avoid happiness, joy, call it what you will, because they know that it won't last and therefore don't want to feel the kinds of things that will make the bad times feel worse. Better to feel nothing - avoidant personality.

And actually the pursuit of happiness is a concern when you acknowledge the impermanence of it. How far do you have to go in order to regain it? Aiming for the common good I can understand, as does trying to cause least harm, and getting out of peoples' personal lives if what they do doesn't hurt others.

[wigginhall]

Yes, people sometimes want to avoid happiness, joy, call it what you will, because they know that it won't last and therefore don't want to feel the kinds of things that will make the bad times feel worse. Better to feel nothing - avoidant personality.

And actually the pursuit of happiness is a concern when you acknowledge the impermanence of it. How far do you have to go in order to regain it? Aiming for the common good I can understand, as does trying to cause least harm, and getting out of peoples' personal lives if what they do doesn't hurt others.

It's interesting historically, because when Freud first wrote "Wrecked by Success", it seemed to be a minor footnote, but post-war, it mushroomed as a topic, as so many people arrived in therapy/counselling, determined not to be happy, and sabotaging themselves in various ways.   I suppose you could argue that they ought to want to be happy, probably a disastrous approach, which could well make things worse.

[Nearly Sane]

I think the idea of we all know what 'happiness' is is fatuous. As covered earlier my take is that what Bentham meant is what an outcome that is what the individual wants. Now it appeared as if Steve accepted that and I followed up on that but he appears to have ignored that.

Again as raised earlier, I am unconvinced that utilitarianism is much of a morality, rather than a post hoc rationalusation. It's a description of the antitheist and then circularly using it to justify itself. Note I think that is a challenge more to what we generally see as what people say Bentham meant rather than his actual position.

[Rhiannon]

I found this:

To illustrate this method, suppose that you are buying ice cream for a party that ten people will attend. Your only flavor options are chocolate and vanilla, and some of the people attending like chocolate while others like vanilla. As a utilitarian, you should choose the flavor that will result in the most pleasure for the group as a whole. If seven like chocolate and three like vanilla and if all of them get the same amount of pleasure from the flavor they like, then you should choose chocolate. This will yield what Bentham, in a famous phrase, called “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”

From here:

https://www.iep.utm.edu/util-a-r/

Well, what this seems to suggest is a method by which most people get what they want. But that isn't guaranteed to increase 'happiness' (whatever the fuck that is). Most people getting what they want can be a very bad thing indeed.

[SteveH]

I found this:

To illustrate this method, suppose that you are buying ice cream for a party that ten people will attend. Your only flavor options are chocolate and vanilla, and some of the people attending like chocolate while others like vanilla. As a utilitarian, you should choose the flavor that will result in the most pleasure for the group as a whole. If seven like chocolate and three like vanilla and if all of them get the same amount of pleasure from the flavor they like, then you should choose chocolate. This will yield what Bentham, in a famous phrase, called “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”

From here:

https://www.iep.utm.edu/util-a-r/

Well, what this seems to suggest is a method by which most people get what they want. But that isn't guaranteed to increase 'happiness' (whatever the fuck that is). Most people getting what they want can be a very bad thing indeed.

Why is it bad?

[Rhiannon]

Why is it bad?

Because 'most people' getting what they want can result in privatisation, the X Factor, Tory governments, climate change. genocide.

[SteveH]

Because 'most people' getting what they want can result in privatisation, the X Factor, Tory governments, climate change. genocide.

Which would be bad because...?

[Rhiannon]

Which would be bad because...?

Because what makes most people happy now may have consequences that bring suffering in the future.

[Nearly Sane]

Because 'most people' getting what they want can result in privatisation, the X Factor, Tory governments, climate change. genocide.

The point there though would be that in the felicific calculus, there would be a greater amount of 'unhappiness' for those who suffer under any such decision than from those who benefit. And even in the ice cream example, the chocolate option only holds if there is only the chance of 1 flavour. The actual solution would be for each person to get the flavour they like, If however 2 of the vanillas hated the chocolate and 1 vanilla was allergic to chocalate, their dislike might outweigh the desire of the other 7.


 

[Nearly Sane]

This is a pretty reasonable summary of Bentham


https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bentham/

[SteveH]

Because what makes most people happy now may have consequences that bring suffering in the future.

Which condemns it on utilitarian grounds!

[Nearly Sane]

Which condemns it on utilitarian grounds!

Though this illustrates the problems with the idea of the calculus. It's assuming that all outcomes are known, and the effects on the everyone's 'happiness'. It tries to give a scientific rigour to something not really amenable to that. In addition if you overlay that with rule utilitarianism, it makes application to specific  decisions removed from the decision itself.

[SteveH]

You can be sceptical about the calculus, whilestill accepting that some acts usually lead to a reduction in happiness, and therefore should be forbidden, while other lead to an increase in it, and should be encouraged. The point is that the maximisation of happiness is the goal, not something else such as obeying the supposed commands of God, even if some of them lead to misery (such as making homosexual acts illegal), or maximising some other supposed good, rather than happiness.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Steve H,

You can be sceptical about the calculus, whilestill accepting that some acts usually lead to a reduction in happiness, and therefore should be forbidden, while other lead to an increase in it, and should be encouraged. The point is that the maximisation of happiness is the goal, not something else such as obeying the supposed commands of God, even if some of them lead to misery (such as making homosexual acts illegal), or maximising some other supposed good, rather than happiness.

I set out some of the problems with this in Reply 21, which you ignored. It’s not about scepticism at the calculus, it’s that it’s functionally impossible to apply. How for example would you decide whether the smoking ban had increased or decreased net happiness? What metrics would you apply, and how would you compare, say, the total pissedoffness of a smoker who could no longer smoke in his favourite pub against the moderately increased happiness of his three pals who feel slightly better about the ban (but really didn’t care that much anyway) but unhappy that their pal is no longer there? And even if you could do that, how then would you calculate the unhappiness of a smoker who’d later contract lung cancer if there was no ban against his feelings if the ban meant he never got it? And so it goes – endless permutations, no metrics, and no means of establishing these “rules” of yours with any objectivity at all…

…which by the way I seem to recall was your claim over on the other thread re how we could condemn the nazis if there was no objective morality.

So yes, I’m all for more happiness about the place – who wouldn’t be? – but beyond that generalised wish for how I’d like things to be I see no practical means of implementing utilitarianism as the paradigmatic system of ethics, let alone of adducing objective rules to underpin it.

[Rhiannon]

Which condemns it on utilitarian grounds!

No, it doesn't. Utilitarianism is about making decisions for the highest good now, right? In the moment what made people happy was getting shares in the gas and electric companies, voting Tory, flying on foreign holidays and fridges. That with hindsight we can see the they were shit decisions just means that doing things to make people 'happy' according to utilitarian principles can in fact lead to a load of misery down the line. You can't say that something doesn't count because the outcome disproves the principle of 'doing things to make people 'happy' leads to good.'

[Rhiannon]

The point there though would be that in the felicific calculus, there would be a greater amount of 'unhappiness' for those who suffer under any such decision than from those who benefit. And even in the ice cream example, the chocolate option only holds if there is only the chance of 1 flavour. The actual solution would be for each person to get the flavour they like, If however 2 of the vanillas hated the chocolate and 1 vanilla was allergic to chocalate, their dislike might outweigh the desire of the other 7.

But at the time decisions are made, people do generally do ok. Take climate change. The roots of that lie in labour saving devices, improvement in standard to living, and transportation that definitely made most people 'happy'. There was no reason o ban washing machines or holidays in Torremolinos...and in fact we still aren't banning them even though we know that they are now causing more suffering then they prevent, or are likely to. We can't simply ask 'is this likely to cause 'happiness' to the majority now because an apparently good decision now can have disastrous consequences in the future. Doing what the majority 'wants' doesn't seem to be a good basis for doing anything.

[Nearly Sane]

But at the time decisions are made, people do generally do ok. Take climate change. The roots of that lie in labour saving devices, improvement in standard to living, and transportation that definitely made most people 'happy'. There was no reason o ban washing machines or holidays in Torremolinos...and in fact we still aren't banning them even though we know that they are now causing more suffering then they prevent, or are likely to. We can't simply ask 'is this likely to cause 'happiness' to the majority now because an apparently good decision now can have disastrous consequences in the future. Doing what the majority 'wants' doesn't seem to be a good basis for doing anything.

That's again not really what the felicific calculus is about. It's not about democracy. It's not about the majority. It's not about now.  It's about 'happiness' as a measure with all consequences and effects understood. It's not even about what people think makes them happy, it's about someone evaluating what the effects will be and saying that is somehow the best outcome.

Note, I'm not arguing for it, I've pointed out to Steve that it doesn't seem useful to me but any argument against it needs to progress on the basis of what it is about, and simple majority at the time isn't it.

[Nearly Sane]

You can be sceptical about the calculus, whilestill accepting that some acts usually lead to a reduction in happiness, and therefore should be forbidden, while other lead to an increase in it, and should be encouraged. The point is that the maximisation of happiness is the goal, not something else such as obeying the supposed commands of God, even if some of them lead to misery (such as making homosexual acts illegal), or maximising some other supposed good, rather than happiness.

But if it is non calculable then it's useless, and trying to get a rule from it is 'nonsense on stilts'.

[Rhiannon]

That's again not really what the felicific calculus is about. It's not about democracy. It's not about the majority. It's not about now.  It's about 'happiness' as a measure with all consequences and effects understood. It's not even about what people think makes them happy, it's about someone evaluating what the effects will be and saying that is somehow the best outcome.

Note, I'm not arguing for it, I've pointed out to Steve that it doesn't seem useful to me but any argument against it needs to progress on the basis of what it is about, and simple majority at the time isn't it.

Yes, I do know that. Bentham seemed to think utilitarianism applied to the greater good of the many. It isn't anything to do with democracy; the many may decide that they want fridges and shiny cars to keep them happy and over the years it seems to have been generally agreed that consumerism is 'progress' and for the greater good. The outcome - climate change, environmental destruction - wasn't known or was discounted.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

That's again not really what the felicific calculus is about. It's not about democracy. It's not about the majority. It's not about now.  It's about 'happiness' as a measure with all consequences and effects understood. It's not even about what people think makes them happy, it's about someone evaluating what the effects will be and saying that is somehow the best outcome.

Note, I'm not arguing for it, I've pointed out to Steve that it doesn't seem useful to me but any argument against it needs to progress on the basis of what it is about, and simple majority at the time isn't it.

Yes, and the “all consequences and effects understood” is the killer however superficially attractive the idea might seem.

But if it is non calculable then it's useless, and trying to get a rule from it is 'nonsense on stilts'.

Quite.

[Rhiannon]

NS,

Yes, and the “all consequences and effects understood” is the killer however superficially attractive the idea might seem.

Quite.

Yes, this is pretty much what I was trying to say. Badly.