First of all, do not look at Utilitarianism to be an ethic. Look at it as a system already in place.
Second. Replace happiness with evolutionary benefit (long term survival) and unhappiness with the opposite.
Third, largest of all, do away with the greatest good for the greatest number. Instead make it self-interested, the greatest good for me.
There you have the system of thought that underlies every action of the individual.
And it’s an un-sustainable, self-defeating, disunity of meaningless, short-term goals.
Nature evolves by getting better and better and defeating herself.
Life on earth is a sadistic form of masterbation.
You haven’t supported this, so I’ll just say, no, it isn’t.
Unrelated.
Like what you’re doing right now? Masturbation in philosophy, my friend, is when a person doesn’t even try to help people understand his ideas. Like iman’s jumbled block posts and your own response to this thread. Thanks for nothing.
That’s a great begging of the question. Well done.
This may be news to you… but some very intelligent people don’t agree with evolution.
The greatest good for the greatest number is integral to the concept of Utilitarianism. Changing it to the greatest good for me means it’s no longer utilitarianism.
Oh, ok, now I know the simple truth that underlies every one of my actions. Phew, I feel better.
cheers,
gemty
…?
…
<3
Evolution is refined by environmental stress.
If there is no environmental stress [ex: utopia]
Then the random mutations of each birth + the mass production of babies will cause:
Degeneration & overpopulation.
Besides this, dosile, non-agressive species or individuals [ex: self-sacrifice, virtue, charity] will be outdone & consumed by the crafty, agressive minority.
Death, scarcity, imperfection and competition are big factors for how “good” evolution “works”. Take away the problems of the species and then the species will become the problem.
~
I am a “very intelligent people”.
I realize that evolution was not built for sustainability.
The only law – is “freedom”. Nature is amoral.
I’ve already had the vision.
Cybero will make even more “freedom” and “pleasure” for you, and in turn, your worship will be your handing your spiritual forces over to him.
~
thezeus18, evolution is not intelligence.
The genetic codes and abilities of the individual are far less then the genetic codes and abilities of the whole.
Nature is anything but a collective.
Look how many millions of years it took for her to get anywhere!
But, however, when there is a collective effort of intelligence, then a few hundred years can make for more advancement then you can possably imagine.
Everything from personal experience to genetic code should be pooled and merged.
Collectivism failed because of connection problems.
Animals just don’t get along [& people are animals].
If we both worked together towards the same goal – then we would to better together then we would alone.
But what could we all want? What could we all agree on?
Here’s a thought: Living instead of dieing.
But then there is the stiff, the unreasonable, the narrow minded and the socially malfunctional, immature ones. These ones could more easily be killed then they could be united.
Tell me, how many true friends do you have?
We are not united. We are not collectives. Not really, and this is only because of our instincts, our nature.
So nations are not classless communes.
Quite frankly, today, money and pleasure are more important then human lives, self-control and reason.
[ * Stamps a red star on his own forehead * ]
f**k…
No comrades to be found.
If all actions were done with personal ‘evolutionary benefit’ and long term survival in mind, we would never see anyone go to war and huge investments in healthcare and longevity. Is this what we have? What happens to the utility of the soldier who likes being in the Army?
‘Happiness’ isn’t confined to a transitory assumption that ‘living longer is better’. How about the example of someone confined to their bed, living in pain and suffering day in, day out. Should they be most concerned with their long-term survival? 
Tommy
Blessed are the violent, for when the meek inherit the earth we’ll just take it from them.
cheers,
gemty
tz18,
Trying to dupe us into accepting the contingent as the inherent isn’t an impressive start. This is a classic attempt to persuade people to naturalise an entirely cultural belief/philosophy. It’s what Stuart Sim termed ‘an ideological confidence trick’.
Why? It is the philosophy of the Last Man (have you been reading Fukuyama without telling us?) to merely seek one’s own survival and perpetuation, whether this be straightforward or via the metaphor of offspring. Lo, I teach you the Superman: he is that sea; in him can your
great contempt be submerged.
What is the greatest thing ye can experience? It is the hour of
great contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becometh
loathsome unto you, and so also your reason and virtue.
The hour when ye say: “What good is my happiness! It is poverty
and pollution and wretched self-complacency. But my happiness should
justify existence itself!”
The hour when ye say: “What good is my reason! Doth it long for
knowledge as the lion for his food? It is poverty and pollution and
wretched self-complacency!”
The hour when ye say: “What good is my virtue! As yet it hath not
made me passionate. How weary I am of my good and my bad! It is all
poverty and pollution and wretched self-complacency!”
The hour when ye say: “What good is my justice! I do not see that
I am fervour and fuel. The just, however, are fervour and fuel!”
The hour when we say: “What good is my pity! Is not pity the cross
on which he is nailed who loveth man? But my pity is not a
crucifixion.” (Nietzsche, Zarathustra’s Prologue)
Not only are there very intelligent people who disagree with evolution, there are very intelligent people that are well aware that there is no one set of laws, principles or processes that govern life, the universe and so on.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fort
Why? Why not (for example) the greatest good for each specific gene. Or the greatest good for me and half of another person? Why is one person so often the benchmark of our measure of things? Why do we feel the need to talk of an individual self at all? It would appear to not have much to do with any of this.
Also - a point to note - JS Mill himself wrote that ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’ only applies when there is a greatest number - where there is one individual on a mountaintop, alone and whacking off, such principles do not apply. So you’re not really changing utilitarianism from its last canonical formulation.
‘The’ individual? No such thing. There may be individuals, but there is no apotheosis that could correctly be termed ‘the individual’. Funny how such an obviously abstract and, frankly, bullshit notion could become the basis for so many of our discussions about life, politics, ethics and so on. There is nothing outside text, least of all the individual.
You have an interesting idea of what happiness is.
Can you be happy alone?
Is the self-interested yourself-center of the universe allows for reproduction?
I think this question is one of the best ones I have seen lately. Thx SIATD.
No human exists alone, and no group of us can represent everyone.
There is no I and there is no mankind.
Siatd, you fail me.
What? I’m not trying to persuade you to do anything. You’re already doing it, that’s the point. I’m just trying to write it down.
No, it isn’t.
The intelligent people who disagree with evolution are misled, the other people you describe are limiting themselves the same way Hume did. Fine, there is no cause and effect, and no set of laws that govern the universe. So what do we work with, smart guy?
Quote:
Third, largest of all, do away with the greatest good for the greatest number. Instead make it self-interested, the greatest good for me.
The health of each specific cell relies on the health of all the cells in the body. It relies on the health of the person. A person is the best functioning society availiable to us. Each cell, each gene, does better with the rest than it could ever do without them. Guess what happens when cells forget that. When cells go “rogue” they cause cancer, which ends up with them dead as the rest.
So, what we (you) call “self-interest” is really not in the interest of the self. That’s the point.
Bullshit? Okey dokey then, wiseass. One person. The collection, the society, of cells that makes up a single organism. What do you call that? Do you claim humans don’t exist?
Gosh, I’m a dick. Sorry. I meant to say: I don’t know, maybe you should do some research and find out why social philosophies are based the individual and not the individual and a half. I’m pretty sure there’s a good reason.
The zeus,
I wasn’t taking an exam in you, ergo I couldn’t give a toss about failing you.
You are trying to persuade me that your particularly (bullshit) model of human behaviour is accurate, then when I criticise it you tell me that I’m ‘already doing it’. It’s not a remotely convincing argument. Try again.
Sounds like it.
Yet win Nobel Prizes. Have you won a Nobel Prize? I’m willing to bet that you haven’t.
Thankyou for outlining the metaphysical assumptions that make science possible. ‘What do we work with?’ - I’d rather ask ‘what do we work without?’ The soldier who carries the least travels the fastest and gets to the strategically advantageous ground before the ones bearing the huge load of assumptions about cause and effect and induction.
Of course, scientific philosophy (i.e. metaphysics of a kind) has to presume the existence of natural laws, despite there being no evidence for them and a thousand years of evidence against them, because otherwise it would have no purpose whatsoever. It would be nothing more than archeology (i.e. myth production).
No, it doesn’t. Cells die off and are replaced continually. This is just crap.
All people die. Most people live a life that contains immense suffering. That isn’t the best ‘society’ available to us.
Prove it. Have you tested this theory yourself? Have you fuck. This is more presumed, dogmatic bullshit.
Guess what happens when cells ‘remember’ that? They die anyway.
You brought up ‘self-interest’, not me.
Ad hominem will get you nowhere.
This isn’t a sentence.
There are no single organisms. There are bundles of cells that are inextricably linked to the world and other bundles of cells. If we’re being crudely reductionist about it, which you seem to insist upon.
A myth.
No, I claim that ‘the individual’ is a metaphysical concept for which there’s no proof whatsoever, logical or empirical.
No, you’re just overstepping the boundaries of your knowledge and I’m correcting you.
It’s an assumption that goes back to early Semitic religion, as far as I know. Ironically, the secular individualists of the 21st century actually base their entire philosophy on an ancient religious concept invented by the elite as a means of suppression. Of course, most if not all secular individualists are total morons.
Again, you’re pretty sure there’s a good reason, but you can’t offer one in support of your position. This is a massive assumption on your part.
Wow. I seemed to have pissed you off. Woopsie. I apologise for any ad hominum I have made.
Wow. You’re right. I was trying to persuade you. Woops.
Maybe it is it then… I wouldn’t know.
I’m working on it. I like evolution because it seems to me a very good explanation of why we are as we are. As to those people who don’t like it, well, what’s their replacement?
If this is true we should send our soldiers into battle naked.
What’s scientific philosophy?
Poor example, I agree.
I went too far. And whatever you said is unrelated.
Right, I’m moving in the wrong direction. And you’re swearing.
No they don’t. They replicate, don’t they? I’m not sure.
Yes. That is the point. That’s what I’m trying to say here. That a human can be completely self-interested and that this self-interest will make him do altruistic actions.
I already took it back. Sorry. You’re pretty good at provoking them, though. Usually with unecessary comments like:
Right. But they form a society so efficient that we see it to be a single organism and refer to it as such.
But we can’t work without it, so I asked you what you put in its place.
Why can’t we leave it at an assumption, so we can continue with the discussion? I assume there’s a good reason because I find it implausible that the notion of ‘individual’ would arise as soon as human beings were evolved enough to refer to eachother.
We have called each other by names since recorded history. To dub a collection of cells “Ungh” or “Bob” is an expresses the concept of ‘individual’. When we say hello, we don’t say “Hi, cell #10203, cell number #23232” we say “Hi Joe” which is equivalent to saying “Hi the collection of cells that makes up Joe”. Thus the notion of individual outdates most modern religions.
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Firstly: Utilitarianism provides a valuable corrective against the sort of excessively rule-based ethics which come naturally to the Christian, and perhaps to anyone who lives in a society with a very well-defined set of laws. The two approaches to ethics are complementary, and I think we need both
Secondly Considering “the greatest good of the greatest number” can be an effective way of defeating prejudices and selfishness. This ethical symmetry is, after all, quite close to such principles as “Do to others as you would have them do to you” and “Love your neighbour as yourself”. Would that not be self-intrest?
Regards,
Apple.