Utilitarianism rests on the observation that morality and subjective experience are often aligned:
When someone dies, we feel sadness, and we also consider it immoral to kill.
When we lose something, it feels bad, and we also consider it immoral to steal.
When we are hungry and we eat, it feels good, and we consider it good to feed the hungry.
When we receive gifts, it feels good, and we consider it good to give things to people.
It’s generally true that subjective experience is highly correlated with morality.
But Utilitarianism makes the mistake that because subjective experience and morality are highly correlated, subjective experience must cause something to be moral or immoral. We have examples of negative subjective experiences that do not align with moral valence, e.g. the pain of eating hot sauce, or the sadness of a breakup. There’s no one-to-one correspondence between subjective experience and moral valence, but that is what we should expect if they had a causal relationship.
I propose that the reason subjective experience and morality are correlated is that they are evolved capacities that were selected for because they both helped us survive. Avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, causes us to avoid injury and cold and to seek nutrients, companionship, reproduction. Morality helps groups of humans live and work together, and to cooperate efficiently. Both increase survival, and each will fail if they override the other to the point of undermining the other’s role in helping us survive.
And though they are distinct, they interact and support each other: doing good feels good, and noble pain hurts less. Indeed, utilitarianism can be seen as an extension of that, as we innately use mental models how others feel to determine whether something is right or wrong.
Utilitarianism essentializes this association, reducing morality to subjective experience and putting a moral valence on all that we feel. That is not supported by the observed correlation, and leads to absurd extremes, especially when applied to non-humans.
Consent is the only reason for morality. Subjective pain and suffering is tied to this.
Killing a VR person is not immoral, cause they don’t feel pain. Deleting their VR account is immoral because they did not consent to it.
Even if you cause them great pain, its moral as long as they consented to it (for example a FPS game that has pain in the game.)
This is why causing subjective pain is immoral, because it violates consent. If it doesn’t violate consent then its not immoral (such as BDSM.)
If there is no such thing as pain or suffering then there is no such thing as morality. Therefore, subjective pain and suffering is the foundation of all morality.
You assume that solipism is untrue and that any person might not be a zombie or NPC. Even if there is a 99% chance they are an NPC, that small chance they might not be an NPC, causes you to obey morality.
What about pleasure and joy? Isn’t it moral to seek after that for the other the way you would hope they would seek after that for you? Words like seek after and hope are consent words.
Even more dangerous, too, because with a why (pleasure and joy), you can endure any how (pain and suffering).
Consent matters, but it can’t be the only thing. Someone trying to murder me probably doesn’t consent to me killing them to save myself. Many children don’t consent to medical treatment. You’d at least have to use some construct of a maximally rational and well informed person in the place of actual people.
I’m also open to the possibility that certain actions are immoral despite consent. Being a deadbeat or a listless drug addict seems immoral without a violation of consent.
What has been reduced from understanding through reason was basically through optical illusions to feelings.
To feel is to know!
Therefore it’s reversed cartisianism: Sum est Cogito. ( and I think I am is because I feel mysel to be, , therefore I must be) Itchi said something moralistic like that a while ago ; (( maybe a few years ago when he said “ &here we are)
I think this question did pop up in Utilitarianism, right from the start. You say that there’s a correlation between subjective experience and morality and I tend to agree. This was severely criticized by G. E. Moore, widely unknown for his naturalistic fallacy.
I’ve myself asked the question, is it good because we want it or do we want it because it is good? Want to give it a shot? Please use simple English, if possible.
I don’t know how anyone can wake up in the morning and thank God to be alive.
Every time I wake up in the morning I say “hmm, what Shit must I endure today”.
Every time I wake up I say… oof, the dreams are over, back to the shitty real world. Why does the real world even have to exist, I would rather just the dream world and no real world at all.
I don’t even have it that bad. Most people are workaholic slaves that work from 9 to 7 and have to pay a mortgage. I don’t even own a house or a car
Existence is involuntary
Existence is agony. Boredom is inherent and people are always looking for ways to escape the inherent boredom of existence.
I’ve softened on Moore’s conclusions since Intro to Ethics, but I still think his argument is fallacious: just because a string of words is grammatically a question does not mean that it is a meaningful question.
If, as I argue, morality is the result of an instinct that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce, then ‘good’ and ‘want’ are directionally synonymous: the moral sense is an instinctual drive, we are innately motivated by it – seeing something as ‘good’ just is a species of ‘want’.
Assuming that’s true, it would seem to contradict your claim that, “Consent is the only reason for morality,” as it entails that it is sometimes morally preferable to have more violations of consent.
I think you’re rationalizing your feelings as philosophical conclusions, but philosophical conclusions aren’t feelings. Anhedonia is a symptom of depression.
My moral system is complex and cannot be defeated by overly-simplified statements like these
Obviously sometimes consent violations are moral
This doesn’t have anything to do with that. My feelings are the same as everyone else’s. Most people are miserable workaholics debt slaves
If someone is happy 50% of the time and suffer 50% of the time they are better off never being born. Silenus said most people are better off never being born.
Btw most people are actually happy only 10% of the time. Time moves faster when you are happy and slowly when you suffer, causing the suffering to be 90% of the time.
Does it respect consent (of any stakeholder, self included) or does it violate consent (of any stakeholder, self included)?
If what is wanted violates a consent-respecting consent of any stakeholder, self included, then it willfully diverges from reality of consent recognition.
To want what is good is to want what recognizes and respects every consent-respecting consent impacted by the action.
We are not obligated to respect a consent that violates consent that respects consent.
You have terrible bedside manner. Imagine you said that to him when he’s undergoing treatment for assisted suicide…to hasten it, of course. Oh OK, you already did imagine that. You’re fired from helping people stay alive… or to help them live for the first time, for that matter.
Maybe you’re the one who needs the help if you can’t imagine a better response? Now I’m the one with horrible bedside manner. I’m firing myself.