In April this year, William MacAskill published an article describing Saturationism – a proposed modification to Utilitarianism that resolves most of its more unintuitive or unacceptable inferences, including the famous “repugnant conclusion”. This is a great paper that I think that anyone with an interest in moral philosophy should check out…
This post loosely follows on from Resolving Moral Dilemmas using Uncertainty and Insanity.
My aim here is not to provide yet another response to all of the common challenges to Utilitarianism. A fairly good background of the challenges Utilitarianism has been faced with over the years can be found by reading through its Wikipedia article. Alternatively for an even deeper dive, this article gives a very thorough summary of such things. The issue is, that having fended off these initial criticisms, the philosophy of Utilitarianism has encountered a few problems which are not so easily dispatched. Of the different types of Utilitarianism, some resolve certain problems, and others resolve other problems, but all reveal their own cracks in turn. It is on these deeper issues that I intend to focus…
The pursuit of happiness is something of a universal human endeavour. As such, one could consider it odd that we are so divided about how to achieve happiness – after all, it is something we have been trying to reach as a society since time immemorial. Unfortunately this view neglects the fact that the pursuit of happiness is such a significant motivator for people, that there are an enormous number of people and organisations out there trying to convince people that their method is the one, in order to gain influence, profit or status. In this environment, it is difficult to filter the noise and disinformation from the genuine signal of how to live a happy life…
One of the main criticisms of Consequentialism is that it leads to a state where anything not forbidden is mandatory. In order to optimise future consequences, no choice has absolutely zero effect either way, which is what would be required for it to be merely permissible. The seemingly innocuous question of “should I eat a sandwich for lunch?” becomes something with a morally absolute right and wrong answer. Even if the extent of forbiddenness or mandatoriness is variable by the severity of the consequences, we are left with a system in which any expression of free will is fundamentally negative. An automaton that always picked the morally mandatory option would be a better person than anyone that ever chose differently. This outlook neglects uncertainty however – in an uncertain world, there is necessarily a grey area between things with obvious positive consequences and obvious negative consequences. In these situations, it is reasonable to consider the grey area to be permissible choices, as there is no way to determine which choice is better…
Maturity shouldn’t mean being boring. Instead it should be an awareness of when it is appropriate to goof off. Often maturity is seen as the ability to remain sombre and unexcitable – this is a great shame. Whilst the ability to remain calm and unflustered is very valuable, being older and more mature should not prevent people from having fun, enjoying life and being spontaneous. The misconception that being mature means that you can’t have any fun is borne out of an over-application of the idea that there are situations where sombreness is appropriate. If you are unable to determine in which situations it is acceptable to be silly, you learn to err on the side of caution, applying a sombre attitude even when it is not warranted…
The Rationalist Movement, embodied by communities such as LessWrong and SlateStarCodex uses the term Rationality in a very particular way. As such, it is useful to be able to express this meaning to people, when trying to describe what the movement is, and what it is trying to accomplish. On a personal level, I have struggled greatly to adequately explain to other people not already familiar with the community and its values, the core of what Rationality is, and why they should care. There are several places trying to explain this but all are quite long-winded…