I'm surprised people still take utilitarianism so seriously. I spent about two hours looking for a quote I remember from university (it was a while ago), where J.S. Mill had the revelation that you can't measure the depth, gravity, salience or whatever of one person's happiness or pain against that of another. IMO, the best you can do is take some kind of political agreement about "what is best" (green new deal anyone?) and further that but the idea that there is one single benchmark is nonsense. This lady's mathematical endeavours fail on principle because they are based on the axiom that you can somehow quantify the degree of happiness of a certain number of people against the relative happiness of another number of people. That is patently absurd.
The mathematical approach isn't absurd, it's rigorous—but it does point out the absurdity of the idea of maximizing some aggregate happiness. The fact that you have to measure happiness is the problem, not the math you could do with it if you could.
There are alternative attempts at defining a utilitarian approach (how happy are the least happy people? How large is the disparity between the least and most happy? Does making somebody miserable part of the time offset them being too happy?) but they all break down at some point.
I'm surprised people still take utilitarianism so seriously. I spent about two hours looking for a quote I remember from university (it was a while ago), where J.S. Mill had the revelation that you can't measure the depth, gravity, salience or whatever of one person's happiness or pain against that of another. IMO, the best you can do is take some kind of political agreement about "what is best" (green new deal anyone?) and further that but the idea that there is one single benchmark is nonsense. This lady's mathematical endeavours fail on principle because they are based on the axiom that you can somehow quantify the degree of happiness of a certain number of people against the relative happiness of another number of people. That is patently absurd.
The mathematical approach isn't absurd, it's rigorousâbut it does point out the absurdity of the idea of maximizing some aggregate happiness. The fact that you have to measure happiness is the problem, not the math you could do with it if you could.
There are alternative attempts at defining a utilitarian approach (how happy are the least happy people? How large is the disparity between the least and most happy? Does making somebody miserable part of the time offset them being too happy?) but they all break down at some point.
I'm surprised people still take utilitarianism so seriously. I spent about two hours looking for a quote I remember from university (it was a while ago), where J.S. Mill had the revelation that you can't measure the depth, gravity, salience or whatever of one person's happiness or pain against that of another. IMO, the best you can do is take some kind of political agreement about "what is best" (green new deal anyone?) and further that but the idea that there is one single benchmark is nonsense. This lady's mathematical endeavours fail on principle because they are based on the axiom that you can somehow quantify the degree of happiness of a certain number of people against the relative happiness of another number of people. That is patently absurd.
The mathematical approach isn't absurd, it's rigorous—but it does point out the absurdity of the idea of maximizing some aggregate happiness. The fact that you have to measure happiness is the problem, not the math you could do with it if you could.
There are alternative attempts at defining a utilitarian approach (how happy are the least happy people? How large is the disparity between the least and most happy? Does making somebody miserable part of the time offset them being too happy?) but they all break down at some point.
Lazy8 wrote: I'm surprised people still take utilitarianism so seriously. I spent about two hours looking for a quote I remember from university (it was a while ago), where J.S. Mill had the revelation that you can't measure the depth, gravity, salience or whatever of one person's happiness or pain against that of another. IMO, the best you can do is take some kind of political agreement about "what is best" (green new deal anyone?) and further that but the idea that there is one single benchmark is nonsense. This lady's mathematical endeavours fail on principle because they are based on the axiom that you can somehow quantify the degree of happiness of a certain number of people against the relative happiness of another number of people. That is patently absurd.
This is actually a really good conversation that fits the sweet spot of deep meaningful thought and over articulated fluff. Ironically coming from these 2!
sirdroseph wrote: That was probably the best thing you've posted. Reminds me of many an impassioned debate I've had with deconstructionists and their ilk (the best one was in Venice one night with a number of professors in English and the humanities).
He is right, of course, and also wrong, for much the same reasons as he himself elucidates. It is unfortunately almost impossible for us to properly understand someone coming from a totally different belief system who has had experiences entirely foreign to our own without something getting lost in translation. In this regard, there is at least a grain of truth underlying the claims made in the name of identity politics. "We"* simply cannot always understand where they are coming from. Ultimately, the gulf in meaning between disparate belief systems will only be bridged by discourse and social evolution with an awful lot of misunderstanding along the way. But it will happen because the alternative is isolation and insularity, which is now almost impossible to imagine.
