A Hunter and His Prey

[Seph]

@Leviathan

How will it exceed the suffering, as the intensity, duration, etc. of the suffering endured by the victim would be of a far greater nature than the intensity, duration, etc. of the happiness acquired by the aggressors?

How can you know?

[Leviathan]

Felicific calculus. Or does a light slap not seem a bit less of an imposition than an amputation?

[Seph]

@Leviathan

Felicific calculus.

Aka: The process of calculating that which is immeasurable.

[luckylad33]

@Leviathan

How will it exceed the suffering, as the intensity, duration, etc. of the suffering endured by the victim would be of a far greater nature than the intensity, duration, etc. of the happiness acquired by the aggressors?

There are many aggressors and only 1 victim. Together, the overall happiness of the aggressors greatly exceeds the suffering of the victim. Not only is the rape not wrong, put it is the right thing to do according to utilitarianism. The likelihood of this occurring is not the point. The point is that it is absurd to claim that is is always moral to abide by utilitarianism.

@Leviathan

When I first heard of the argument in ethics class, I didn’t understand it and frankly still don’t. How will false convictions prevent more murders from being committed, since the actual murderers are still at large? This is another example of an objection with no practical value, and one that effectively consists of purposeless navel gazing, particularly since its focus is on an individual act and cannot stand as a criticism to general utilitarian rules, as properly understood as two levels, act and rule utilitarianism are not in conflict.

There is great civil unrest because a criminal is on the loose. There is no hope of catching the criminal. If you accuse and convict an innocent man, then the riots and lynchings will stop. According to the doctrine of utilitarianism, we should convict a man who we know is innocent.

@Leviathan

Actually, the goal was to maximize the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people, as formulated by Bentham. It was Mill that recognized that the greatest amount of happiness and the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people might conflict, but this wasn’t an utter abandonment of Bentham’s principles. More importantly, there’s an effective law of diminishing returns of sorts when it comes to the happiness of one person; due to the limited nature of individual perceptions, extremely intense happiness on the part of one person isn’t worth sacrificing the moderate happiness of many.

But the more important point, and the one that you did not address, is that there is no utility monster. There is no practical purpose in focus on things that have no application outside of the textbook, and it’s interesting that even that may be in conflict with utilitarian principles in that it delays the adoption of a utilitarian ethical framework and the benefits that it could provide without offering anything of comparable moral significance, since purely theoretical objections are weak.

A utilitarian wants to maximize happiness. Adding in how much happiness each person should receive renders utilitarianism meaningless. If you do not allow the Utility monster to harm the population, then you do not want to maximize happiness. Whether or not a Utility monster exists is irrelevant and it misses the point. If it is right to maximize happiness, then it is right for the utility monster to harm the population.

@Leviathan

Are you referring to ethics or morality? We hold to certain fundamental moral precepts regarding the maximization of happiness and minimization of suffering that will remain universal, but recognize that the particular elements of certain situations will require different actions in different circumstances, if that’s what you were attempting to convey.

I am assuming that you realize that nothing is morally or ethically "right or “wrong” outside of the subjective preferences of individuals. If a person attempts to maximize unhappiness, you can only say that you dislike his actions. You cannot say that what he is doing is objectively bad.