Why is utilitarianism so terribly misunderstood?

>I believe in maximizing happiness BUT WAIT you can't just use my system to do happiness maximization decisions, because I said "long term" so instead you have to consider that you should promote the social order that will be the most perenne and bring stability to society. Thus of course rather than doing direct happiness optimization you have to make decisions to ensure the advent and perpetuation of that social order.

Woaw so using the amazing power of utilitarianism, we find ourself in the end facing the question "which moral code and social orders are the best?".
What an amazing and enlightening philosophy. It's almost not like you say nothing at all.

Well, that is if you assign a negative value to unhappy people. You could also assign a value to death lower than anything else.
The problem of course, being that it is impossible to decide on this question non-arbitrarily. Even if you had Sam Harris magic brain-measuring machines, you can't use one on a dead person.

Utilitarianism is maximizing long-term happiness for the greatest possible number of people, not 1 specific person, chad or otherwise.

>you have to literally believe that allowing a serial killer to kill a bunch of people suffering from depression would raise the utility

That's ridiculous. You don't have to believe that at all because any reasonable person would know that government sanctioned killings would reduce the overall feeling of safety in society, thus reducing the overall mood of the society of a whole.

Define 'long-run".

Well yeah, if all you cared about was short-term happiness then you'd just put everybody on fucking meth or something like that. But that would produce societal collapse and reduce long-term happiness.

>Utilitarianism is maximizing long-term happiness for the greatest possible number of people
You can't have both. What are you maximizing? The number of people over a threshold, or the sum of total happiness?

So the great lesson of utilitarianism is "support the political philosophy that you think is the best"?
So fricking powerful mayne. How could we have not thought of that?

>What are you maximizing?

Happiness for the greatest possible number of people for the greatest possible length of time.

Before utilitarianism, the predominate view was "do whatever makes the aristocracy happy, screw everybody else." You demonize utilitarianism purely because you've never been forced to live with the alternative, which is where you work in a smelly factory for 18 hours a day so that a small group of aristocrats can get richer.

>hich is where you work in a smelly factory for 18 hours a day so that a small group of aristocrats can get richer.

So utilitarism is related to marxism/communism.

>Happiness for the greatest possible number of people for the greatest possible length of time.
That's not a metric.
At which point do you favor mild happiness for 1000 people over large happiness for 500 people?

Where Marx went wrong is that he forgot to account for the fact that private property does actually make people happier, usually. So in order to maximize overall happiness, you'd keep the concept of private property but also put in regulations to stop a small group from ruining the party for everybody else.

>Before utilitarianism, the predominate view was "do whatever makes the aristocracy happy, screw everybody else."
Of course not, the old regime was sold as the best condition possible for the little people, protected by their lord, and in line for the kingdom of God. Nobody ever sold a political system with "guess it sucks for you guys LAMO"

>Before utilitarianism, the predominate view was "do whatever makes the aristocracy happy, screw everybody else."

WTF

Where did they teach you this?

>At which point do you favor mild happiness for 1000 people over large happiness for 500 people?

You'd use the law of diminishing returns.

Nigger Marx wasn't against private property, even the soviets at their worst had some private property.
It's about ownership of the memes of production.

>do whatever causes the largest number of organisms arbitrarily considered morally relevant to release more dopamine
See how petty and stupid that sounds?

So there is a level of enjoyment at which it's acceptable to despoil some for the good of more good-living people.

Or how about very mild irritation of 1,000 people versus tortuous, unbearable pain in one person?

>Only a literal dimwit could take it seriously.
Much of modern society like healthcare is based on it. You sound like another moron who has no understanding of it beyond anime or whatever you get such a simplistic understanding.

An utilitarian society would honor and socially condition such scapegoats/martyrs to appreciate the sacrifice they had to make, which makes it rather more bearable.

>Or how about very mild irritation of 1,000 people versus tortuous, unbearable pain in one person?

Fortunately, there really isn't any situation where you'd be forced to make a decision like that, outside some extremely contrived scenario.

No. Using scientific jargon doesn't change the meaning of the sentence.

That depends on the context.

Please support your retarded analogy with anything written by Mill.

>Using scientific jargon doesn't change the meaning of the sentence.
Why is it morally right to make an arbitrary set of organisms release more dopamine?

>Why is it morally right to make an arbitrary set of organisms release more dopamine?

I don't see any rational alternative. We're all stuck on this planet for the reminder of our lives. Might as well make it as bearable as possible.

So it boils down to pure hedonism.

No, hedonism is purely short-term and ignores long-term consequences. Utilitarianism takes the "big picture" into consideration to maximize happiness for the greatest possible number of people for the greatest possible length of time.

It's related to ethical hedonism.

>Fortunately, there really isn't any situation where you'd be forced to make a decision like that
There is an extensive literature on societies using scapegoats as a method of social coherence, of course there is such a situation.

Protip dope: You're not a wizard, you can't see the future. You keep whining on about how Utilitarians "take account of the long term", but all this means is "Utilitarians is literally useless because you can't use it to make ANY decisions". how do you know the people you help "for the long term" will benefit from your help and not end up worse off? You don't. All you can do is go by the short term, because that much you can see / predict.

In the long-term, allowing society to use scape-goats results in negative happiness. It's better just to educate people and confront the real problems. For a medieval society which doesn't know any better, scape-goating is understandable, and forgivable. But in the post-Enlightenment world, that's just not acceptable.

That problem exists with EVERY system. You're right, humans don't have perfect information. We use what knowledge we do have to make educated guesses, and then refine those educated guesses in response to new information. At the same time, we must actively seek out need information to fill in holes in our knowledge base.

People don't gain enough utility from learning about utilitarianism to make it worthwhile.

>In the long-term, allowing society to use scape-goats results in negative happiness.
Wew man, "long term" really is a convenient confident. What else did he tell you?
Is there any actual happiness calculation you CAN make?

>That problem exists with EVERY system.

Wrong. Virtue Ethics, for example, do not care about consequences, only actions.

>That problem exists with EVERY system.
But what we're saying is utilitarianism could be ANY system, whichever you think has the best "long term".

And the OTHER major approach, deontology, doesn't care about consequences OR actions, only obedience to the rules. The need to be able to see the future is uniquely a problem for utilitarians.

Did scapegoating the Jews make the Nazis more happy? No, not really. If anything, it only made problems worse. Likewise, did Stalin killing the Kulaks improve living conditions for the average Russian? Nope.

>Did scapegoating the Jews make the Nazis more happy? No, not really.
I mean...
They seemed to have a jolly old time.

Does Utilitarianism help you answer either of those questions? Only in retrospect. So what use is it?

>They seemed to have a jolly old time.

That's a short-term euphoria, the feeling of power, the feeling of being feared, of having your supposed "enemies" scatter before you. It's not compatible with long-term happiness in society, because you'd have to keep identifying more and more scapegoats to keep that feeling, which ultimately creates a feeling of terror because everybody must live in fear that they'll be the next scapegoat. For reference, see:

>The French Revolution

Are you seriously saying people can't make decisions based on knowledge in hopes of producing long term positive or averting long term negative consequences? Or could even contemplate? Things people do all the fucking time?

Utilitarianism haters are dumb. No excuse. Your goddamn healthcare professionals practice it. But that's dumb, my feelings reject facts and unpleasant information.

>hopes

So you're fine with people doing things that bring nothing but woe to everyone, provided they "hoped" it would lead to good outcomes?

Consequentialism in general is fucking retarded
If you judge the ethical validity of things post facto you can justify anything based on expectations

>So you're fine with people doing things that bring nothing but woe to everyone

No, because that's literally the polar opposite of utilitarianism. If 1 person, or a small group of people, is performing actions which cause a great deal of distress for a larger number of people, then that person simply MUST be stopped. For example, if 1 person is going around shooting random people, then it is okay to kill that person to stop him from shooting more people. That's perfectly legit as far as utilitarianism is concerned.

>Your goddamn healthcare professionals practice it.

What? No they fucking don't you retarded faggot. Any healthcare professional who said "Well, I /could/ treat you, but you'd be in pain afterwards so instead I'm going to not treat you so you die and thus suffer less" would be out of a job immediately.

>So you're fine with people doing things that bring nothing but woe to everyone
No.

>No, because that's literally the polar opposite of utilitarianism

So you DO need to be able to see the future for your idiot idea to be useful? Thanks for admitting what we all already knew.

>If 1 person, or a small group of people, is performing actions which cause a great deal of distress for a larger number of people, then that person simply MUST be stopped

is that what I said? No? Then why did you go off on an irrelevant tangent? I'm talking about someone who "hopes" that what he does will have good outcomes, but in fact (because he can't see the future) it has bad outcomes, instead.

I could design a machine that pumps out a consistent dose of dopamine to every person in existence, giving them mind blowing gratification until they all literally die from not doing the things that nature has hard-wired a dopamine trigger into like eating. I would be the greatest person to ever live by utilitarian standards even if i do manage to kill everybody in the process.

Good thing that's your braindead strawman and not utilitarianism. Go educate yourself, you troglodyte.

So only people who KNOW what their actions will lead to can be Utilitarians? In other words, there are NO Utilitarians?

>HURR

Great argument retard. About what I'd expect from a moron who champions utilitarianism.

>It isn't, it really is a retarded ideology because it so grossly over-simplifies a complex phenomena.
>It
There's at least a dozen variation of utilitarianism, saying "it" does anything is just retarded.

Oh okay. THEY are retarded ideologies because THEY grossly over-simplify a complex phenomena. Happy now you autistic pedant?

Put something worth arguing. Not that I expect that from the typical chimp blindly hating it.

>So you DO need to be able to see the future for your idiot idea to be useful?

Yes, you need a brain, and the able to reason what the probable consequences of your actions will be. That's not nearly as difficult as you make it sound.

>I'm talking about someone who "hopes" that what he does will have good outcomes

A madman who harms others under the false belief that he is helping them might need to be eliminated. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.

No, stop strawmanning.

>Dude, the world is like so complex so don't even try to make it a better place LMAO

>HURR no you don't have to be able to see the future, you just have to know what the future will be!

Utilitarians DOESN'T make the world a better place, because you can't use it to make decisions of any kind. Does shooting that madman make the future better? How will you know, until you're in the future? How do you know if he wasn't just a genius who would have made things better, had you not shot him? guess what, you can't.

>Complains about something being over-simplified
>Calls anyone an autistic pedant
Did an utilitarian convince your mother to sleep with him for the greater good or something?

I really don't see your point. Your only argument seems to be that utilitarianism is more intellectually demanding than the alternatives, which is probably true, in the same sense that evolutionary biology is more intellectually demanding than spontaneous generation.

>HURR muh one good!
>DURR why do people laugh at my idiotically simple approach?
>HERP they must be over-simplifying!

>intellectually demanding

Yes I suppose having to be able to travel thru time to make any decision DOES make it intellectually demanding.

>Does shooting that madman make the future better?

Yes, absolutely. It would be better to take him alive and give him the mental health treatment that he needs, but if that's not possible then he might need to be killed to protect others.

>because you can't use it to make decisions of any kind.
We're making utilitarian decisions all the time. That's literally how civil societies handle organ donors.

>I AM SILLY

>Yes, absolutely.

So you CAN see the future! Cool, answer me this: How old are you when you commit suicide, realizing your whole life has been a total failure?

>hurr
>durr
>derp
>retard
>CAPS FOR EMPHASIS
Are all opponents of utilitarianism knuckle draggers with a tenuous grasp of language?

>YOU MUST SEE FUTURE!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think they're genuinely retarded.

>HURR my approach to morals takes account of future outcomes!
>DURR what do you mean that's impossible?

>It's impossible to make predictions

What did he meant by this?

I thought utilitarianism meant doing the greatest "good" for the most amount of people not "happiness"?

Happiness is fleeting and is a worthless metric. It's not that the philosophy is misunderstood, it's that it's not worth our time.

Read "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"
That should explain everything wrong with utilitarianism

A lot of utilitarian consider good = happiness.

Not really, because the situation described in the short story doesn't actually exist. It's like saying that the movie Aliens proves that genetic research is bad.

endlessly dicking with the definitions of pleasure and suffering consciously is what will lead us to enlightenment.

oh wait n that's retarded no wonder half of the people who believe this shit become genocidal anti-natalists and war criminals.

Why is utilitarianism so terrible*?

What are "the hard problems"?

>Should we kill depressed people?
>Should we harvest organs from homeless people?
>Is raping unconscious people a moral imperative?
Note: these problems are only hard if you're a utilitarian

It's not. You retards are just as bad as stoics: ANYBODY WHO CRITICIZES MY BULLSHIT JUST DOESNT UNDERSTAND!
Sure, the old gang rape counterargument doesn't really apply to Mill, but it does to earlier utilitarians.
With Mill, it's general pretentious nonsense, and projection of upbringing onto others.
>rational
Back to plebbit
>all these unjustified claims
Holy fuck do I hate anglo-americans.

>Should we kill depressed people?

No, because that would cause a huge amount of fear and paranoia in society, which would negatively affect overall happiness levels.

>Should we harvest organs from homeless people?

No, because that would cause a huge amount of fear and paranoia in society, which would negatively affect overall happiness levels.

>Is raping unconscious people a moral imperative?

No, because that would cause a huge amount of fear and paranoia in society, which would negatively affect overall happiness levels. Wew, that was easy.

the only good ethical system is virtue ethics

just try to prove me wrong (you can't)

what if you do it in secret?

Then that would kind of defeat the purpose.

>utilitarianism
baby's first ethic

>everything I don't like somehow inevitably ends in bad consequences because (???)

>this is how redditors argue

This is the only rational post I've seen in this thread

The fact that you even used those things as examples shows that you had a negative reaction to them, meaning that most other people would as well. A utilitarian society would have no reason to promote something that most people find morally repulsive, because doing so would obviously reduce overall happiness levels.