It’s Christmas Eve as I’m writing this. In a few hours I’m going to start wrapping gifts for my girlfriend and two kids. I call it “wrapping,” but honestly I just crumple paper around boxes until they appear vaguely covered, and apply tape at random until the ball of wrinkled paper more or less holds together. This is not a skillset I’ve mastered.
I know what you are, Don. You are a 'hit man', taking out all the bad philosophies and their many variants through human history on a weekly basis. Once again you've nailed another one, Utilitarianism, with many concrete examples showing why there is absolutely no reason to follow it if you love your life.
Interestingly, both Mill and Sidgwick imply some kind of consciousness capable of judging men's actions. For Mill, this entity was society, the "aggregate of all persons." Sidgwick appears to expand the judging entity to include the entire Universe, which sees each individual as equally insignificant, like one ant in an anthill. Sidgwick's explanation seems a bit more abstract and "mystical" (son of a preacher), while J.S. Mill and his father, James, were not religious, as far as I know. It seems that if you accept any form of utilitarianism as your moral base, you are likely to see any human action as both good and bad, paving the way to moral ambiguity and economic stagnation.
This is a product of a deliberately unfocused mind. As happiness or number increases, the other decreases. With the focused mind, there is no way to know a "proper" relation. Should there be small happiness of each of a big amount of people or big happiness of each of a small amount of people? There is no unit of happiness or unit of the "proper" amount of people which might guide judgment. There is also no way to know whether family or strangers be prioritizes
Utilitarianism is merely one more failure for providing a guide for the focused mind to sacrifice. Even the name is misleading. It's really moral collectivism, sacrifice for an arbitrarily selected group.
The unfocused mind of Christianity, etc. is the context. And the unfocused mind is death-worship. If you want to live, you should reject Utilitarianism.
I know what you are, Don. You are a 'hit man', taking out all the bad philosophies and their many variants through human history on a weekly basis. Once again you've nailed another one, Utilitarianism, with many concrete examples showing why there is absolutely no reason to follow it if you love your life.
Interestingly, both Mill and Sidgwick imply some kind of consciousness capable of judging men's actions. For Mill, this entity was society, the "aggregate of all persons." Sidgwick appears to expand the judging entity to include the entire Universe, which sees each individual as equally insignificant, like one ant in an anthill. Sidgwick's explanation seems a bit more abstract and "mystical" (son of a preacher), while J.S. Mill and his father, James, were not religious, as far as I know. It seems that if you accept any form of utilitarianism as your moral base, you are likely to see any human action as both good and bad, paving the way to moral ambiguity and economic stagnation.
Really good!!! thank you!
>greatest happiness for the greatest number.
This is a product of a deliberately unfocused mind. As happiness or number increases, the other decreases. With the focused mind, there is no way to know a "proper" relation. Should there be small happiness of each of a big amount of people or big happiness of each of a small amount of people? There is no unit of happiness or unit of the "proper" amount of people which might guide judgment. There is also no way to know whether family or strangers be prioritizes
Utilitarianism is merely one more failure for providing a guide for the focused mind to sacrifice. Even the name is misleading. It's really moral collectivism, sacrifice for an arbitrarily selected group.
The unfocused mind of Christianity, etc. is the context. And the unfocused mind is death-worship. If you want to live, you should reject Utilitarianism.