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Vikram V.'s avatar

Negative util is almost right - it's right that some things cannot be outweighed by mere utility, but instead of using Deontological rules like a good system, it uses dumb negative utility.

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Bentham's Bulldog's avatar

I have lots of objections to both of those claims.

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Oct 13, 2022
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Bentham's Bulldog's avatar

"It is not implausible to me. If 9,999 units of pain makes a life barely worth living, while 10,000 unites of pain to that particular individual makes his/her/their life not even barely worth living, then yeah... that 9,999 world is preferable. "

Remember, all these pains would, all else equal, make life not worth living. The point is merely that as you decrease pain very slightly from something very intense to something very intense but slightly less so, it doesn't get infinitely less bad.

"It might be hard to imagine for you. But many people do not think that horrendous suffering can be offset by pleasures of other people or creatures (as you think). Philosophers like Dustin Crummett do not think that you can offset that amount of horrendous suffering by vast amounts of pleasure to other people. Matthew, do you not think that your defense of horrendous suffering to one person justifies eternal hell in the sense that you believe that if vast amounts of people including God get immense pleasure forever for torturing a person, then torturing that person is good as long as their sufficient amount of pleasure that is gained from that?"

But god is omnipotent and can bring about the pleasure without the misery.

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Oct 14, 2022
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Bentham's Bulldog's avatar

I'd bite that bullet, for reasons I've described here. https://benthams.substack.com/p/utilitarianism-wins-outright-part-adb

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