I'll Be Doing A Written Debate With Arjun Panickssery

Should be lots of fun

As the title suggests, in no subtle terms, I’ll be doing a written debate with Arjun Panickssery on the topic of utilitarianism. Our opening statements will be up to 5000 words, and each week we’ll respond to the most recent published article by the other. This will continue for a total of 5 weeks.

Arjun has previously argued that we should “Just Say No to Utilitarianism,” so hell be fun to engage with on the topic. He is largely in the Caplan/Huemer school of “we should reject utilitarianism, because it says lots of crazy unintuitive things.” I don’t think utilitarianism has results that are crazy or unintuitive upon reflection, so it will be an interesting debate.

One of the unfortunate features of such written debates is the difficulty of presenting full cumulative cases. I can’t present a several hundred page treaties, arguing utilitarianism is right about the repugnant conclusion, utility monster, and dozens of other cases given the character limitation. This, however, doesn’t make it impossible to present some reasonably strong cumulative case.

Stay tuned for the debate.