Utilitarians who claim this aren't just trying to worm out of uncomfortable scenarios--we should expect our intuitions to function the way these utilitarians claim they do
This is why I’m so averse to hypotheticals. First because they contain implicit assumptions about the nature of the world, which can be radically different from our own, and second, they’re often just to make the ethical proposal violate a moral axiom — something we’ve arbitrarily decided oughtn’t be.
Take, for example, the hypothetical of “what if slavery were good for the slaves?” I say this is bad, because first — it makes a claim about the nature of the world which simply could not happen with humans the way they are and were — and it secondly fails for the reasons you lay out here — if you stipulate that something is good then it is good.
This is why I’m so averse to hypotheticals. First because they contain implicit assumptions about the nature of the world, which can be radically different from our own, and second, they’re often just to make the ethical proposal violate a moral axiom — something we’ve arbitrarily decided oughtn’t be.
Take, for example, the hypothetical of “what if slavery were good for the slaves?” I say this is bad, because first — it makes a claim about the nature of the world which simply could not happen with humans the way they are and were — and it secondly fails for the reasons you lay out here — if you stipulate that something is good then it is good.
> There are lots of cases where utilitarianism diverges from our initial intuitions.
Isn't this fatal for utilitarianism? Why would we ever believe in utilitarianism except because of an intuition that said that pleasure was good?