Who Cares if Utilitarianism is Self-Effacing
The correct moral view will be self-effacing in an infinite number of possible worlds
Lots of people worry that utilitarianism is self-effacing. The worry is that utilitarianism recommends against its own promotion, given that promoting utilitarianism may lead to bad outcomes. But I think this is a totally terrible objection and the way that it is approached is confused. Here, I’ll explain why.
For one, it seems that the question of whether utilitarianism is self-effacing cannot be answered in a general way. There are plausibly a non-zero number of people who will be motivated to do bad things if they’re convinced of utilitarianism, but there are lots of people who will be convinced to do good things as a result of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism seems to motivate people to become effective altruists, which is good! EA has saved many lives and done many important things.
So I think the question of whether utilitarianism is self-effacing is ill-conceived—it’s like asking if utilitarianism is believed. It is believed by some people, not believed by others. Similarly, utilitarianism may recommend against its own promotion for some people but not for others. If, for example, there are zealous Catholics engaging in genuine altruistic acts purely because of their religious views, and they would abandon their religious views were they to become a utilitarian, it would probably be bad to promote utilitarianism to them.
And indeed it seems like whichever moral view is correct will be self-effacing some of the time. There are some people who would be depressed by learning of the correct moral view. Thus, if this is a mark against utilitarianism, it seems a mark against a moral view.
This is even clearer if we consider possible worlds. Suppose that all people in a world would explode if they learned that the true moral view was true. Well, in this world, the correct moral view would obviously be self-effacing. There are an infinite number of possible worlds thus in which the correct moral view is self-effacing. Thus, the argument is as follows.
The correct moral view is self-effacing in an infinite number of possible worlds.
If the correct moral view is self-effacing in an infinite number of possible worlds, then it does not matter whether a moral view is self-effacing in the actual world
Therefore, it does not matter whether a moral view is self-effacing in the actual world.
There just seems nothing problematic about a moral view advocating against its promotion. This is especially so because we know that there are infinity scenarios where the correct moral view would do this.