and here’s the contradiction. The philosophy can’t really function without some way to judge these details. It seems to be more of just an observation about how people function rather than a philosophy.
BTW usually the long term, supports my arguement for the truth.
Well the dictionary for one. Considering their application in this discussion they seem identical. PLease explain how they are not.
The benifit is how we judge happiness that has a solid foundation or happiness that does not.
Cornmeal or cornbread. Cornmeal has value because it leads to cornbread. Yet it is impossible for cornbread to exist with out cornmeal. How can one have more value?
To have no foundation from which to judge this makes the philosophy intellectually dishonest IMHO.
I didn’t use this example. Once again, Lucius used it to explain why he would prefer pain to pleasure.
If the truth leads to more pleasure, then I’m all for the truth.
Human pleasure is no different from any other kind of pleasure, hence drawing any distinction is illogical.
On a case-to-case-basis. Did you expect me to have a patented solution applicable in every situation?
No, it isn’t. A utilitarianist may well come to the conclusion that, for example, always telling the truth leads to greater happiness than evaluating each situation on its own merits. In that situation, operating under the axiom that truth should always be told is perfectly utilitarianist.
And you can’t operate without a constant axiom?
The way we judge how to promote the greatest happiness is the same way every other philosophy does. You do the best you can with what you have, which is better than choosing arbitrary concepts and living your life by them come hell or high water.
You said I rejected morals because I reject principles. It should be clear from this thread that I do not reject morals, I merely base my morals on one simple principle: “happiness is good, suffering is bad”.
Elaborate.
Who said they did? Once again, if happiness cannot exist without truth, then of course I’m all for truth. No-one has yet shown it to be so, though. Furthermore, if truth only has value because it leads to happiness, then it seems pretty clear that the real value lies with happiness, not truth.
It seems you don’t quite understand what “intellectually honest” means (there’s no O involved and certainly nothing H about it).
Sorry to jump in here so far into the discussion; I hope you don’t mind.
I’ve got a couple things I’d like to bring up.
First, with regards to the ‘white’ lies, I think it’s important to understand what’s being asked/said behind the words. Sometimes, to stick with an example already used, when a person asks, “do I look good in this?” he or she truly wants to know an opinion, for better or worse. Other times that person is merely saying, “validate me. Make me feel good about myself.” Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference, but those are two different wants expressed by the same words. In the first case, certainly truthfulness makes sense, as the asker wanted to know an opinion. In the second case, the asker wasn’t really asking a question at all. S/he said, “stroke my ego,” and when I say, “you look great in that dress,” or, “no, that doesn’t make you look fat,” or whatever the specific words are, I’m really only providing the affirmation and feelings s/he wanted from me. Or, even to get more wishy-washy, if she says, “do you think I look fat?” and he says, “no, of course not,” often what is really being said is, “do you think I am beautiful?” “Yes.” Even if he thinks, “well, she is filling out a bit,” if he thinks she’s beautiful, telling her she doesn’t look fat is not necessarially a lie, depending on circumstances.
Second, I agree with a lot of your general sentiment, cosmosdan, but I think you’ve misjudged how truth-telling plays out in the real world. Particularly:
This is the key of the Anne Frank discussion earlier in the thread. I think it’s just not reasonable to propose what you propose. Your premise seemed to be that since the Nazis were going to come in and search anyway, it really didn’t matter what you said, in which case you’re framing the argument in such a way that there automatically can be no benefit to anyone from lying, because you have already ordered the Nazis to search the house regardless.
It seems much more reasonable to me to assume that if someone is bothering to ask the question that s/he has at least some intention of taking what you say at face value. Maybe not all the time, but enough to make it worth having the conversation in the first place. If you really don’t believe lying to the Nazis would change anything, let me provide a different, totally hypothetical scenario:
Man breaks into a home with a gun. The parents put the kids in a closet and tell them to be quiet. They confront the guy, who has some nefarious motivation or other. He has the parents at gunpoint, and asks if there’s anyone else in the house; they say no. He gives a cursory glance of the building, doesn’t find the kids, shoots the parents and leaves.
Should the parents have told the truth? What was the honest alternative?
I understand your point about principles, but I also think that for any given principle, particularly when the lives of someone else are at stake, there is a point at which it is desirable to sacrifice that principle momentarily for the sake of that other person’s life or safety. Being unable to be flexible around that principle (or any principle) that you have developed without forseeing all possible outcomes is I think less desirable than having strong but flexible principles backed by critical thinking and analysis.
Another example of a time to lie:
I’m very good at keeping secrets. When I tell people I am trustworthy and won’t tell others their secrets, I mean it. However, that’s not 100% true. If a friend told me he was going to kill himself, or had thoughts in that direction, I would probably tell someone. Likewise if a friend told me of his desire to hurt someone else seriously, I’d most definitely let someone know. I lied, but a lie worth making I think.
It doesn’t offend me in the slightest. Why would it? If anything, I’d like to echo cosmosdan’s thanks.
(oh, I think I see where the confusion came from here - when I say the avenue of respecting other people is not open to ‘you’, I meant you as in your philosophy)
Occasionally, I’m getting a little frustrated by some of our arguments, but that’s all. I’m gonna try and take a step back and do this reply as exhaustively as possible. so that there’s no way we can misunderstand each other.
I’m sorry if what comes after looks a bit rude, or angry - its not meant to be.
This point, for example, I thought we understood each other, but now you’ve completely lost me again.
How on earth can you be arguing that? (see Ohio)
All I can assume is that what you’re saying is that ignoring the consequences to everyone else, if we focus only on the consequences to me then if I can’t tell the difference between the two of them I can’t prefer one of them. Which is true in as far as the ‘you’ in the example goes, but stepping back to outside the hypothetical (ie asking if you’d want to know if your wife had cheated), I can still have a preference, because you can be hurt without knowing about it.
You want an example of being hurt without knowing about it?
Someone tortures me, then hypnotises me into not remembering it ever happened. I’d still rather not be tortureed, even if I’m not going to remember it.
Alternatively, I could become utterly insane without realising it. Again, to me I seem fine, but from an outside objective POV I would have been hurt.
Actually I have.
Several times, I have presented the exact same argument you have done to justify pleasure.
Please quote me where I’ve done this.
It’s an analogy - let’s just pretend we’re not talking about pleasure for a second 
Its more about tastes, anyway.
So, I repeat the example again - we are arguing about what the best colour is. You are arguing only red has value as a colour, that my tastes for yellow and green are useless unless they contribute to more red-ness, and that I am mistaken for liking the colours in a first place.
Do you think that analogy fairly characterises the situation? If not, why not?
Then your argument is mistaken. For someone else’s pleasure does not feel good to me - it doesn’t feel like anything. (I’m ignoring feelings of satisfaction from being kind to other people, because they can be overwhelmed by the grenade example).
It doesn’t promote my happiness in the grenade example, does it?
Okay, let me try doing this another way:
(and none of these are rhetorical questions)
Do you accept that the soldier cannot feel the pleasure of his comrades?
Do you accept that the solider must have a moral reason to sacrifice himself?
Do you think that this moral reasoning must be based on happiness?
You want to state that the soldier kills himself because
a) pleasure is the only thing valuable
b) everybody’s pleasure is of equal worth
Why is everybody’s pleasure of equal worth?
Is equality valuable, then?
In which case, either
a) pleasure is not the only thing valuable
or
b) equality is valuable because of the pleasure it produces
If b is true, the pleasure can either
a) come from me, which is not always true (see Grenade case)
or
b) equality is valuable because of the pleasure it produces in other people
If b is true, why do I care about the pleasure it produces in other people?
And we go back to the beginning - the argument is circular.
To break this circle, you’re going to have to do what every Utilitarian does, whether they realise it or not - they make an intuitive assumption that everyone’s pleasure is equally valuable. Which is fair enough, as long as you accept what you’ve done and that your golden rule is no longer true - pleasure is not the only thing valuable to you.
That sounded annoyed and insulting, yes, that’s why I apologized. If you didn’t mean it that way, then that’s just fine.
My point there was that you originally brought up the cheating spouse as an example of when you, you being Lucius and the cheated-on spouse in the example, would like to know the truth even though it would cause you pain. Therefore, what matters in that example is what you would feel.
Of course, being tortured is still painful. Pain has still taken place, and so the torturing was morally wrong.
If you’re happy in your insanity, then this is OK, but most people aren’t. If you’re hurting from your insanity, then it doesn’t matter that you don’t know why you’re hurting (or, commonly, attribute your hurt to another cause).
Yes, but the difference remains that while you agree that pleasure is good, I do not agree that truth is good. Pleasure makes us feel good. We agree that feeling good is good. What is the benefit of the truth?
I apologize, I confused you for someone else. I can’t see that you’ve done that.
No, I do not, because pleasure is ultimately quantifiable. It is something that everyone I’ve ever spoken to appreciates.
I really cannot see why you aren’t grasping this. Of course someone else’s pleasure doesn’t feel directly good to you. What did I say that seemed to contradict that?
No, as I have pointed out several times.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Because there is no reason to believe that a certain being’s pleasure is inherently any more valuable than another being’s. There is no discernible difference between them.
Indirectly, if it promotes happiness.
Because you realize precisely that their pleasure is the same as yours.
I claim that everyone’s pleasure is equally valuable. Why this would compel me to accept that there are things besides pleasure that are valuable is beyond me.
No, what matters is how I feel about whether I want to know or not. Anyway, there’s nothing in this example, that isn’t covered just as well by the insane one, and that’s at least relatively new, so I think I’m going to continue there
Okay, so you want to claim that nobody cares whether they’re sane or insane as long as they’re happy?
I think you’re very wrong 
, but its an empirical claim in any case, so unless one of us has got the time to do a survey we might as well leave that point there.
Make your mind up :
have I a) not provided any argument for the benefit of the truth
or b) not provided one you subjectively agree with
If it is a, then I firstly, point you back to practically every post I’ve made so far in this thread, and secondly, will summarise it shortly as truth makes us feel good too.
(And by feel good, no I don’t mean, pleasure. Throughout this debate, I have had a suspicion that you’re defining “good” as “pleasure” which I trust you’re not, right, because otherwise all argument’s sort of pointless…)
If b, then, well, everyone has different tastes. Is a piece of art only worthwhile if everyone likes it? I would claim that a significant proportion of humanity sees value in things other than pleasure, and so it is just as right to give them value.
What does quantifiable have to do with it?
Let’s go back to the colours, once more. Okay, now I like red too. Does this mean I can’t also like yellow and green?
To be honest, I think you’re the one who’s not really grasping the argument. Neither did I for quite a while, actually, when I first met it.
No discernible difference to whom? That’s one of the key points. God?
It certainly isn’t the soldier, as as we’ve already discussed, there’s a very real difference between them.
** So what? **
That is not a reason to care about it. It has no effect on me. Can you give me another?
Because if there were no things valuable other than pleasure your first sentence would have been “I claim that pleasure is valuable.” An “everyone’s” and “equally” have snuck in there. That is a significant step, and no, it is not one that follows automatically by assuming some hypothetical objective observer to whom everyone’s pleasure is equal.
Yes. It wouldn’t even occur to someone’s who is really happy that they might not be sane.
But feeling good is the same as pleasure. Saying that other things than pleasure feel good is like saying that not only red things are red.
Of course not, but I feel you’re getting mixed up in analogies. Useful as they are, they always bring their own baggage to a discussion.
To any observer.
No, because that’s precisely a reason to care about it. You agree that pleasure is good. You agree that there is no difference between your pleasure and the pleasure of others. Caring about one being’s pleasure over another’s is therefore illogical. I can’t see what’s so difficult about this.
I’m not following you. My statement follows logically from my other statements. There is absolutely no reason to surmise that there is any difference between the pleasure of different beings. If there is no difference between the pleasure of different beings, why would they be unequally valuable? That makes precisely no sense. If A=B and A=C then, by gum, B=C.
Priceguy, a couple questions:
If happiness/ecstasy is the only thing of value, then shouldn’t we all shoot heroin at every opportunity? Not much comes closer to “unthinking eternal nirvana of simple perfect ecstasy” than a nice hit of smack. If you don’t advocate this, why not? If happiness is the only thing of value, surely anti-drug laws/propaganda aren’t enough to sway you, at least, from achieving your stated goal.
If maximizing pleasure is the ultimate goal, how much of your disposable income are you giving out to the less fortunate? Because my kids and I could sure use some cash (three of us, total, so I assume from your answer to the grenade example this would make up for any loss of pleasure a single entity [you] might experience at having to give up your cash). Yet I’ve yet to see a single Utilitarian offer to pony up.
Heroin has long-term effects that are detrimental to happiness. I can’t imagine that this has passed you by, so your question leaves me puzzled.
As much as I can without jeopardizing my own happiness. As I’m currently a student, it’s not much.
I give to charities instead of trying to find people to give money to on my own. It’s more efficient, and the money I give through charities produce much greater results than such sums would if I were to mail them to you.
I might also add that it seems really desperate to try and attack my personal actions rather than the philosophy. If I were a dark lord living in a gigantic castle, ruling oppressed, abjectly poor peasants with an iron fist that makes normal iron fists seem like silk gloves, and living a life of obscene luxury this wouldn’t mean the philosophy is wrong, just that I don’t live by it.
Maybe, it would be helpful to differentiate betwen “feels good” (which, yeah, normally is just taken in everyday speech as pleasure) and “feels like it is good” (which is more abstract, and means something more like is desirable) and “good.”
But as I said, if you define that pleasure=good, then it is impossible to argue with that.
(equivalent, I define “Romeo and Juliet” to be the best play in the world. You say, but ah look, Hamlet has all these excellent qualities too, surely that’s better? No, says I, because Hamlet does not have the quality of being the best play in the world, cause as you can already see that would require it to be Romeo & Juliet).
[shrug] We’re arguing about tastes. I see no difference.
It’s not an observer who has to decide how to act - it’s the soldier.
No, I keep contradicting this.
And you usually agree with me.
You agree the soldier can only feel his own pleasure?
You agree that therefore therefore is a difference to him between the two?
That saying they are the same is therefore ** wrong **?
They would only be the same to some outside objective observer, who, firstly, does not exist, and secondly, is irrelevant to how the soldier himself wants to act.
Why?
(and don’t say because the pleasures are equivalent, because we’ve just established that they’re ** not **)
My pleasure makes me happy. Yours does not. Therefore, I disregard yours. Why is that illogical?
Because they’re not equal to anyone who actually has to act.
In stating that everyone’s pleasure is equally you’re already assuming that everyone has an equal right to pleasure, and you need a justification for that assumption.
Yeah, I’d agree with that.
Course I probably also think it would impossible to live a perfect Utilitarian lifestyle anyway, but that’s neither here nor there
Well, exactly. The point of my questions was to see how close you came to living by your philosophy. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not desperate to attack someone’s actions rather than the philosophy - anybody can claim a philosophy, or patch one together out of bits of existing philosophies; the real test of the philosophy, to me, is whether it’s viable as a way to live, which is testable only through observing the actions of its adherents. If somebody says they believe in a certain philosophy but doesn’t live by it, it doesn’t really seem worth arguing the logical merits of the philosophy with them, since they don’t actually seem to believe in it anyway.
Of course, I was being a bit facetious with the heroin example, but I could also argue that heroin use doesn’t always have long-term effects that are detrimental to happiness. I’ve got a friend who was on heroin for quite a while (he started taking it for chronic back pain - he’s now taking marijuana and just got off morphine [legally, in both cases]); withdrawal was hard, but he got other medications to help him through, and he says to this day he’s glad he had it, and he’s happier now than he ever has been.
Really, what I was trying to get at was the possibility that there might be other reasons that you don’t take heroin (or other drugs that enhance your mood) regularly; I’d imagine that even if there were no negative effects, you might find you valued sobriety to drooling bliss at least some of the time. I could be wrong; but I definitely prefer being sober to being high, even though I’m carefree and feel no pain when high.
What’s the difference between “feels good” and “feels like it is good”? The same difference as between “is red” and “looks like it is red”.
I define “pleasure” as “that which feels good”, not “morally good”.
Pure aesthetics and thus unquantifiable.
The soldier is an observer.
There’s a subjective difference, yes, but not an objective one. I have been talking about objectivity throughout this discussion.
I disagree. The soldier should try to emulate the outside observer to ascertain the correct act, not get mixed up in his own emotions.
No, we haven’t.
Because there is no objective difference. We both experience pleasure. You make an arbitrary distinction and act on it, which is very strange. That action is comparable to forbidding yellow because you prefer green.
The problem is in the word “to”, where you are assuming subjectivity, which, of course, will change the situation. In real life, as much as I would subjectively like to blow the brains out of every criminal, I can objectively see that it would be a bad idea, so I do not advocate it.
No. Please stop making assumptions for me; it’s very annoying. I haven’t used the word “right” in the sense you’re using it in yet. “Rights” don’t enter into it.
Which is irrelevant in this theoretical discussion. If the subject were “who comes the closest to living by their philosophy”, then you should put my personal life under scrutiny.
I guess we just differ, then.
Believing in it and acting on it are two different things. The latter can be very difficult, and doesn’t change the philosophy.
You didn’t ask anything to do with heroin for medicinal purposes; you asked if we shouldn’t all shoot heroin at every opportunity. I answered that question, no other.
I very much doubt it. I’m not a fan of sobriety. There are, however, many reasons not to shoot heroin. If you do need me to list them, I will, but I am fairly certain that you already know them, and they’re also not very relevant to this thread.
Grouped these together, as they address the same issue.
“Theoretical discussions”, to me, are just masturbatory when dealing with philosophy; it’s always nice to iron out the logical validity of an argument, but it’s just a game, or a puzzle, if that’s the level at which you operate - philosophy wasn’t designed to be merely a puzzle, but as a guide to how to live life, and if it doesn’t prove feasible in the real world, it’s a flawed philosophy. If all the followers of a particular branch of philosophical thought fail to be able to live by the tenets of that philosophy (at least a good portion of the time), the philosophy isn’t viable, no matter how rigorously logical it may be. Or its adherents don’t actually believe in what they claim to, in which case what’s the point in their espousing it? Anyway, yeah, I guess we differ.
The point I was trying to make had nothing to do with whether or not the heroin was used for medical reasons; I was pointing out that heroin use doesn’t always have long-term negative effects. Like I said, in my friend’s case, his overall happiness now is greater than it was before he took heroin (and before he had back pain, according to him). He was on heroin for about three years.
Not a fan of sobriety? Yet most everything I can think of that causes a person to be intoxicated/high has been shown to have long-term negative effects in the majority of people. So it would seem, ultimately, that sobriety would be more conducive to maintaining happiness than non-sobriety. No?
Apparently, yeah. I’m in this debate for fun and diversion.
And once again, that was not the question you asked. You asked if we shouldn’t all shoot heroin at every opportunity. That’s the question you asked, that’s the question I answered. That there are some people who should sometimes shoot heroin is a side issue. That some people escape negative long-term effects is a side issue.
Nah. In moderate amounts, the detrimental effects of intoxicating drugs are often minimal.
Huh?
The phrase “you’re already assuming that everyone has an equal right to pleasure” pretty much means the same as “you’re already assuming everyone should be objective”.
Which pretty sums up the whole issue really - so:
** Why should the soldier be objective? **
But you’re defining “morally good” as being that which leads to what feels good, which is pretty much a pragmatic way of saying the same thing.
Another question that puzzles me. Subjectivity adds nothing useful and brings with it a wide margin of error.
Yes, but I only define “morally good” that way because I have yet to see anything except feeling good that actually has a benefit.
Fair enough. To change gears, in your most recent reply to Lucius, you say
Is there an objective method for the soldier to determine what will bring the greatest happiness, or are such decisions often not subjective themselves? It seems really hard to discount subjectivity when talking about human rationalizations for their actions. And consequently it’s hard to avoid a wide margin of error.