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Ideaatikko Ideatician

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  • This is to adopt a strategy similar to that developed by ‘two-level utilitarians’ in response to alleged counter-examples based on common-sense morality. The hedonist will point out the so-called ‘paradox of hedonism’, that pleasure is most effectively pursued indirectly. If I consciously try to maximize my own pleasure, I will be unable to immerse myself in those activities, such as reading or playing games, which do give pleasure. And if we believe that those activities are valuable independently of the pleasure we gain from engaging in them, then we shall probably gain more pleasure overall…
    Theories of Well-Being | Utilitarianism.net
  • Still, even after carefully bracketing these confounding factors, many will intuitively recoil from the suggestion that an experience machine could provide all that they truly want from life. Imagine that person A lives a happy and accomplished life in the real world, the subjective experience of which is somehow “recorded” and then “played back” to B (who is attached to an experience machine from birth), with just an extra jolt of mild pleasure at the end.16 Hedonism implies that B has the better life of the two, but many will find this implausible. Note that this intuition cannot so easily b…
    Theories of Well-Being | Utilitarianism.net
  • Such debunking arguments raise worries about whether they “prove too much”: after all, the foundational moral judgment that pain is bad would itself seem emotionally-laden and susceptible to evolutionary explanation—physically vulnerable creatures would have powerful evolutionary reasons to want to avoid pain whether or not it was objectively bad, after all! However, debunking arguments may be most applicable in cases where we feel that a principled explanation for the truth of the judgment is lacking. We do not tend to feel any such lack regarding the badness of pain—that is surely an intrins…
    Arguments for Utilitarianism | Utilitarianism.net
  • Evolutionary Debunking Arguments Against these powerful theoretical objections, the main consideration that deontological theories have going for them is closer conformity with our intuitions about particular cases. But if these intuitions cannot be supported by independently plausible principles, that may undermine their force—or suggest that we should interpret these intuitions as good rules of thumb for practical guidance, rather than as indicating what fundamentally matters.
    Arguments for Utilitarianism | Utilitarianism.net
  • Hybrid utilitarianism is the view that, while one ought always to promote overall well-being, the moral quality of an aim or intention can depend on factors other than whether it promotes overall well-being.
    Elements and Types of Utilitarianism | Utilitarianism.net
  • Global utilitarianism is the view that the utilitarian standards of moral evaluation apply to anything of interest.
    Elements and Types of Utilitarianism | Utilitarianism.net
  • Multi-level utilitarianism is the view that individuals should usually follow tried-and-tested rules of thumb, or heuristics, rather than trying to calculate which action will produce the most well-being.
    Elements and Types of Utilitarianism | Utilitarianism.net