How would you improve Utility?

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I was trying to think of a topic for one of my ethics classes, but I came to a snag. Can one have a situation in which ethicists have two diametrically opposed, but completely logical, rational decisions? If so, what do you do when you come to that snag? How would you improve Utility?

I was trying to think of a fair, objective way of determining what one ought to do, but it neve occured to me untill now that it could be possible for completely opposed groups to have factually based, logical, yet completely different, positions.


Side note: Somewhat related.

It got me thinking when Kuroneko said that Utilitarianism is a framework and does not have to be restricted to Happiness. Obviously, this is true, but first:

1. Under a Utility framework, what do you think ought to be the "good" and what should be maximixed? What do you think is most useful, and why? Is there something that is useful and objective that can be maximized, or are we stuck with subjective, difficult to quantify entities? I was thinking that ethics should be something more quantifiable for easier calculation. What do you think?

Could it be possible to try to maximize reason, rationality etc in any dilemma, as Kuroneko quickly suggested? IE. Choose the option which would maximise or fufill net reason among relevant parties.

2. I was also studying negative Utilitarianism, or basically the minimization of suffering and damages to relevant parties, but I came accross a lot of opposition in the literature, namely because philosophers say the logical extension of the belief would be to kill everyone to end their pains. This seems to be a pretty prominent argument against Neg. Utility. What do you think of it? It seems awefully extremist, to me.

[Surlethe]

I was trying to think of a topic for one of my ethics classes, but I came to a snag. Can one have a situation in which ethicists have two diametrically opposed, but completely logical, rational decisions? If so, what do you do when you come to that snag? How would you improve Utility?

Wow. I was just thinking about suicide in utilitarianism, and suddenly this topic appears.

Suicide, seems to me, to present a utilitarian dilemma: from one perspective, it is wrong to deny a person their free will to do whatever they want to themselves; from the other, if they commit suicide, then the overall "good" decreases; though their own pain and suffering has ended, they have caused everyone else who has a relationship with them pain and suffering.

I'm not sure what to make of this, and it seemed a dilemma to me, and this thread asks for dilemmas, so here it is.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I would agree that this is somewhat of a problem. I am working on readin Peter Singer and understanding how this situtation is resolved within preference utility constructs.

In some circles of preference utility, suicide would be considered wrong if it causes actual, objective damage to others or violates their ability to exercize preferences comparable to the preferences of the individual undergoing suicide. I think preference utility is much more difficult to understand. I will check to see if there is a suicide article on Singer's website at Princeton Edu. If you want, Surleth, I can give you his page. It has a lot of useful information.