So you are saying that the competition wouldn’t be any fun if everyone believed that one particular team winning was the only acceptable outcome—it would defeat the purpose of the competition (fun) and devalue it to the point that there would no longer be any difference in utility anyway. That’s basically the categorical imperative (if everyone broke their promises, there would be no such thing as promising, so the whole concept breaks down and so the rule makes no sense) Is that what you are getting at?
The problem is that not everyone does believe that Brazil should win. So I don’t think we have a good solution for an individual utilitarian reasoner in a world in which most people do not think the same way.
Now that you mention I too think that it is an instance of categorical imperative. However I think the categorical imperative is an analytical tool for primarily individuals for comparing policies based on different kinds of individual behavior.
And yes essentially I am saying what you wrote in your previous comment, but perhaps I’m concentrated on the qualities that could be seen being of utility on the general level, like having honest tournaments and competitions. And I tried to sort of link them to an example of something that would be of utility on the individual level, like fun. Works better with the courts of law, since an environment which has fair trials is easier to perceive as meaningful.
However in the hypothetical situation when somebody places no particular meaning for honest tournaments and fair competition, they don’t have any particular moral issues with letting their team down and losing on purpose, so that the greater good can happen and lots of people can be happy, then perhaps there is a harder dilemma remaining, in which case it really needs to be weighed, what is more important. Morality isn’t necessarily easy either, sometimes decisions are difficult, which is not necessarily to say that your methods of processing the dilemmas would be insufficient, but that can also be the case. People having differing views on matters is likely to produce situations where ideal outcome is hard to find. If that’s the case, perhaps then it can also function as an additional reason to appreciate the general stuff like the honest competitions.
So you are saying that the competition wouldn’t be any fun if everyone believed that one particular team winning was the only acceptable outcome—it would defeat the purpose of the competition (fun) and devalue it to the point that there would no longer be any difference in utility anyway. That’s basically the categorical imperative (if everyone broke their promises, there would be no such thing as promising, so the whole concept breaks down and so the rule makes no sense) Is that what you are getting at?
The problem is that not everyone does believe that Brazil should win. So I don’t think we have a good solution for an individual utilitarian reasoner in a world in which most people do not think the same way.
Now that you mention I too think that it is an instance of categorical imperative. However I think the categorical imperative is an analytical tool for primarily individuals for comparing policies based on different kinds of individual behavior.
And yes essentially I am saying what you wrote in your previous comment, but perhaps I’m concentrated on the qualities that could be seen being of utility on the general level, like having honest tournaments and competitions. And I tried to sort of link them to an example of something that would be of utility on the individual level, like fun. Works better with the courts of law, since an environment which has fair trials is easier to perceive as meaningful.
However in the hypothetical situation when somebody places no particular meaning for honest tournaments and fair competition, they don’t have any particular moral issues with letting their team down and losing on purpose, so that the greater good can happen and lots of people can be happy, then perhaps there is a harder dilemma remaining, in which case it really needs to be weighed, what is more important. Morality isn’t necessarily easy either, sometimes decisions are difficult, which is not necessarily to say that your methods of processing the dilemmas would be insufficient, but that can also be the case. People having differing views on matters is likely to produce situations where ideal outcome is hard to find. If that’s the case, perhaps then it can also function as an additional reason to appreciate the general stuff like the honest competitions.