I’m not sure a long discussion with me is helpful—I mostly wanted to point out that there’s a danger of being misunderstood and talking past each other, and “use more words” is often a better approach than “argue about the words”.
I am especially the wrong person to argue about fundamental utility-aggregation problems. I don’t think ANYONE has a workable theory about how Utilitarianism really works without an appeal to moral realism that I don’t think is justified.
Understood. I do think it’s significant though (and worth pointing out) that a much simpler definition yields all of the same interesting consequences. I didn’t intend to just disagree for the sake of getting clearer terminology. I wanted to point out that there seems to be a simpler path to the same answers, and that simpler path provides a new concept that seems to be quite useful.
I’m not sure a long discussion with me is helpful—I mostly wanted to point out that there’s a danger of being misunderstood and talking past each other, and “use more words” is often a better approach than “argue about the words”.
I am especially the wrong person to argue about fundamental utility-aggregation problems. I don’t think ANYONE has a workable theory about how Utilitarianism really works without an appeal to moral realism that I don’t think is justified.
Understood. I do think it’s significant though (and worth pointing out) that a much simpler definition yields all of the same interesting consequences. I didn’t intend to just disagree for the sake of getting clearer terminology. I wanted to point out that there seems to be a simpler path to the same answers, and that simpler path provides a new concept that seems to be quite useful.