Re: “Your standard-issue utilitarianism is, among other things, “hedonic”. That means it includes among its tenets hedonism, which is the idea that pleasure is good and pain is bad, end of story.”
I wouldn’t put it like that! Positive utility is different from pleasure. Negative utility is different from pain. Pleasure and pain are elements of the human utility function, but there’s also happiness, boredom, anxiety, desire, etc. Pain often provides important feedback about when you are going wrong. Otherwise, we would all be taking pain-killers.
Did you not read the link I supplied, or are you just disagreeing with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy about what constitutes standard-issue utilitarianism?
Re: “Your standard-issue utilitarianism is, among other things, “hedonic”. That means it includes among its tenets hedonism, which is the idea that pleasure is good and pain is bad, end of story.”
I wouldn’t put it like that! Positive utility is different from pleasure. Negative utility is different from pain. Pleasure and pain are elements of the human utility function, but there’s also happiness, boredom, anxiety, desire, etc. Pain often provides important feedback about when you are going wrong. Otherwise, we would all be taking pain-killers.
Did you not read the link I supplied, or are you just disagreeing with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy about what constitutes standard-issue utilitarianism?
It’s a gross mis-representation of utilitarianism positions.
For utilitarianism, you are better off giving this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism