we really shouldn’t be trusting our intuitions on something like this.
I don’t see why not; after all, a person relies on his/her ethical intuitions when selecting a metaethical system like utilitarianism in the first place. Surely someone’s ethical intuition regarding an idea like the one that you propose is at least as relevant as the ethical intuition that would lead a person to choose utilitarianism.
I just think in the abstract ad absurdum arguments are a logical fallacy.
I don’t see why. It appears that you and simon agree that utilitarianism leads to the idea that creating utility monsters is a good idea. But whereas you conclude from your intuition that utilitarianism is correct that we should create utility monsters, simon argues from his intuition that creating a utility monster as you describe is a bad idea to the conclusion that utilitarianism is not a good metaethical system. It would appear that simon’s reasoning mirrors your own.
Like the saying goes—one persons’s modus ponens in another person’s modus tollens.
I don’t see why not; after all, a person relies on his/her ethical intuitions when selecting a metaethical system like utilitarianism in the first place. Surely someone’s ethical intuition regarding an idea like the one that you propose is at least as relevant as the ethical intuition that would lead a person to choose utilitarianism.
I don’t see why. It appears that you and simon agree that utilitarianism leads to the idea that creating utility monsters is a good idea. But whereas you conclude from your intuition that utilitarianism is correct that we should create utility monsters, simon argues from his intuition that creating a utility monster as you describe is a bad idea to the conclusion that utilitarianism is not a good metaethical system. It would appear that simon’s reasoning mirrors your own.
Like the saying goes—one persons’s modus ponens in another person’s modus tollens.