I agree that the claims are doing all of the work and that this is not a convincing argument for utilitarianism. I often hear arguments for moral philosophies that make a ton of implicit assumptions. I think that once you make them explicit and actually try to be rigorous the argument always seems less impressive, and less convincing.
I think a key principle involves selecting the right set of ought claims as assumptions. Some are more convincing than others. E.g. I believe “The fairness of an outcome ought to be irrelevant (this is probably the most interesting and contentious assumption).” can be replaced with something like “Frequencies and stochasticities are interchangable; X% chance of affecting everyone’s utility is equivalent to 100% chance of affect X% of people’s utility”.
This is a much more agreeable assumption. When I get a chance, I’ll make sure it can replace the fairness one and add it to the proof and give you credit.
I doubt all of the claims, including the “is” claim.
Me too. The claims are doing all the work, while the argument is a triviality.
I agree that the claims are doing all of the work and that this is not a convincing argument for utilitarianism. I often hear arguments for moral philosophies that make a ton of implicit assumptions. I think that once you make them explicit and actually try to be rigorous the argument always seems less impressive, and less convincing.
I think a key principle involves selecting the right set of ought claims as assumptions. Some are more convincing than others. E.g. I believe “The fairness of an outcome ought to be irrelevant (this is probably the most interesting and contentious assumption).” can be replaced with something like “Frequencies and stochasticities are interchangable; X% chance of affecting everyone’s utility is equivalent to 100% chance of affect X% of people’s utility”.
This is a much more agreeable assumption. When I get a chance, I’ll make sure it can replace the fairness one and add it to the proof and give you credit.