“Should your parents have the right to kill you now, if they do so painlessly?”
Yes, according to that logic. Also, from a negative utilitarian standpoint, it was actually the act of creating me which they had no right to do since that makes them responsible for all pain I have ever suffered.
I’m not saying I live life by utilitarian ethics, I’m just saying I haven’t found any way to refute it.
That said though, non-existence doesn’t frighten me. I’m not so sure non-existence is an option though, if the universe is eternal or infinite. That might be a very good thing or a very bad thing.
re: utilitarianism, the usual sort of thing that pops into my mind is weighing of some minor discomfort versus a significant one, like one person getting their eye poked out with a pen versus an equivalent amount of displeasure spread among thousands of people stepping in something sticky, plus one more person stepping in something sticky. The utility seems higher if we agree to poke the person’s eye out, but its intuitively unsatisfying, at least to me, which makes me think that whatever rules makes things seem “bad” or “good” that I’m currently running on aren’t strictly utilitarian. I might be thinking of raw pain for pain though, and not adding enough people-stepping-in-sticky-stuff to account for the person who’s been poked in the eye suffering in other ways, like losing depth perception, not being able to see out of half of their original visual field, etc.
“Should your parents have the right to kill you now, if they do so painlessly?”
Yes, according to that logic. Also, from a negative utilitarian standpoint, it was actually the act of creating me which they had no right to do since that makes them responsible for all pain I have ever suffered.
I’m not saying I live life by utilitarian ethics, I’m just saying I haven’t found any way to refute it.
That said though, non-existence doesn’t frighten me. I’m not so sure non-existence is an option though, if the universe is eternal or infinite. That might be a very good thing or a very bad thing.
re: utilitarianism, the usual sort of thing that pops into my mind is weighing of some minor discomfort versus a significant one, like one person getting their eye poked out with a pen versus an equivalent amount of displeasure spread among thousands of people stepping in something sticky, plus one more person stepping in something sticky. The utility seems higher if we agree to poke the person’s eye out, but its intuitively unsatisfying, at least to me, which makes me think that whatever rules makes things seem “bad” or “good” that I’m currently running on aren’t strictly utilitarian. I might be thinking of raw pain for pain though, and not adding enough people-stepping-in-sticky-stuff to account for the person who’s been poked in the eye suffering in other ways, like losing depth perception, not being able to see out of half of their original visual field, etc.