Utilitarianism: Crash Course Philosophy #36

33 thoughts on “Utilitarianism: Crash Course Philosophy #36”

1. Rule utilitarianism sounds a lot like Kant's categorical imperative – taking a moral rule and universalising it. The difference is Kant asks "if we universalised this, would it lead to logical contradictions?" while rule utilitarianism asks "if we universalised it, what would the consequences be for people's lives and happiness?" So I think it'd be possible for Batman to be a rule utilitarian and still not kill the Joker, if he'd deemed that "killing bad people" was an action that, if universalised, would lead to less happiness in the long run.

2. act vs rule has nothing to do w time frame or number of instances– it is either util or not. Even if the Dr killed only the one man, that would still have a negative ripple throughout society, albeit a smaller one.
   Act is simply short sighted and superficial, and Rule is holistic and deeper thinking. That's it. And why would we ever want to choose short sighted superficiality?

3. You are really good. But you could speak a little slower, as new ideas take time to settle in the brain. I know you want to limit the video to 10 mins, being ina generation where people with attention deficit syndrome abound, but you could think about it.

4. So..Thanos is a utilitarian?

5. What about "I want what I want because it makes me the least unhappy"?

6. The last example is the plot of the book unwind

7. Yes, lets kill the saints in the world because they might inspire a radicle group that we despise. But lets also kill the group we hate because genocide will make the world more peaceful. … Problem is. You don't know a damn thing about what it takes to make world peace. You've proven that with the way you've treated me. Peace CANNOT exist with those who act and think and do as you have done. You are a culture of war and blood and death of innocents. Violence and hatred. Persecuting the innocent not for any reason than for imagined ones. Peace CANNOT exist with you. That is what this last year meeting you and your people have taught me.

8. only you guys DO let your ego rule your decision making. History not only proves it. But I am presently experiencing it.

9. And so when a majority want to murder and maim the minority, because it gives them sadistic pleasure, then that is A-Okay.

10. Fake virtue always takes hostiges EXCEPT themselves, to make other thinks that they have to make the "good" descision, where there is NONE.
    REBEL good people
    REBEL
    Bad people tend to think they can drive common minded people into doing what they desire..over something(Money this days)

11. why am i watching this now tho-

12. I think it’s the judges fault. Why have they never sentenced joker to the death penalty

13. I think what would I do is ask those persons who want to sacrifice themselves for their comrades. If no one wants to then I'll do an eeniminiminimo.

14. haha, yes I'm here because of "The Good Place"

15. so that indigenous people problem was basically the trolley problem

16. I'll shoot the soldier.

17. That's probably the most idiotic philosophy I've heard of
    The individual essence of the greater good is produced subjectively otherwise it's non authentic thus as dumb as a religion.

18. I hope I won't be the Useless neighbour😄

19. Recognizing that a purely secular and relativistic utilitarianism could as easily produce terrible outcomes as good ones, Joseph Fletcher attempted to fix the problem by suggesting love as the defining characteristic of "the greater good". Unfortunately this didn't fix the problem, as any means, however terrible, could still potentially be justified in the pursuit of a "loving" goal.

    There has never been a political system, whether secular or not, whether democratic or not, that is immune from abuse, immune from developing within itself systemic injustice. Nor is it true to say that only theists can live morally upright lives. There are certainly many non-theists who are deeply committed to the well-being of humanity, to environmental responsibility, and who live exemplary lives of service and compassion, just as there are many self-described theists who do not. But it is true that, once a society's values, as embodied in its legislation, have become essentially disconnected from any reference to absolute moral authority (such as God), there follows a cultural drift towards moral relativism and the kind of utilitarian ethics exemplified in the writings of the philosopher Peter Singer.
     
    Commendable as the stated goals of utilitarianism may be, in a morally relativistic secular society governed according to utilitarian principles the definition of "the greater good" is in effect determined by those who have the greatest influence. This necessarily ends up devolving essentially into the rule of the strong over the weak, however much the society might wish either to avoid this outcome or try to make it appear otherwise. In a secular capitalist society, the "greater good" is inevitably measured in economic terms, automatically casting needy individuals as "liabilities", as having net negative value to society. This ultimately also undermines the sort of democracy that is traditional in the West, as it represents the rejection of a foundational principle: the inherent dignity and equality of all people.

20. No mention of negative utilitarianism was made? …

21. The problem with killing a killer, is you cannot be sure of what that person will do in future. You would have to assume that someone will kill people and be bad in future (when they might be living out there days in prison in barman’s case) and an assumption isn’t good moral grounds for murder.

22. The transplant example is wrong because if one person can be a match for all of them that means they are also matches with each other so you wait for one to die and transplant the rest. That is actually a better outcome than killing the neighbor because now you have one of the five living with no defects.

23. AMAZING!!!!!!

24. What if you shot more than one of the indigenous people?

25. I really believe our society is slowly transitioning from a liberal (as in liberty-minded), capitalist culture to a technocratic, utilitarian society, heavy on the "spectator" side. But what separates this kind of utilitarianism from what I believe the classical philosophers had in mind is our technology. Today, technology dictates almost every aspect of our lives, and our technology is both increasingly "spectator"-based and centralized. These two things are a match made in hell, in my opinion. One side of the coin separates us further and further from the direct experience of a shared reality and the other side forces us into smaller and smaller ideological niches. We are being programmed for a new kind of technological regime that reduces every aspect of our lives to algorithms making incredibly complex utilitarian decisions without our conscious input or consent. The technocrats argue that it is OUR data, after all, that allows these new cybernetic systems to grow in reach and power, so theoretically, these utilitarian decisions should be super democratic… however, because this data is being filtered through a largely spectator-based technology, it bears little connection to our individual lives–and in fact, by its function, data-mining strips the individual of their true identity and reduces that identity to quantum points in a dragnet…

26. utilitarians: whatever works is justified

27. thanks. I love u.

28. Under the heading of "Philosophy is fun, but pointless." About the surgeon and neighbor: was the liver transplantee an alcoholic, the lung guy a smoker, the kidneys obese diabetics, but wonderful, loving grandparents and, say, the heart guy a pedo, but also a fireman? Does that change the decision? Most is a dangerous word. Trump got the most electoral college votes, but not the most citizen's votes. Are most better off?

29. This seems problematic when you think of children or the disabled. They are able to act. They are able to cause happiness or suffering, but some children and some disabled people don't have the intentionality to act morally.
    Or suppose you turn on a light switch and due to a freak accident it electrocuted your neighbor, killing them. Did you do wrong? Were you a moral agent? If a child does the same thing, did the child do wrong?

30. The only problem here is that the example(s) are not very revealing of the essence. That the first solution is to build a better system that doesn't let out the Joker every time. And saving people by killing one of them is just as unrealistic. Especially knowing the regime will probably only do it again. So even though it is great to let people know about Utilitarianism, it is better to use competent examples. Because these are ideas that require more thinking than just a heuristic answer. And then we ask if they are letting the Joker out on purpose? For population control. HaHaHaaHHaaaHaa!!!

31. what no killing rule? Batman 🦇 has killed

32. This utilitarianism isn't valid when you truly loved yourself… We all think our life is more important or equally to that of other millions of people…

33. I swear give this man an award he explain all this lesson better than my book and professor combine why hasn't he received. an award yet?

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