1. Negative utilitarianism, consistently applied, recommends eliminating all beings capable of suffering, or at minimum reducing consciousness until nothing registers as loss.
This is not true.
I’m planning to write an article about it and I’ll link it when it’s done.
In short, what you’re saying is a common confusion between a moral claim (what we ought to do) and an axiological claim (what is the value of some states of affairs).
That does seem true that I am making the case against negative hedonic utilitarianism seem stronger than it is by conflating the moral and axiological claims.
Nevertheless, I absolutely do stand by my claim that the axiology (state of calculated value) of negative hedonic utilitarianism is very wrong.
Negative hedonic utilitarianism fails because it says a universe with no suffering but also no richness, no narrative, no diversity, no generative potential is better than a universe with all of those things plus some suffering.
My intuition is: that’s axiologically backwards. The rich universe is better even though it contains suffering. Not despite the suffering, but in a way that’s inseparable from it.
This is not true.
I’m planning to write an article about it and I’ll link it when it’s done.
In short, what you’re saying is a common confusion between a moral claim (what we ought to do) and an axiological claim (what is the value of some states of affairs).
That does seem true that I am making the case against negative hedonic utilitarianism seem stronger than it is by conflating the moral and axiological claims. Nevertheless, I absolutely do stand by my claim that the axiology (state of calculated value) of negative hedonic utilitarianism is very wrong.
Negative hedonic utilitarianism fails because it says a universe with no suffering but also no richness, no narrative, no diversity, no generative potential is better than a universe with all of those things plus some suffering. My intuition is: that’s axiologically backwards. The rich universe is better even though it contains suffering. Not despite the suffering, but in a way that’s inseparable from it.