A careful reader may note that in their comment, Khorton ignores the following part of the quote in my comment above:
He [Toby Ord] describes the academic literature incorrectly in a way that benefits his case. He writes that “A thorough going Negative Utilitarian would support the destruction of the world (even by violent means)” without mentioning that for many years, a published objection to his favoured view (classical utilitarianism) is that it implies that one should kill everyone and replace us, if one could thereby maximize the sum of well-being (see my paper The World Destruction Argument).
I’m not sure what you’re implying. I only copied half of the quote to save reader’s time.
I feel like you’re trying to catch me out, but I don’t understand why.
If you want my views on Toby’s paper, the truth is I haven’t read it. It’s a good thing to represent counterarguments correctly, so that’s too bad if he didn’t do it well in this particular paper? At worst, this sounds like an argument that he made some mistakes in his work as an academic—but I wouldn’t be in a position to judge. It doesn’t sound dishonest.
Well, I do believe that misrepresenting the views you’re arguing against is dishonest. Especially so, if your essay is literally called “Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian”
I don’t like Toby’s “Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian” essay because I think it doesn’t engage good arguments in favor of NU (to which I am partial). But I don’t think it’s in any way dishonest for him to have written an informal essay describing his views on the matter. I found it immensely helpful in understanding Toby’s writings about the kind of utilitarianism he endorses.
A careful reader may note that in their comment, Khorton ignores the following part of the quote in my comment above:
I’m not sure what you’re implying. I only copied half of the quote to save reader’s time.
I feel like you’re trying to catch me out, but I don’t understand why.
If you want my views on Toby’s paper, the truth is I haven’t read it. It’s a good thing to represent counterarguments correctly, so that’s too bad if he didn’t do it well in this particular paper? At worst, this sounds like an argument that he made some mistakes in his work as an academic—but I wouldn’t be in a position to judge. It doesn’t sound dishonest.
Well, I do believe that misrepresenting the views you’re arguing against is dishonest. Especially so, if your essay is literally called “Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian”
I don’t like Toby’s “Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian” essay because I think it doesn’t engage good arguments in favor of NU (to which I am partial). But I don’t think it’s in any way dishonest for him to have written an informal essay describing his views on the matter. I found it immensely helpful in understanding Toby’s writings about the kind of utilitarianism he endorses.