You’re the one who’s redefining utilitarianism- which is commonly defined as maximization of happiness and well-being of conscious beings. You can consider integrating other terminal values into what you’d like to do, but you’re not really discussing utilitarianism at that point, as it’s commonly used. For instance, Greenberg points to truth as a potential terminal value, which would be at odds with utilitarianism as it’s typically used.
I think Singer is a hedonic utilitarian for what it’s worth, and I think I subscribe to it while acknowledging that weighing the degrees of positive and negatively subjective experiences of many kinds is daunting.
As for having other instrumental values (which is why I don’t really think the “burnout” argument is very good as against utilitarianism, I agree with you on that one.
I agree that ‘utilitarianism’ often gets elided into meaning a variation of hedonic utilitarianism. I would like to hold philosophical discourse to a higher bar. In particular, once someone mentions hedonic utilitarianism, I’m going to hold them to the standard of separating out hedonic utilitarianism and preference utilitarianism, for example.
I agree hedonic utilitarians exist. I’m just saying the utilitarians I’ve talked to always add more terms than pleasure and suffering to their utility function. Most are preference utilitarians.
Preference utilitarianism and valuism don’t have much in common.
Preference utilitarianism: maximize the interests/preferences of all beings impartially.
First, preferences and intrinsic values are not the same thing. For instance, you may have a preference to eat Cheetos over eating nachos, but that doesn’t mean you intrinsically value eating Cheetos or that eating Cheetos necessarily gets you more of what you intrinsically value than eating nachos will. Human choice is driven by a lot of factors other than just intrinsic values (though intrinsic values play a role).
Second, preference utilitarianism is not about your own preferences, it’s about the preferences of all beings impartially.
You’re the one who’s redefining utilitarianism- which is commonly defined as maximization of happiness and well-being of conscious beings. You can consider integrating other terminal values into what you’d like to do, but you’re not really discussing utilitarianism at that point, as it’s commonly used. For instance, Greenberg points to truth as a potential terminal value, which would be at odds with utilitarianism as it’s typically used.
I think Singer is a hedonic utilitarian for what it’s worth, and I think I subscribe to it while acknowledging that weighing the degrees of positive and negatively subjective experiences of many kinds is daunting.
As for having other instrumental values (which is why I don’t really think the “burnout” argument is very good as against utilitarianism, I agree with you on that one.
I agree that ‘utilitarianism’ often gets elided into meaning a variation of hedonic utilitarianism. I would like to hold philosophical discourse to a higher bar. In particular, once someone mentions hedonic utilitarianism, I’m going to hold them to the standard of separating out hedonic utilitarianism and preference utilitarianism, for example.
I agree hedonic utilitarians exist. I’m just saying the utilitarians I’ve talked to always add more terms than pleasure and suffering to their utility function. Most are preference utilitarians.
Preference utilitarianism and valuism don’t have much in common.
Preference utilitarianism: maximize the interests/preferences of all beings impartially.
First, preferences and intrinsic values are not the same thing. For instance, you may have a preference to eat Cheetos over eating nachos, but that doesn’t mean you intrinsically value eating Cheetos or that eating Cheetos necessarily gets you more of what you intrinsically value than eating nachos will. Human choice is driven by a lot of factors other than just intrinsic values (though intrinsic values play a role).
Second, preference utilitarianism is not about your own preferences, it’s about the preferences of all beings impartially.