Welcome to the fantastic world of philosophy, friend! :) If you are like me you will enjoy thinking and learning more about this stuff. Your mind will be blown many times over.
I do in fact think that utilitarianism as normally conceived is just wrong, and one reason why it is wrong is that it says every action is equally choiceworthy because they all have undefined expected utility.
But maybe there is a way to reconceive utilitarianism that avoids this problem. Maybe.
Personally I think you might be interested in thinking about metaethics next. What do we even mean when we say something matters, or something is good? I currently think that it’s something like “what I would choose, if I was idealized in various ways, e.g. if I had more time to think and reflect, if I knew more relevant facts, etc.”
Huh it’s concerning that you say you see standard utilitarianism as wrong because I have no idea what to believe if not utilitarianism.
Do you know where I can find out more about the “undefined” issue? For me this is pretty much the most important thing for me to understand since my conclusion will fundamentally determine my behaviour for the rest of my life, yet I can’t find any information except for your posts.
Thanks so much for your response and posts. They’ve been hugely helpful to me
The philosophy literature has stuff on this. If I recall correctly I linked some of it in the bibliography of this post. It’s been a while since I thought about this I’m afraid so I don’t have references in memory. Probably you should search the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for the “Pasadena Game” and “st petersburg paradox”
Welcome to the fantastic world of philosophy, friend! :) If you are like me you will enjoy thinking and learning more about this stuff. Your mind will be blown many times over.
I do in fact think that utilitarianism as normally conceived is just wrong, and one reason why it is wrong is that it says every action is equally choiceworthy because they all have undefined expected utility.
But maybe there is a way to reconceive utilitarianism that avoids this problem. Maybe.
Personally I think you might be interested in thinking about metaethics next. What do we even mean when we say something matters, or something is good? I currently think that it’s something like “what I would choose, if I was idealized in various ways, e.g. if I had more time to think and reflect, if I knew more relevant facts, etc.”
Huh it’s concerning that you say you see standard utilitarianism as wrong because I have no idea what to believe if not utilitarianism.
Do you know where I can find out more about the “undefined” issue? For me this is pretty much the most important thing for me to understand since my conclusion will fundamentally determine my behaviour for the rest of my life, yet I can’t find any information except for your posts.
Thanks so much for your response and posts. They’ve been hugely helpful to me
The philosophy literature has stuff on this. If I recall correctly I linked some of it in the bibliography of this post. It’s been a while since I thought about this I’m afraid so I don’t have references in memory. Probably you should search the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for the “Pasadena Game” and “st petersburg paradox”