As someone who is not a hedonistic utilitarian, most of the arguments in this post strike me as incredibly weak. For example it can certainly be argued, and I personally believe, that negative experiences are not bad in such a way that a world without them would be superior. Grief is unpleasant, but I would not prefer a world without grief. I realise that this is not itself an argument, but the possibility of dissent does undermine the idea that the elimination of suffering follows so obviously from its existence that it can violate the is-ought gap.
The post is filled with the same sort of logical leaps, where the author’s beliefs “must” be true with no argument as to why. Most academic philosophers are not consequentialists. If you “find it hard to imagine an ultimate ethical theory that isn’t based on some form of utilitarianism” then you probably don’t have a very strong understanding of normative ethics.
I may be missing the argument in the post, and would welcome a clear restatement of the premises, but as far as I can tell there is no serious attempt to address criticisms or alternatives to hedonistic utilitarianism other than “if you thought about it hard enough, you’d agree with me”.
edit: I hadn’t read it before making this comment, but this other post from today seems to provide a much better answer to the central premise of this post than I would be able to provide.
As someone who leans towards hedonistic utilitarianism, I would agree with this impression. It seemed like the post asserted that utilitarianism must be true and that alternative intuitions could be dismissed without any good corresponding argument.
I would also add that there are many different flavors of utilitarianism, and it’s unclear which, if any, is the correct theory to hold. This podcast has a good breakdown of the possibilities.
If you “find it hard to imagine an ultimate ethical theory that isn’t based on some form of utilitarianism” then you probably don’t have a very strong understanding of normative ethics.
FWIW I’d like to take this opportunity to advertise my list of recommended readings about non-utilitarian normative ethics, which some utilitarians may find educational.
Maybe someone can write a similar list for metaethics.
As someone who is not a hedonistic utilitarian, most of the arguments in this post strike me as incredibly weak. For example it can certainly be argued, and I personally believe, that negative experiences are not bad in such a way that a world without them would be superior. Grief is unpleasant, but I would not prefer a world without grief. I realise that this is not itself an argument, but the possibility of dissent does undermine the idea that the elimination of suffering follows so obviously from its existence that it can violate the is-ought gap.
The post is filled with the same sort of logical leaps, where the author’s beliefs “must” be true with no argument as to why. Most academic philosophers are not consequentialists. If you “find it hard to imagine an ultimate ethical theory that isn’t based on some form of utilitarianism” then you probably don’t have a very strong understanding of normative ethics.
I may be missing the argument in the post, and would welcome a clear restatement of the premises, but as far as I can tell there is no serious attempt to address criticisms or alternatives to hedonistic utilitarianism other than “if you thought about it hard enough, you’d agree with me”.
edit: I hadn’t read it before making this comment, but this other post from today seems to provide a much better answer to the central premise of this post than I would be able to provide.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7dGZnj7bwpM2kSJqm/against-meta-ethical-hedonism
As someone who leans towards hedonistic utilitarianism, I would agree with this impression. It seemed like the post asserted that utilitarianism must be true and that alternative intuitions could be dismissed without any good corresponding argument.
I would also add that there are many different flavors of utilitarianism, and it’s unclear which, if any, is the correct theory to hold. This podcast has a good breakdown of the possibilities.
https://clearerthinkingpodcast.com/episode/042
FWIW I’d like to take this opportunity to advertise my list of recommended readings about non-utilitarian normative ethics, which some utilitarians may find educational.
Maybe someone can write a similar list for metaethics.