I agree, it depends on the goal pursued by utilitarianism, the goal can be to reach the highest level of egalitarianism.

> It would be like if you got your kid a car and they destroyed it by neglect.

Nah. Humanity isn't a single intelligent agent. The analogy would be more like: people are wrecking a shared car and there's no central authority to assign responsibility of fixing it, so a smaller group of people starts building their own car, because they cannot unilaterally fix the shared one.

“it is not enough for a legislator to make his people "see objects as they are"; he must also sometimes make them see objects "as they should appear to be" (Rousseau, 1979, p. 67). There are passages outside of the Social Contract in which he elaborates on the differences between the communication of a theoretical doctrine to philosophers and a variety of popular presentations to an unenlightened multitude. As an author of treatises, novels, plays, poems, and operas, Rousseau had good reason to reflect on this question, and it is one of the most frequently recurring issues in his work. “

”to persuade without convincing”: the language of Rousseau’s legislator

-Christopher kelly

But then both utility and (the experience of) freedom are subjective. The most important difference in your reasoning seems to be that utility is individual, while your construct of freedom takes others into account. So, swapping utility for welfare with a sufficient 'welfare punishment' for crimes against others, would lead to the same outcomes: Killing is bad, don't hurt the utility of others, and do what you like otherwise.

But then both utility and (the experience of) freedom are subjective. The most important difference in your reasoning seems to be that utility is individual, while your construct of freedom takes others into account. So, swapping utility for welfare with a sufficient 'welfare punishment' for crimes against others, would lead to the same outcomes: Killing is bad, don't hurt the utility of others, and do what you like otherwise.

Belief and subjective truth or both only important to those who agree with you. Would you say is belief I call superstition. There's a great science experiment that was done with pigeons and a randomly dropping piece of food now if the pigeon was turning around as the piece of food dropped it will continue to turn around again and again and again and same direction and then when the food drops again it reinforces that belief even though it's completely random

This topic is interesting to me, since all people have a mother tongue and a learned or developing language,

as is usually the case with English or Spanish, which are the most widely spoken worldwide, among others,

which leads us to think: How to make relevant comments that are not offensive if something

is black or white for a given language? Thank you very much and blessings.

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Any person, regardless of profession or walk of life, can be physically fit (except in cases of certain disability, in which it would be impossible to be physically fit). Additionally, maximizing your own ability can just mean maximizing your ability in your walk of life (similar to Kant, advancing one's own skills and abilities).

In a world without this duty, people would be fine to do nothing at all. We would not want to live in a world where people don't maximize their ability. We want competent doctors and architects, and we want physically strong healthy people in general. Society without these would collapse.

I think a key issue with Scanlon's dilemmas is they ignore what the people losing TV actually want. Go, survey them if possible. Would they want the man to die so they can watch a bit more TV? I think you'll find a resounding no, as very few people would be that selfish. Why, in any case, would we be morally obligated to do something that no one wants, kills a person, and barely benefits anyone else? A utilitarian would not want this, as a utilitarian understands that a greater benefit and well-being would come from a society in which people aren't routinely sacrificed for minor pleasures.

I find the idea that principles often conflict within your theory a failure of the theory itself. All theories being subjective, I would much rather follow a theory that gives consistent advice on all topics rather than one that in a simple situation like the trolley problem says, "do whatever you want". I do not want to live in a world with such a vacuous ethical system. A normative theory tells you what you ought to do. If it can't do that, it's not exactly normative theory. Especially in situations of life or death. I mean no offence, but if an ethical theory cannot tell me whether to save a life, or take one, then I am not interested.

Of course ethics are subjective. There are not ethical objects to be found in the world, they're just rules or ideals that humans create founded upon arbitrary points. I find the glorification of "freedom" to be as arbitrary as the glorification of "utility" or "virtue". It doesn't matter what any of these things are, as what is has no affect on moral theories. It is the is-ought problem. You can't derive ought from is, and so it doesn't matter how "fact-based" or anything else freedom is, it's no more valid than utility or virtue.

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I think you should just use a separate word for freedom, as freedom already has a definition in ordinary language. Giving it a new one is, plainly speaking, just confusing.

But you only mean "freedom" in that humans are smart enough to make choices. In your sense It's just a prerequisite for anything we do. Not something especially related to ethics at all.

There wouldn't be a moral duty to be in top physical health. Nor is there a moral duty to become a doctor to save the man. Nor a moral duty to also become an architect to prevent buildings from being destroyed. And so on. You can create infinite duties from this scenario. And no such duty would be created in the social contract. Therefore, those duties are not moral duties.

I've even questioned the duty to rescue (when rescuing harms others) here. An unlimited duty to rescue wouldn't be accepted in the social contract, since the responsibilities of free parties create acceptable stopping points of duties.

If you have a certain definition of freedom in mind, I'd be happy to hear and use it in future posts.

Step 1) freedom, step 2) reason, step 3) social contract. The article is arguing that freedom, not utility, is step 1.

With social contract theory you're conceding that your argument for freedom being the foundation of morality relies on restrictions on freedom to get off the ground at all...

In annihilation the sum of pain and pleasure is zero, unlike how in eternal suffering pain is more than the pleasure so the sum total is less and therefore worse. Both pain and pleasure could be seen as on the same scale , like how negative and positive numbers are on a number line. The common unit would be utility of the person. Anihilation can be compared to an very painful afterlife because it would have an effect on the total happiness of the dead person, like how zero is on the number line. They can be compared because a person could prefer one to the other naturally. The state of deep sleep gives us someone idea of what annihilation might be like, and although we are always conscious we could experience stopping some of our senses with things like blindfolds. This would allow annihilation to be compared to eternal suffering. If we wish for everyone to be as happy as possible than
annihilation would be perhaps a better option than eternal suffering. I do not believe that eternal suffering would exist after death, instead I think some random mind in the future or past or annihilation would be experienced.

So your definition of freedom (or liberty) is: "the power to reflect on our desires and change them based on abstract principles—including morals"

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I think the issue here is the definition for freedom is strange. It's not at all what the term means in ordinary language. So I'm not sure it's the best word to use if you're trying to communicate what you're saying to any audience.

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As you say, someone can't be held morally accountable for not doing something that is impossible (e.g. going back in time and killing Hitler). However, let me present a hypothetical: imagine you are in the wreckage of a destroyed building. Underneath a metal beam there is a man suffocating (from the weight of the beam). You are unable to lift it as you are not strong enough. So, given what you have said the person would not be held morally accountable.

But, if you had stayed more physically active throughout your life, you would have been able to lift the beam. So though in the moment it was impossible, if you had been stronger (a real possibility) you would have been able to save the man's life. Would you say under your normative theory that people have an obligation to maximize (or at least increase) their own ability (by ability I mean your power to exert your will upon the world, e.g. by increasing physical strength)? If not, people could simply be lazy or reduce their abilities in order to reduce their moral obligation.

I'll be discussing that (rights) in future posts, what I mean by liberty is here which is just consciousness/the experience of freedom

if freedom is the basis of morality, then the interactions between the monk and others would be governed by the principles developed in a social contract (this is because the contract is reason-based and is approved by free parties, as discussed here).

Principles against murder would be included, so valuing freedom would forbid killing the monk.

Are you arguing for positive or negative liberty? The right to do versus the right to not be done upon? Or a mixture of the two?

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My guy, I don’t think egalitarianism is mutually exclusive with utilitarianism, they aren’t even in the same axis or field. Not is it what leads to decadence. And from a utilitarian perspective, egalitarianism is pretty useful.

Badly paraphrased Kant*

i'm aware, although many of these definitions can be convoluted. I use Gerald Dworkin's
definition here but what I mean by freedom is only consciousness/the experience of freedom.

It could be argued that freedom is an illusion and that just like every perceived choice we make is based on our perception of inputs or stimulus. The past has shaped our current reactions based on the same thing. Freedom is not a choice but a pre-determined outcome. Every individual experiences this in their own way regardless of the political system in power. Half of a democratic society lives in a communist state because of how the voting system works. If you're preferred party looses, you just have to live with that as best you can. Even those who voted for the winning party experience tyranny because the promises made during an election more often than not are not actioned. I'm not saying communism is better. But Democratic nations definitely need to evolve towards a better system.

not really trying to roast or anything, but you conflate heavily between freedom, autonomy, agency, etc. philosophers (at least in the analytic tradition) tend to be very careful in how they use terms. and your article is a prime example of highly confused uses of jargon — it’s not really just a matter of semantics.

Badly paraphrased Locke.