Discussion Little small rant- true Utilitarians would choose for human extinction.

[Droso]

I'm high rn and I have no idea if this is the occrect forum to talk about this but yeah anyway..

I'm not a utilitarian, butttt basically they think ethics should be based on whatever makes people feel good and happy the most, called the Utilitarian calculator or whatever I think it actually starts with H but I CANT FIND THE TERM!!

I know it is uhhh anthropocentric but honestly I think that's what makes it a shit moral system. But if we are extending it to all life forms that are known to be happy then I think the most logical moral decision would to be to make humans extinct bc it would fix the biodiversity crisis…

UNLESS they can argue that humans actually do not interfere with other animals' happiness so they don't matter to utilitarianism. Or if they just don't experience happiness. Idk.

 

[L9my]

negative utilitarianism might be up your alley
but I might be tripping

 

[Droso]

negative utilitarianism might be up your alley
but I might be tripping

Nah I was jus making an argument im actually a moral nihilist

 

[Forever Sleep]

Even from a human perspective, there's no guarantee a person will grow up to be happy. They almost certainly won't be happy all the time. So- it's a gamble effectively. Where they likely don't feel like they've 'lost out' if they aren't born to begin with. They can't presumably- with no consciousness.

I suppose we have to start out with living organisms for utilitarianism to apply. Still- it's as if it sees birth as a fixed variable. When as you say- it isn't. Especially not for humans who do have the awareness and sense to be able to choose whether to expose a new life to this world plus, this world to a new human life- which will most likely just be another consumer/ polluter.

Also- yes, I agree- the more there are of us, the more we will gobble up the world's resources, the more pollution we will release into the world. For us all to live happily and comfortably, I imagine less is more. We're effectively poisoning ourselves as it is! Plus, every other living thing. For the smartest animal on the planet, we're pretty dumb!

 

[[..redacted..]]

I'm high rn and I have no idea if this is the occrect forum to talk about this but yeah anyway..

I'm not a utilitarian, butttt basically they think ethics should be based on whatever makes people feel good and happy the most, called the Utilitarian calculator or whatever I think it actually starts with H but I CANT FIND THE TERM!!

Jeremy Bentham's Hedonic Calculus:

Utilitarianism - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Droso]

Jeremy Bentham's Hedonic Calculus:

Utilitarianism - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Damn I was high as shit making this post lmfao. Yes that's what I meant!