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The utilitarianist perspective on ethics is deeply questionable -- it presupposes that we know what goal to pursue (we don't) and that we can predict the impact of choices wrt our progress towards that goal -- not only first order impact, but 2nd order and 3rd order as well.
Any scalar objective function you can come up with for human society is always broken in obvious ways. But you don't need to know what the end goal is in order to act in a just way. Know what your values are, and stay true to them. Act based on principles, not predicted outcomes
Tend to agree but to be fair Bentham argued that you should weight outcomes by their likelihood
Guessing @michael_nielsen's Dostoyevsky excerpt got you thinking about this.
This is similar to Hayek’s conclusion in The Fatal Conceit - this kind of thing should be distributed precisely because we don’t know the objective function
It seems to me that utilitarian ethics only struggles with measurability. In terms of directing your efforts toward positive outcomes, it still seems ideal - as long as we appreciate that we experience pain & suffering much more strongly than pleasure & satisfaction.
Let's put it harsher: the perspective is a hypocritical one because a closed system where actions whiteout interference violates wave-particle duality of matter described by de Broglie. You need a quantum computer linked to your brain for taking decisions minimizing impact. SF
With all due respect, this is not a good or fair description of utilitarian ethics. Generally speaking it just means that we act in a way which we think maximises perceived utility. Whether there even exists an objective metric (and whether we can track it) are separate matters.
I was under the impression that Utilitarianism is mainly a theory of ethics and not of Psychology, which implies that it actually attempts to describe objective norms.
I think thia is precisely one of the reasons why the current attempts of the Chinese PRC to quantify social credit with a score or set of scores is not only oppressive but broken in fundamental level.
I recommend 'The Moral Landscape' by Sam Harris. You don't need to define the end goal for it to work. Take for example medicine, which defines it's purpose in pursuit of health. Health is as badly defined as 'well-being', but as long as we discern health differences it works.
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