I agree. You say you want to maximise happiness in the world? Well someone starving to death is pretty unhappy, so making them not starve would seem to maximise happiness.. Or do you mean you wish to maximise your own happiness, and, as thinking about suffering gets you down, you’d prefer to do things which make you and those you care for happy?
Well maybe the ac of prefering positive over negative utilitarinism it’s not as simple as your characterising it to be.
″We examined 1) whether people would be more responsive to the delayed consequences of their decisions when attempting to minimize losses than when attempting to maximize gains in a history—dependent decision making task and 2) how trait self—control would moderate such an effect . In two experiments participants performed a dynamic decision—making task where they chose one of two options on each trial. The increasing option always gav e a smaller immediate reward but caused future rewards for both options to increase. The decreasing option always gave a larger immediate reward but caused future rewards for both options to decrease″
Positive utilitarianism is psychologically easier than negative utililitarianism. That should be enough. It’s better than moping around like that edgy homeless Buddha guy.
I’m not sure what you’re actually trying to say.
I agree. You say you want to maximise happiness in the world? Well someone starving to death is pretty unhappy, so making them not starve would seem to maximise happiness.. Or do you mean you wish to maximise your own happiness, and, as thinking about suffering gets you down, you’d prefer to do things which make you and those you care for happy?
Well maybe the ac of prefering positive over negative utilitarinism it’s not as simple as your characterising it to be.
″We examined 1) whether people would be more responsive to the delayed consequences of their decisions when attempting to minimize losses than when attempting to maximize gains in a history—dependent decision making task and 2) how trait self—control would moderate such an effect . In two experiments participants performed a dynamic decision—making task where they chose one of two options on each trial. The increasing option always gav e a smaller immediate reward but caused future rewards for both options to increase. The decreasing option always gave a larger immediate reward but caused future rewards for both options to decrease″
Positive utilitarianism is psychologically easier than negative utililitarianism. That should be enough. It’s better than moping around like that edgy homeless Buddha guy.