Many utilitarians claim that they aspire to be to be altruistic—in the sense that they would claim to “care just as much about far-away aliens that they can’t even see as they do about members of their own species”.
Possibly there are others that say they aspire to this too—but it is a pretty odd thing to want. Such selflessness makes little biological sense. It looks like either an attempt at a “niceness” superstimulus (though one that is rather hampered by a lack of plausibility) - or the result of memetic manipulation, probably for the benefit of others. Those are currently my two best guesses for explaining the existence of utilitarianism.
Ah, I think my mistake was assuming utilitarianism meant something reasonable along the lines of consequentialism (as opposed to belief in a specific and somewhat simple utility function). I thought I already knew what it meant, you see, so I didn’t see the need to click on your link.
Many utilitarians claim that they aspire to be to be altruistic—in the sense that they would claim to “care just as much about far-away aliens that they can’t even see as they do about members of their own species”.
Possibly there are others that say they aspire to this too—but it is a pretty odd thing to want. Such selflessness makes little biological sense. It looks like either an attempt at a “niceness” superstimulus (though one that is rather hampered by a lack of plausibility) - or the result of memetic manipulation, probably for the benefit of others. Those are currently my two best guesses for explaining the existence of utilitarianism.
Ah, I think my mistake was assuming utilitarianism meant something reasonable along the lines of consequentialism (as opposed to belief in a specific and somewhat simple utility function). I thought I already knew what it meant, you see, so I didn’t see the need to click on your link.