Leaving label definitions aside, I agree with you that IF there’s a uniquely ethical choice that can somehow be derived by aggregating the preferences of some group of preference-havers, then I can’t derive that choice from what I happen to prefer, so in that case if I want to judge the ethical costs of purchasing bacon I need to identify what everybody else prefers as part of that judgment. (I also, in that case, need to know who “everybody else” is before I can make that determination.)
Can you say more about why you find that premise compelling?
I find that premise compelling because I have a psychological need to believe I’m motivated by more than self-interest, and my powers of self-deception are limited by my ability to check my beliefs for self-consistency.
What this amounts to is the need to ask not just what I want, but how to make the world “better” in some more impartial way. The most self-convincing way I’ve found to define “better” is that it improves the net lived experience of other minds.
In other words, if I maximise that measure, I very comfortably feel that I’m doing good.
Personally I reject that premise, though in some contexts I endorse behaving as though it were true for pragmatic social reasons. But I have no problem with you continuing to believe it if that makes you feel good… it seems like a relatively harmless form of self-gratification, and it probably won’t grow hair on your utility function.
Leaving label definitions aside, I agree with you that IF there’s a uniquely ethical choice that can somehow be derived by aggregating the preferences of some group of preference-havers, then I can’t derive that choice from what I happen to prefer, so in that case if I want to judge the ethical costs of purchasing bacon I need to identify what everybody else prefers as part of that judgment. (I also, in that case, need to know who “everybody else” is before I can make that determination.)
Can you say more about why you find that premise compelling?
I find that premise compelling because I have a psychological need to believe I’m motivated by more than self-interest, and my powers of self-deception are limited by my ability to check my beliefs for self-consistency.
What this amounts to is the need to ask not just what I want, but how to make the world “better” in some more impartial way. The most self-convincing way I’ve found to define “better” is that it improves the net lived experience of other minds.
In other words, if I maximise that measure, I very comfortably feel that I’m doing good.
Fair enough.
Personally I reject that premise, though in some contexts I endorse behaving as though it were true for pragmatic social reasons. But I have no problem with you continuing to believe it if that makes you feel good… it seems like a relatively harmless form of self-gratification, and it probably won’t grow hair on your utility function.