I’m still waiting for a method for interpersonal utility comparison.
I suspect you already have one. In dealing with others, I think most people use interpersonal utility comparisons all the time as a factor in their own decision making.
So, to be clear, I think you have one as well, and are really just waiting for those who have another interpersonal utility weighting, which they claim is “true”, to rationally support their supposed truth. I’ve been waiting for that one. Harassed a number of people over at Sam Harris’s web site asking about it.
Until then, I’ll stick with non-cognitivism and leave utilitarianism to the metaphysicians.
I don’t think non-cognitivism is the whole story on morality. People make moral distinctions, and some part of that is cognitively mediated, even when not verbally mediated. One cognitively recognizes a pattern one has a non-cognitive response to.
I suspect you already have one. In dealing with others, I think most people use interpersonal utility comparisons all the time as a factor in their own decision making.
So, to be clear, I think you have one as well, and are really just waiting for those who have another interpersonal utility weighting, which they claim is “true”, to rationally support their supposed truth. I’ve been waiting for that one. Harassed a number of people over at Sam Harris’s web site asking about it.
It sounds like we are mostly in agreement, but there is an important difference between me getting utility from other people getting utility (for instance, I would prefer to occupy a world where my friend is having a pleasant experience to one in which he is not, all else equal) and me performing arithmetic using values from different people’s utility functions and obtaining a result that would be unobjectionable like the result of adding or subtracting apples would be. In other words, me engaging in a kind of “interpersonal utility comparison” is only really telling us about my preferences, not about a uniquely correct calculation of “utility-stuff” that tells us about everyone’s (combined) preferences.
I don’t think non-cognitivism is the whole story on morality. People make moral distinctions, and some part of that is cognitively mediated, even when not verbally mediated. One cognitively recognizes a pattern one has a non-cognitive response to.
Nor do I, which is why I am still considering other hypothesis (for instance, virtue ethics, egoism, and contractarianism, all of which seem much more likely to be true than utilitarianism).
Most political systems are implicitly based on some kind of interpersonal utility comparison. They usually count the wishes of everyone over the age of 18 as being of equal value, and say that children and animal utilities only count by proxy.
Your second sentence is obviously false. The political system I happen to live under gives the president’s wishes considerably more weight than my own (even though both of us are over the age of 18) and it would be no different in just about any other extent political system.
If you live in the United States, I think the president is supposed to be a voice for the wishes of all the people who elected him. I’m not saying this actually works in practice, but at least in theory the president is supposed to speak for the citizenry in governmental affairs, not always get the last piece of cake at parties.
Yes, I am familiar with that theory (I did attend kindergarten after all). I also know such a theory is little more than a fairytale. I was commenting on the truth value of a particular sentence, not discussing how things are “supposed” to be (whatever that means).
I’m still waiting for a method for interpersonal utility comparison. Until then, I’ll stick with non-cognitivism and leave utilitarianism to the metaphysicians.
I suspect you already have one. In dealing with others, I think most people use interpersonal utility comparisons all the time as a factor in their own decision making.
So, to be clear, I think you have one as well, and are really just waiting for those who have another interpersonal utility weighting, which they claim is “true”, to rationally support their supposed truth. I’ve been waiting for that one. Harassed a number of people over at Sam Harris’s web site asking about it.
I don’t think non-cognitivism is the whole story on morality. People make moral distinctions, and some part of that is cognitively mediated, even when not verbally mediated. One cognitively recognizes a pattern one has a non-cognitive response to.
It sounds like we are mostly in agreement, but there is an important difference between me getting utility from other people getting utility (for instance, I would prefer to occupy a world where my friend is having a pleasant experience to one in which he is not, all else equal) and me performing arithmetic using values from different people’s utility functions and obtaining a result that would be unobjectionable like the result of adding or subtracting apples would be. In other words, me engaging in a kind of “interpersonal utility comparison” is only really telling us about my preferences, not about a uniquely correct calculation of “utility-stuff” that tells us about everyone’s (combined) preferences.
Nor do I, which is why I am still considering other hypothesis (for instance, virtue ethics, egoism, and contractarianism, all of which seem much more likely to be true than utilitarianism).
Most political systems are implicitly based on some kind of interpersonal utility comparison. They usually count the wishes of everyone over the age of 18 as being of equal value, and say that children and animal utilities only count by proxy.
Your second sentence is obviously false. The political system I happen to live under gives the president’s wishes considerably more weight than my own (even though both of us are over the age of 18) and it would be no different in just about any other extent political system.
If you live in the United States, I think the president is supposed to be a voice for the wishes of all the people who elected him. I’m not saying this actually works in practice, but at least in theory the president is supposed to speak for the citizenry in governmental affairs, not always get the last piece of cake at parties.
Yes, I am familiar with that theory (I did attend kindergarten after all). I also know such a theory is little more than a fairytale. I was commenting on the truth value of a particular sentence, not discussing how things are “supposed” to be (whatever that means).
Sure—there’s also vote-rigging and other phenomena. The “everyone has an equal say” is an ideal, not a practical reality.
Consider me not impressed by “most political systems”.