What’s Wrong with Utilitarianism

Full disclosure. All normative morality frameworks are seriously flawed. Consequentialism and its redheaded stepchild, Utilitarianism, may be among the worst—at least in the top 10.

In this video, I’m introduced to Tommy Curry, who makes a strong point in the face of Western imperialism—any imperialism, but the West seems to do more and better (if better means worse for the world at large). One can’t claim a moral high ground after nearly genociding counter-opinions. As he notes, when the proto-United States “accidentally” murdered ninety-five per cent of the Indigenous population and then applied the majority rule, good of the people rule, that’s the worst of bad faith.

To be fair, the world has a history of killing off and disappearing counter-voices and then voting on issues they opposed. Rinse and repeat until you become the majority. No wonder genocide is so popular. Israel has adopted this approach as a perpetrator after their predecessors escaped a similar fate in the 1940s. They accused Nazi Germany of being evil. I guess it rubbed off. Who knew genocide was contagious?

Peter Singer comments on the full video, a symposium on land ownership and hypocrisy, which can be found here or by following the IAI link from the video above. Eventually, you’ll hit a paywall. Apologies in advance.

I’d love to write more as this is a topic in which I have a passionate interest. Unfortunately, I am otherwise indisposed and will settle on sharing this video content for now. I’ll love to read your thoughts.

Individual and Collective Agency and Freedom

As a person dismissive of individual human agency, of course, I am not going to rate the probability of collective agency highly. However, I am very drawn to this topic because I am sure there will be attempts to make parallels and connexions between the individual and the collectives. My guess is that attacks by those who support individual agency yet deny collective agency will pose arguments that will in the end undermine their own position that they will nonetheless cling to.

Colloquium Poster

This event is being broadcast on Zoom on 21 through 23 July 2022 from 17:00 – 21:00 Tawain Time (GMT +8).

Conversational topics will be (i) The Reality of Free Will and (ii) The Loci of Responsibility, two topics near and dear to my interest.

Details can be read here: https://www.lmpsttw.org/ch/events/5thtmc-schedule-721-723

A colleague had this to add.

A question that exercises the minds of philosophers is the existential status and role of groups and collectives. Do ‘forests’ exist, or are there just trees in proximity? Do “herds” exist, or are there just elephants? Perhaps the answers to these questions are of little consequence, but there are other, more interesting questions like, for example:

Do collectives act as single units, and if so, how? Do properties of individuals ‘scale’? For example, we readily attribute consciousness and intelligence to individual humans, can we also attribute consciousness and intelligence to a committee, or community? How is a collective conscious or intelligent? Also, individuals have ‘agency’ – they can/do exercise their individual “will” – but does a collective have a “will”, or “agency”? Does a large population of agents (a ‘country’, say) have a ‘will’ of its own? Does a country have ‘free will’,, and ‘know’ what it is ‘doing’? Do such questions even make sense?

On July 21-23, the National Taiwan University is holding a mini-conference about such “social ontology” conundrums, via ZOOM: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/98941995734, Zoom room ID:989 4199 5734