I don't see the connection between being unable to choose an action and that action being the most moral option. If a neuroscientist installs a chip in your brain that makes you unable to abstain from murder, that doesn't do anything to demonstrate that murder is OK. All it does is show that your brain is now morally non-optimal. We don't blame you because you have the chip in your brain, and we don't blame someone who is suffering because they choose to make it stop, but that doesn't tell us anything about which world state is desirable, which is the actual thing utilitarianism comments on.
My argument is not only that the action is impossible, but that suffering is the only thing that is self-intimatingly bad, and that pleasure doesn’t have the symmetrical property of being self-intimatingly good. You can decide that the latter is “bad” even while you are experiencing it (and delay it, in some cases permanently), but you can’t decide that (sufficiently extreme) suffering is good and decide to keep experiencing it if you have the ability to stop.
Moreover, for a moral theory to work, the agents must retain their agency. In the case of the brain chip that you described, the agent disappears too, they become amoral. For this reason, the act of putting the chip in their brain is immoral. Similarly, since suffering abolishes moral agency, the act of allowing its existence is immoral.
Quick question: what if, in your genie example, it was a third unaffected person who could decide whether to stop the effects of the genie's actions or not? I have some intuitions of how your framework might get at this question but kind of unsure so just wanted to ask! In any case, thanks for the read, I do agree with you in most (if not all things) here.
Since the Utilitarian argument relies on self-intimating goodness/badness, if you can show that only (a certain kind of) badness is self-intimating, then a third person should recognize that the cessation of that (specific kind of) badness should always take precedence over anything else. I'm following the logic of John Stuart Mill's argument, here, simply showing that it applies only to one side of his equation, with the other one lacking the "self-intimating" property. The third person should therefore conclude, using the very same logic as the Utilitarian, that they should ask the genie to revert both people back to normal.
This is really great - thanks!
Thanks a lot for your comment! I really appreciate it!
I'm a huge fan of everyone who takes suffering seriously.
I don't see the connection between being unable to choose an action and that action being the most moral option. If a neuroscientist installs a chip in your brain that makes you unable to abstain from murder, that doesn't do anything to demonstrate that murder is OK. All it does is show that your brain is now morally non-optimal. We don't blame you because you have the chip in your brain, and we don't blame someone who is suffering because they choose to make it stop, but that doesn't tell us anything about which world state is desirable, which is the actual thing utilitarianism comments on.
My argument is not only that the action is impossible, but that suffering is the only thing that is self-intimatingly bad, and that pleasure doesn’t have the symmetrical property of being self-intimatingly good. You can decide that the latter is “bad” even while you are experiencing it (and delay it, in some cases permanently), but you can’t decide that (sufficiently extreme) suffering is good and decide to keep experiencing it if you have the ability to stop.
Moreover, for a moral theory to work, the agents must retain their agency. In the case of the brain chip that you described, the agent disappears too, they become amoral. For this reason, the act of putting the chip in their brain is immoral. Similarly, since suffering abolishes moral agency, the act of allowing its existence is immoral.
Quick question: what if, in your genie example, it was a third unaffected person who could decide whether to stop the effects of the genie's actions or not? I have some intuitions of how your framework might get at this question but kind of unsure so just wanted to ask! In any case, thanks for the read, I do agree with you in most (if not all things) here.
Since the Utilitarian argument relies on self-intimating goodness/badness, if you can show that only (a certain kind of) badness is self-intimating, then a third person should recognize that the cessation of that (specific kind of) badness should always take precedence over anything else. I'm following the logic of John Stuart Mill's argument, here, simply showing that it applies only to one side of his equation, with the other one lacking the "self-intimating" property. The third person should therefore conclude, using the very same logic as the Utilitarian, that they should ask the genie to revert both people back to normal.