Utilitarianism is Complex Because Morality is Complex.

This video is part of the playlist: "In Defense of Utilitarianism". This playlist is meant to be a lighthearted introduction to the Utilitarian theory, with some bad humor, where we analyze some of the strongest counterarguments and counterexamples that have been made against it.
The novelty and complexity of the playlist will scale up with the video number.
The intent is educational, both for me- I can be corrected or critiqued by the audience- than for the audience - that may learn something new.
(I am going to remake some of my earlier videos since I feel like I have learned a bit more on how to communicate more effectively in this medium and now find some of my starting videos subpar).

(Also, there are going to be videos on the repugnant conclusion, abstract counterexamples, and the complexity of the utilitarian framework along with a lot of other stuff)

Abstract:
A critique that the Utilitarian theory often has to face is whether it's too complex to be of any real use. Indeed, the Utilitarian framework involves taking into account all the possible foreseeable outcomes of actions and estimating happiness and stochastic events.
In this video, we consider three arguments in defense of Utilitarianism from this criticism. In particular, moral issues allow for a wide array of complicated questions and a moral theory should provide an answer, at least in theory, to all of them. A coherent, nuanced moral theory will then naturally tend to capture some complexity.

Other Thoughts:

1) As a theoretical framework Utilitarianism is not really that complex if we look at other theories.

2) The way we defined R is more rigorous than before but it's still a simplification, one could take into account other aspects. The point was to show that one can add rigor if he so chooses to.

[justus]

How is utilitarianism complex?
I think utilitarianism is a very straight forward theory. "Do what produces the best outcomes." The thing that can be complex is the application of that system.

[luisgallardo]

Great video.
I think I have to add, it's not the job of Utilitarianism itself to solve the dilemmas. But it gives us an actual framework upon which to search for the empirical information that would create a reasonable answer.
In principle, Utilitarianism 's answer to every dilemma is "do what creates more pleasure and less suffering".

[robotguy]

As an engineer, I have serious problems with the trolley problem especially when applied to self driving cars. It could just be because I cheated in my Ethics for Engineers class, but whatever.

[alevanderBatman]

Utilitarianism just doesn't make any sense to me. Going from the description: Utilitarians will try to maximize utility in their situation (What I believe to be act utilitarianism) or maximize it for all (rule utilitarianism).

How can this train of thought help anyone? It is completely impossible to know what is the best outcome in the end anyway, in other words, your "utility calculations" are a mere attempt at doing something which isn't actually possible. And if you can't ever know the best outcome, then how does utilitarianism help anyone?