Why Utilitarianism FAILS w/ Trent Horn

Trent breaks down why Utilitarianism fails.



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[realDonaldMcElvy]

My Irish ancestors moved to America to avoid that kind of lifestyle. They didn't even have elevator music, just potatoes. Then the potatoes dissappeared too.

[hansblitz]

As Matt Walsh says, "If someone's only focus is their "happiness" and they talk about that often, more often than anything else, stay away from that person."

Not a direct quote, but something along that line.

[sigurdholbarki]

Post enlightenment ethics is like a bunch of edgelords trying to reinvent a wheel avoiding the use of a circle.

[Centurion]

What is scary is that every major collegiate institution is teaching "at best" utilitarianism (and often even worse ideologies). I remember sitting through multiple classes on utilitarian theory when I was getting my MPP. While they sometimes present more coherent ethical models (typically some kantian or deontological theory), they tend to only shortly introduce the theory before immediately asserting why utilitarianism is better.

[dannny_macdee]

A major flaw in utilitarian philosophy is that contentment is conflated with benefit.
Yet, as we all can intuit, contentment is never 100% in this life. as Trent has stated.
In this way, it also falls apart.

[grantcarro]

It’s hard to execute something like this live, yet they both did it with ease, and almost perfect timing with the back and forth give-and-take rhythm of the duo, well done! Also, shout out to the band that was on point as well, they always go unnoticed!

[itinerantpatriot]

If I've learned nothing else during my time on this third rock from the Sun I have learned that sometimes, things that MAY seem to bring you happiness are not always best for you. It sounds simple, straight-forward, and obvious, but that simple truth is ignored far too many times. It's a lesson we all learn in the end, on this side of life or the next.

[delishme]

Unitarianism is so loathsome. I cannot fathom why almost every Philosophy units at University make us sit through this diatribe. It has far too much importance in academic studies.

[christinemcguiness]

Great. Idea, thank you Trent and Matt🙏

[joshuakilpatrick]

If the Christian God exists, then under utilitarianism the most moral path would be for everyone to follow the moral teachings of that God. This is because doing so would enable as many people as possible to get into heaven, which is basically the ideal outcome for a utilitarian.

This leads to what interests me about the final 10 seconds or so of this video. He talks about us finding some semblance of the eternal happiness we desire; is this not a utilitarian goal? The disagreement here does not seem to be in regard to the ultimate goal of human happiness, it seems to be about whether we attain it by following God, or by trying to measure the effects of our actions ourselves.

[Jose-ruwf]

A practical argument against utilitarianism is the downstream effects are just impossible to measure. Projections about society 10 generations down the line can't be made.

I think it's handy in small limited contexts: should you go to the dentist? The consequence is rotten teeth, so yeah. But something as all-encompassing as your principles can't be based on their utility because their total utility is impossible to know.

Rather, let your principles stand on their own. Do the right thing and let things play out as they may.

[lynnsallander]

Needed to listen a few times but very good°!!!

[SneakySteevy]

We must take the best ideas from the left and the right and than make sure they produce the most impact on the most people.

[Qwerty-jymj]

Muzak and potatoes has a better ring to it than wage cage 😅

[Griff_Is_Real]

“It’s arbitrary” does not work as a criticism of a moral system.

[podawe]

Utilitarianism can be disproven even using mathematics. Let's use the classic runaway train scenario. Assume a train is on trajectory to running over 2 people, but if you pull the lever it will divert and only run over 1 person. Do you pull the lever? The Christian answer would be: No. I'd do everything in my power to stop the train, even throwing myself in front of it if necessary to stop it, but I will not play God and condemn another innocent life to death just because 2 > 1. If I fail to save them, the 2 dead people is a tragedy, whereas the 1 dead person is murder. The utilitarian without hesitation would say: Yes, obviously. 2 > 1. Reducing the value of human life to just a number. However, even with this obvious evil reduction of human dignity to that of say a shrimp or something, you can disprove it mathematically. What if instead of 2 and 1 it's 1, 000 and 1, 001? The utilitarian would probably say you kill the 1, 000 to save the 1, 001 using the same logic. Okay what about 1 million vs 1 million and 1? In theoretical mathematics, when you expand to infinity, N = N + 1 they're mathematically the same. ∞ and ∞ + 1 are mathematically equivalent. So therefore utilitarianism can't be used to deduce what the right answer to this ethical dilemma is. Logic isn't a solid foundation for ethics.

[brandongruber]

Christian ethics runs into a plethora of issues as well. Not the least of which is the insistence upon the maximum number of people living their lives in accordance with this being we neither have sufficient evidence exists or if it does exist is in fact a maximally moral being.

[shibainugamer]

Highest Average Happiness = Totality, both are proportionaly related, totality = average times number of people, so they are separated by a constant coefficient

[ralphengland]

This feels like a calculus problem. Find some derivatives of your Happiness Function to maximize.

[atetraxx]

Well the answer for the first question would be unequivocally no. 99 percent is less than 100 percent. So the greatest number of the greatest good is the 100 percent.

He just ran what you call a strawman.