My Morality

UtilityMonster

I appreciate your philosophy being written in a manner that does not require decoding.

"I don’t think there is an objective morality. "

- If a person, such as myself, believes that the value we give to the pursuit of happiness and avoidance of pain is arbitrary (in the sense that we appear to be programmed to give worth to these emotionally attractive ideas for evolutionary survival purposes), then a foundation for objective morality is lost and any selfish or selfless behaviour is ultimately performed to induldge our comfortable delusions.

"I can’t scientifically explain my behavior.^[5] I often feel like there are different parts of me fighting each other.^[6] Sometimes I feel like a “moral part” of me loses control to another part of me. For example, a fearful part of me could push me to try to please someone."

- I think we're ultimately controlled by our emotions. While beliefs do alter emotions, other factors may overpower them. For this reason, I suppose our behaviour can only, at best, roughly approximate our belief about what our behaviour ought to be (utilitarian or otherwise).

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I used Gandhi in this example because I thought he represented an uncontroversial “good” figure. Since publishing this post, I’ve learned that he isn’t as well regarded as I’d thought.

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I’d decide based on the amount of happiness Gandhi and the average person in 1920 have.

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To determine how much equality matters to me, I’d pretend I could quantify happiness. Next, I’d ask myself hypotheticals such as "Would I rather give 1 happiness point to person A who has -1 million happiness points or give 1 million happiness points to person B, who has 1 million happiness points?" I’d use these answers to help me determine a mathematical formula that expresses the tradeoffs I’d make in any situation.

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My morals have already changed since I published this post. Originally, I’d said I wanted to maximize total utility while minimizing utility inequality for as many beings as possible. I’ve now replaced the term utility (i.e., what anyone fundamentally wants) with happiness (i.e., positive emotional states, good feelings) At the time, I said I used utility instead of happiness because people have told me their desires don’t reduce to happiness. And if anyone ultimately wanted other things or feelings besides happiness, I wanted them to have that.

I no longer feel that way. If someone fundamentally wants freedom, justice, dignity, or whatever they claim to value, and none of those things make them happy, I don’t care if they get them.

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This article’s similar claim inspired this thought. It seems reasonable. But I can’t find any surveys on racism, sexism, or religious intolerance from 1600s Europe.

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Over the long term. At some point, I'd bet I'll think something like my values align more with people in 2022 than 2023.

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I think there’s ultimately a scientific way to explain my behavior. But I don’t know enough science to do that. So instead I use mumbo jumbo.

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The yearning octopus from this article describes these feelings well.

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If someone who shares enough of my values wants to produce a reality show, I’d be excited to explain my idea to them. I think it has some promise, but it’s complicated and unpolished.

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If I use the original cards.