[ExI] Tolerance

[Brent Neal]

On 7 Dec, 2009, at 20:13, Emlyn wrote:

> 2009/12/8 Brent Neal <brentn at freeshell.org>:
>> The utilitarian argument is much more compelling. If the thing  
>> produces good
>> results, then the thing has merit. If it does not, then it is  
>> meritless.
>
> This is where many of us would disagree I think. For me, the
> consequentialist approach is not useful, because it can only ever be
> evaluated after the fact. You can't use it to predict the future or
> guide future action, because it's only a case by case description of
> the past; this thing turned out well, that thing turned out poorly. So
> for instance, if you were to look at religion this way, you'd come up
> with a catalogue of good outcomes / bad outcomes, but how could you
> use this to choose future action? I see it only as an approach useful
> in assigning blame, which is sometimes important, but largely an empty
> endeavour.

I don't think that's necessarily true. We have the ability to predict  
outcomes of our actions and thus act with an expectation of a  
particular outcome. We therefore act in a way that we believe will  
create maximum utility. If we were only able to do this on the basis  
of past experiences, as you suggest, then we'd not have the concept of  
imagination or creativity.




>
> But I'm even suspicious of utilitarianism here. Utilitarianism appears
> to me to have a real weakness regarding relative power of actors. When
> you talk of maximizing utility, you're talking about something very
> fuzzy as if it were strongly defined. Are there utility points which
> each person has, which you can sum under various scenarios and find
> the greatest such? No. Instead, we kind of guess at what the utility
> overall is, based on intuition of what is good for other people, and
> invariably altered by the lens we look through, which is our POV.


You said that you more enamored of universal principles of action.  
Yet, you reject the concept of maximizing utility. This doesn't make  
sense to me in some way, since it seems obvious that personal  
preference and individual agency are not subject to falsification.  
Given that, you shouldn't expect there to be "universal" truth, but  
rather some metric of goodness that is dependent on individual  
experience and preference. The concept of utility, I grant you, isn't  
perfect, but meets those criteria for a metric on something that  
cannot be objectively measured as well as anything else.

B


--
Brent Neal, Ph.D.
http://brentn.freeshell.org
<brentn at freeshell.org>