Tagarchief: utilitarianism
The two intrinsic rights that restrict utilitarianism
Let us start with utilitarianism, the ethical theory that says we have to choose the situation or state of the world that has the highest amount of total utility. Total utility is the sum of individual utilities, summed over all … Lees verder
Some solutions to utilitarian problems
I have recently written a series of articles about problems in utilitarian ethics that are relevant for effective altruism. A first article describes why I became a utilitarian and what kind of utilitarianism I support (i.e. preference, rule, variable critical … Lees verder
On the interpersonal comparison of well-being, part 2
In a previous article I discussed the possibility of comparing the levels of well-being between different individuals. This is a crucial problem if we want to compare levels of suffering and happiness between different animals such as humans, insects, fish … Lees verder
On the interpersonal comparability of well-being
This is a simplified, introductory text to ‘Why I became a utilitarian’ and ‘Variable critical level utilitarianism’. For a follow up, see ‘On the interpersonal comparability of well-being, part 2‘ The problem of interpersonal comparability Is your feeling of … Lees verder
Why I became a utilitarian
Abstract In this article I explain how a specific utilitarian theory (variance normalized variable critical level rule preference utilitarianism that says we have to choose the situation that maximizes the sum of everyone’s just-noticeable difference normalized self-determined relative utilities) avoids … Lees verder
