Peter Singer on utilitarianism, influence, and controversial ideas

It's not. However, utilitarians are inevitably compelled to argue that it is, because their efficacy depends on it. This amounts to gaslighting about plainly obvious positions they have committed to paper, which is an act of violence in and of itself.

> While it may seem that utilitarians should engage in norm-breaking instrumental harm, a closer analysis reveals that it often carries large costs. It would lead to people taking precautions to safeguard against these kinds of harms, which would be costly for society. And it could harm utilitarians’ reputation, 33 which in turn could impair their ability to do good.

Your link proposes a number of contingent reasons for utilitarians to not act like defect bots. It does not bite the bullet on cases where defection is clearly optimal, and those cases are plentiful. This is cheap and disingenuous rhetoric. His paper's very clear implication is that killing the patient is valid move if perfect secrecy can be ensured; so strategic arguments about reputation are irrelevant. Most importantly, this ethos breaks down in non-iterated games, e.g. if Utilitarians do build their God AI to subjugate the world and remake according to their moral code, as many in the rationalist community now intend to do.

> We have a proof of concept in the effective altruism community, which does collaborate relatively well.

Again, EA does very well on processing SBF's loot into anti-AI propaganda and funding for "AI safety" labs, but that's still a defection against broader society.

Nothing in your reply now, nor in any of your other comments, supports that claim. Your claim does not follow from the fact that in rare, exceptional cases rule-breaking, perhaps in secret, is what an agent has most reason to do according to act utilitarianism, a well-known feature of the view. The act utilitarian reasons to be honest, not defect and so on are on philosophical reflection instrumental to the core utilitarian goal but such virtues, once habitualized, are nonetheless real features of the utilitarian person's psychology just like in other people.

Do you possess any empirical evidence showing that real world utilitarian adherents are less upholding of everyday norms against lying, stealing, and so on? In my experience real world utilitarians (I've known a bunch of them so far in life) tend to be overrepresented in working for or donating to effective charities or organizations that work to eradicate global health problems, poverty and factory farming and at the same time no less conscientious with regard to common sense norms about honesty, keeping your word, not stealing and so on.

You haven't described what alternative moral view you yourself adhere to. Does it have an absolute prohibition against secret rule-breaking? If the only way to prevent the end of the world and the death of everyone would be to secretly break some everyday rule once then you'd think your obligation in the case is to let the world end? If not then we have identified a case where your own moral view promotes secret rule-breaking. Would that warrant saying that your own view obligates you to have a "fundamentally untrustworthy and conspiratorial mindset"? If not, why not?

yes a fair bit, thanks for showing an interest in me!

> Again, his follower Sam Bankman-Fried has demonstrated this very clearly

I think it's much clearer that Bankman-Fried had absolutely no expectation that his rule-breaking would meet Singers requirements and, you know, he was just lying for the many normal reasons people lie.

> People who profess to believe in Singerian doctrine can not be trusted to mean what they are saying

in which case, nobody who believes in (this) Singerian doctrine should reveal that they do so.

Anyone telling you they follow this doctrine severely compromises their ability to actually execute on it. The rational thing for a Singerian secrecy advocate to do would be to publicly attack the doctrine, as you are doing.

But christianity allows for infanticide. God himself did wipe out all the first born infant sons of egypt after all.

> What many in the West think of as 'obvious' universal rights are in fact culturally contingent on Christianity.

The racism, misogyny, slavery and genocide is also culturally contingent on Christianity as well.

"Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction[a] all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Samuel+15%3A2...

The "beauty" of the bible is that it is hundreds of pages long and gives christians the justification for all the evil and good in the world. It isn't an accident that the greatest acts of genocide in human history have been carried out by christians. Entire continents genocided, entire races enslaved, entire cities nuked. All by christians.

A religion, book, god, etc that orders you to murder children and infants cannot be a source of morality. If you think equality of sexes, races, etc are grounded in christianity then you do not know christianity. A religion that believes a woman was created from a man's rib and brought about his downfall is the basis of the universal rights?

Also note that Jesus was jewish and he explicit said he came to uphold the old laws and prophets ( old testament ). And the bible contains both the old and the new testament for a reason.

> Feel free to criticize Christianity as well as other religions, but the criticism is more fruitful if based on actual practices or authorative texts such as the Catholic cathecism

I quoted the bible. What's more authoritative than that?

> In 318, Constantine I considered infanticide a crime

So constantine I should be credited, not catholicism?

> The Council of Constantinople declared that infanticide was homicide, and in 589, the Third Council of Toledo took measures against the custom of killing their own children.

So these christians went against the word of god? As I said, the bible and therefore christianity allows for infanticide. God himself commanded it. Obviously I believe infanticide is wrong. But to credit christianity with the banning of infanticide doesn't pass the smell test.

Also, it's hard to take anyone seriously when they claim the bible is not an authoritative christian text when it's the foundation of christianity.