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Bentham's Mugging (2022)

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Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#41

Post by slibhb »

ameliaquining wrote: post #17

The problem here isn't with the main character's moral philosophy, but with his decision theory. He'd be dealing with exactly the same predicament if the mugger were threatening to harm him . The solution is indeed "don't give in to muggers", but it's possible to define this in a workable way. Suppose the mugger can choose between A (don't try to mug Bentham) or forcing Bentham to choose between B (give in) or C (don…

The mugger cuts off his own fingers when a different utilitarian doesn't pay him. Given that, and given that he's right back at it after surgery, I don't think it's so clear that he'll "respond to incentives" and stop mugging people if people stop giving in.

After all, one of the premises here is that the mugger is a deontologist. He doesn't care about outcomes.

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#42

Post by thecyborganizer »

jefftk wrote: post #39
HWR_14 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an act utilitarian, the utilitarian was trying to evaluate the consequences of the act, not a rule that could be followed in multiple instances. Therefore, credibly claiming that the act will be a secret removes any consideration of motivating other people or being judged by other people, etc. (Missing from the story was a promise by the mugger not to repeat this with the utilitarian every day).

I don't see why the utilitarian should trust a mugger's promises of secrecy or non-replicability though?

The mugger is a deontologist, right? We're already assuming that he'll keep his promises.

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#43

Post by amalcon »

ameliaquining wrote: post #17

The problem here isn't with the main character's moral philosophy, but with his decision theory. He'd be dealing with exactly the same predicament if the mugger were threatening to harm him . The solution is indeed "don't give in to muggers", but it's possible to define this in a workable way. Suppose the mugger can choose between A (don't try to mug Bentham) or forcing Bentham to choose between B (give in) or C (don…

The mugger in the story is essentially contriving a situation that turns him into a utility monster. He is arranging that he will derive more benefit from the money than any other plausible application -- by imposing a massive harm on himself if he doesn't get the money. It's relatively straightforward to vary the threat to adjust incentives as necessary -- e.g. the binding deal with the thug later in the story.

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#44

Post by [deleted] »

jefftk wrote: post #39
HWR_14 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an act utilitarian, the utilitarian was trying to evaluate the consequences of the act, not a rule that could be followed in multiple instances. Therefore, credibly claiming that the act will be a secret removes any consideration of motivating other people or being judged by other people, etc. (Missing from the story was a promise by the mugger not to repeat this with the utilitarian every day).

I don't see why the utilitarian should trust a mugger's promises of secrecy or non-replicability though?

[deleted]

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#45

Post by jefftk »

hamishrayner wrote: post #40
jefftk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why the utilitarian should trust a mugger's promises of secrecy or non-replicability though?

The mugger is a Deontologist in this scenario and therefore does not lie. If the utilitarian couldn't trust the mugger's promises, the whole scenario would fall apart as they couldn't trust the mugger's promise to cut off their finger.

How does the utilitarian know this?

Any morality needs to take into account our uncertainty about claims other people make.

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#46

Post by pdonis »

alphazard wrote: post #29

The most pressing problem facing utilitarians has never been choosing between principled vs. consequentialist utilitarianism. It's how to take a vector of utilities, and turn it into a single utility. What function do I use? Do I sum them, is it the mean, how about root-mean-squared? Why does your chosen function make more sense than the other options? Can I perform arithmetic on utilities from two different agents,…

> It's how to take a vector of utilities, and turn it into a single utility.

Not just "how", but whether doing such a thing is even possible at all. And even that doesn't push the problem back far enough: first the utilitarian has to assume that utilities, treated as real numbers, are even measurable or well-defined at all.

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#47

Post by dragonwriter »

alphazard wrote: post #29

The most pressing problem facing utilitarians has never been choosing between principled vs. consequentialist utilitarianism. It's how to take a vector of utilities, and turn it into a single utility. What function do I use? Do I sum them, is it the mean, how about root-mean-squared? Why does your chosen function make more sense than the other options? Can I perform arithmetic on utilities from two different agents,…

> It's how to take a vector of utilities, and turn it into a single utility.

I mean, that's a problem that lost of people skip to in utilitarianism, but the bigger problem is that utility isn't really measurable in a way that produces a meaningful "vector of utilities" in the first place.

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#48

Post by earthboundkid »

Utilitarianism is supposed to be a strawman theory that you teach in the first week of class in order to show the flaws and build a real theory of ethics the remaining 14 weeks of the semester. SMDH at all these people who didn't get that basic point.

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#49

Post by tylerhou »

Micaiah_Chang wrote: post #25
tylerhou wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have to do with utilitarianism — if you change the mugger to harming Bentham, the situation is different. In that situation, many other reasonable moral theories would agree with utilitarianism. In the original situation, where the mugger is harming themselves, the critique is that utilitarianists are required to treat their own interests as exactly the same as other people’s interests. It doesn’t matter if s…

Yes, the point of the GP comment is exactly this, if Bentham becomes an agent that goes for C, he also explicitly discourages the mugger from being an agent that would cut off their fingers for a couple of bucks. Notice that what Bentham is altering is their strategy and not their utility. If they could spend 10 dollars to treat gangrene and save the fingers, they would do it. It's not clear many other morality syste…

> if Bentham becomes an agent that goes for C, he also explicitly discourages the mugger

How is this different from saying that if Bentham decides to not adhere to utilitarianism, he is no longer vulnerable to such a mugging? If Bentham always responds C, even when actually confronted with such a scenario (the mugger was not deterred by Bentham's claim), then Bentham is not a utilitarianist.

In other words, the GP is saying: "if Bentham doesn't always maximize the good, he is no longer subject to an agent who can abuse people who always maximize the good." But that is exactly the point -- that utilitarianism is uniquely vulnerable in this manner.

Re: Bentham's Mugging (2022)

#50

Post by tylerhou »

throwaway101223 wrote: post #27

> Here's the thing: there is, clearly, more utility in me keeping my finger than in you keeping your measly ten pounds. How is this clear? This is one of the things I find strange about academic philosophy. For all the claims about trying to get at a more rigorous understanding of knowledge, the foundation at the end of the day seems to just be human intuition. You read about something like the Chinese Room or Mary’s…

Professional philosophers understand that many arguments rely on intuition. But they need intuition to create basic premises. Otherwise, if you have no "axioms" in your system of logic, you cannot derive any sentences.

Also, moral philosophy deals with what is right and what is wrong. These are inherently fuzzy notions and they likely require some level of intuitive reasoning. ("It is clearly wrong to kill an innocent person.") I would be extremely surprised if someone could formally define what is right and wrong in a way that captures human intuition.

It's also not worth debating philosophy with people who will argue that $10 is not clearly worth less than a finger. (And if you don't believe that, then we can consider the case with two fingers, or three, or a whole hand, etc.).

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