Utilitarianism is in principle a better system of morality.

You may have noticed that line at the beginning of R1 that I said I wanted to pick my opponent. Unfortunately, the first contender declined the debate, and while I was retracting my challenge, the requirements reset to default and the debate became acceptable by anyone again. I will argue on regardless. This debate will focus mainly on the philosophical. While nearly all of my ideas have been thought of by great minds before me, they have permeated into “mainstream” philosophy so much that they do not need to be cited. ======== Utilitarian As defined, morality is a system of what is right and wrong. “Right” and “wrong” are ideas, and ideas are inherent to only sentient, self-aware cybernetic systems. Humans are animals with those traits (for the purposes of this debate, I am assuming that human society is highly interdependent and that the sentience of other animals are low to negligible). Therefore, humans could have a system of morality. Humans belong to a society of humans who have ideas of what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, human society has a morality system. Everyone has individual ideas concerning what happens to him, and whether it is right or wrong. For example, Joe believes that getting money is right, and getting beaten is wrong. A system of morality determines what is right and what is wrong. Each individual has his own perception of what is right and what is wrong. Each individual has the ability to affect other individuals. Therefore, a normative morality system deals with whether the way individuals treat each other is right or wrong. It is not illogical to conclude, then, that maximizing the “right” (minus “wrong”) each individual collectively feels is the aim of all normative moralities. There is one thing that ties all that is “right” and all that is “wrong” together. “Right” is positive feelings such as pleasure, while “wrong” is negative feelings such as pain. An individual feels that an event is right only and always when he feels pleasure in the event. Thus, what is collectively right is what causes the maximum difference between positive feelings and negative feelings, in other words, utility, in all individuals. The above is in line with the felicific calculus. The calculus is, in words, the intensity of the utility multiplied by the duration of the utility, plus the total amount of pleasure subtracted by the total amount of pain that other humans feel, multiplied by the probability that it will all happen. In ideal conditions, the calculus will aim to produce the maximum amount of utility in society, there for maximizing what is right, and is therefore, in probabilistic terms, objectively right. The system of utility captures all cases of ethical “dilemmas”, since utility is present in all sentience. It is therefore complete. Pragmatic It is impractical to sit down and evaluate the consequences of every situation. For example, when an intruder has broken into one’s home, it is not practical to sit down in front of the computer and calculate the probability of death, the utility of calling the police, or the consequences of shooting the defender. It is useful at times to stick to a rule and use it in order to reduce the utility lost through doing the calculus. In this case, self-defense is a reasonable rule to stick to, since it usually brings about the greatest amount of utility. Here, I will give two examples of pragmatic implementations of utilitarianism: human rights, and larceny. Human rights is a pragmatic implementation of utilitarianism. Every human would like to have his rights respected, because he would like to use those rights to maximize his own utility. In general, it is more efficient to have a person maximize his own utility by exercising his right to do so than to have a different entity do it. Therefore, human rights in general increase utility. Not stealing is a pragmatic implementation of utilitarianism. When stealing, the thief does not produce material goods (something that usually leads to an increase in utility), while he expends energy to transfer the material goods. This in general decreases utility. It is generally not utilitarian to steal. Pre-emptive rebuttals One issue that people sometimes bring against utilitarianism is inequality. The argument goes something like “if we subscribe to a utilitarian view of morality, then slave labor is justified, since it produces the same amount or more of material goods.” This argument ignores the marginal utility of material goods. For humans, gaining the same amount when poor has more utility than gaining the same amount when rich. Consider the analogy: a thirsty man gains more utility when he drinks water than a non-thirsty man. Slave labor increases the amount of pain that most humans feel while increasing the utility of the one rich person only a little bit. Therefore, slave labor is not utilitarian. Another issue is that of human rights. The argument structures are usually similar to the following: “If we subscribe to a utilitarian view of morality, then it would be justifiable to kill a person for his organs in order to save five other people.” This is a repulsive conclusion to some. The rebuttal is that if a person on the street was randomly killed, then other people will unnecessarily fear for their lives, thus decreasing total utility. The fact is, objects sacrifice individuals in order to save the whole all the time. However, humans have the unique ability to fear of being killed before they are killed. The situation described above is therefore only repulsive to a utilitarian if that person was seemingly picked at random. If the organ donor was from a set population, such as all LWOP convicts, then the utilitarian will consider it morally correct. However, the utility of harvesting the organs will never be equal to or more than 5 times the utility of not doing so, since doings so causes other humans to fear for their lives. ======== I have outlined why pragmatic utilitarianism is always (again, in probabilistic consequential terms) the most desirable and better morality system. I imagine that I will spend some time countering undesirable examples from my opponent in the next round. I imagine that is what the bulk of my defense will be. To my opponent.