Go to youtube and look up “THE OBAMA DECEPTION” documentary

OK. But, that is not his view. You may disagree with him, of course, but that does not make his position the absurd one that E. Coli. and dogs/humans/etc. should all have moral standing. (Which is what I thought you were arguing up thread.)
At any rate, as I understand your view, Singer agrees with you about E. Coli. but not about [healthy] dogs. Even so, he would agree with you that the normal human’s capacity for ‘suffering’ defined in terms of self-awareness is greater than that of a dog.

In my opinion, it is entirely without empirical basis to make any distinction between the suffering capacity of dogs and E. Coli. Zero is Zero is Zero. My chief complaint is that his position amounts to the replacement of one arbitrary condition (membership in a species) with an equally arbitrary one (Singer’s assessment of your capacity for suffering).

By the way, you are not an Act Utilitarian, as NML suggests, are you?

In my opinion, Act U. and Rule U. are indistinguishable, in the sense that I believe the proper “accounting” for the consequences of an act include the strengthening or weakening of social rules whose effects are wide-ranging and profoundly impact future utility. Thus, the AU that does the calculation right will almost always agree with the RU.

That said, I am going to hedge and admit the possibility of an extraordinary situation in which a properly accounted-AU will contemplate breaking the rule. The downside of this admission is the ‘leakage’ of this excuse into widespread circulation and thus disrespect for social rules. These situations are truly exceptional, in every sense of the word, and I feel like many people would be quick to latch on to it as an excuse when it suits their interest.

To elaborate just a bit, I think a main weakness of a broad-AU (as opposed to the super-narrow one I’ve elucidated) is that an individual is poorly suited to making complex and fine-grained distinctions or calculations (see, e.g. Singer’s theory) regarding an action in which he has a direct stake. That is, AU would be acceptable if the analysis was free of (often subconscious) subjectivity and bias. That is why I have to narrow my hedge-exception to such a point that we should be exceedingly reluctant to conclude that we can act in conflict with the rules unless we are absolutely convinced that the consequences, including the diminution of the rule, are worth it.

Whew, lots of words for a simple idea!

As far as I see it, all creatures lower than humans are entirely incapable of suffering (as opposed to feeling pain) since suffering requires awareness of one’s position. That is, Singer jumps the gun from “dogs can feel pain” to “dogs suffer as a result of that pain” — IMO, the former is true and the latter is highly questionable

.

OK. But, that is not his view. You may disagree with him, of course, but that does not make his position the absurd one that E. Coli. and dogs/humans/etc. should all have moral standing. (Which is what I thought you were arguing up thread.)
At any rate, as I understand your view, Singer agrees with you about E. Coli. but not about [healthy] dogs. Even so, he would agree with you that the normal human’s capacity for ‘suffering’ defined in terms of self-awareness is greater than that of a dog.

No, more broadly, those rights that are shown to lead to a productive society. If the right to free speech leads to cultural/scientific/political progress that, in turn, leads to the greater production of utility then free speech is a right that utilitarian should protect for it’s ultimate goals, irrespective of the proximate effect on utility.

Yes, that is what I meant, on the assumption that ‘utility’ always means the wellbeing of the greatest number/whole/what have you – not that of the individual.

By the way, you are not an Act Utilitarian, as NML suggests, are you?

The question is whether we have any reason (generously construed) to suspect that E. Coli. can/do suffer. And, although capacity for suffering is not perfectly determinable by us for all beings – and may never be – we can employ empirical grounds for making some distinctions, such as that between an anencephalic newborn human and an adult dolphin.

Well, as an empirical matter then, I disagree. As far as I see it, all creatures lower than humans are entirely incapable of suffering (as opposed to feeling pain) since suffering requires awareness of one’s position. That is, Singer jumps the gun from “dogs can feel pain” to “dogs suffer as a result of that pain” — IMO, the former is true and the latter is highly questionable.

As to the protections of rights, I assume you mean rights in the utilitarian sense of interests the protection of which typically is utility maximizing?

No, more broadly, those rights that are shown to lead to a productive society. If the right to free speech leads to cultural/scientific/political progress that, in turn, leads to the greater production of utility then free speech is a right that utilitarian should protect for it’s ultimate goals, irrespective of the proximate effect on utility.

IOW, Fred Phelp’s speech is (assume arguendo if you don’t buy it), utility diminishing. In the myopic view, we should suppress it. In a more serious analysis, we understand that maximizing utility requires certain a certain political arrangement to which suppression of speech is anathema. Thus, we don’t suppress it because the ultimate effect of that suppression is (through a chain of causation) to reduce utility.

This effect is a secondary one — suppressing the speech doesn’t itself lead to a loss of utility, but it weakens a principle that helps foster a productive society. The fact that it is secondary, however, is not to say that it is negligible. The principles and values on which we found our society have a much more profound impact on its progress than mere policy.

DNJ: Oren,
I don’t regard retribution as such as a legitimate justification for punishment. As a utilitarian I consider punishment justified if is adds to overall happiness or welfare, and unjustified if it does not. This leads me to be skeptical of imprisonment. After all, sending someone to prison is likely to have a rather severe effect on their happiness. This has to be balanced against the loss of happiness from crimes (if any) that the person would not have committed if imprisoned. This is a difficult exercise. How do you weigh 25 years imprisonment versus a rape? I would tend to say stopping a rape is not worth imprisoning someone for 25 years, but it is not a very scientific exercise. Obviously people’s preferences will be difficult. While I would choose being raped over spending 25 years in prison, many others would probably choose differently.

I know this has already been hashed out, but your position is manifestly absurd. If someone derives sufficient pleasure form committing rape, then we shouldn’t discourage it at all, right. As long as the rapist experiences greater happiness than he robs from his victim, it isn’t only acceptable, it should be encouraged.

Under a pure utilitarian system the more ‘evil’ someone is (meaning the more happiness they derive from the commission of crime) the less bad the crime is. We should expend more resources to prevent murders by people who will regret the act than we should spend preventing murder by people who delight in killing people. And, if someone derives sufficient happiness from murder (or rape, to use your example) we should actually encourage it, because it increases utility.

I will admit to being hostile to (almost) any kind of utilitarianism, but the pure act utilitarianism that you describe seems completely indefensible.

So you cannot discount the interests of an E. Coli. just because it is a different species than Homo Sapiens.

“Capacity for suffering” is not an empirical quantity that can be measured in any way. It is ultimately just as arbitrary as designation by species. “Capacity for suffering” is not an empirical quantity that can be measured in any way. It is ultimately just as arbitrary as designation by species.

The question is whether we have any reason (generously construed) to suspect that E. Coli. can/do suffer. And, although capacity for suffering is not perfectly determinable by us for all beings – and may never be – we can employ empirical grounds for making some distinctions, such as that between an anencephalic newborn human and an adult dolphin. Singer is perfectly willing to acknowledge that we learn more about other creatures as well as about humans in various states and, thus, should alter our moral decisions accordingly. Indeed, he thinks we ought to pursue such knowledge.
You do not want Utilitarianism to be misjudged on the basis of misconceptions. Why subject [any variant of it] to misjudgment based on a standard of perfect empirical determination?

As to the protections of rights, I assume you mean rights in the utilitarian sense of interests the protection of which typically is utility maximizing?

I get some comments loaded on the page… then the big black thing.

I argued in the opening chapter of Animal Liberation that humans and animals are equal in the sense that the fact that a being is human does not mean that we should give the interests of that being preference over the similar interests of other beings. That would be speciesism, and wrong for the same reasons that racism and sexism are wrong.

So you cannot discount the interests of an E. Coli. just because it is a different species than Homo Sapiens.

Moreover, the second question there is inapt — it’s not that I must kill the bacteria living on my face in order to live (as framed by the question “if you had to save either a human being or a mouse from a fire, with no time to save them both, wouldn’t you save the human being?”). I can live perfectly well with those bacteria but I’d rather have a clean face. My interest in a clean face, of course, is rather trivial in the scheme of things — especially as compared to the interest of the bacteria in existence.

Why does he “deserve” punishment? To be a utilitarian, every action has to be tied into utility. Utilitarians do not accept punishment for the sake of punishment, as every marginal punishment decreases overall utility. They accept punishment because of its overall deterring effect.

Yes, the action of punishment is tied into utility — specifically the large negative utility that he created for the victim.

Again, you cannot consider the punishment entirely divorced from the original act — otherwise you end up with the true but entirely irrelevant statement that punishing someone in the absence of a blameworthy act decreases utility. Of course it does!

Yes, utilitarians think actions that cause net disutility are wrong. But that doesn’t mean they should automatically conclude all such wrongs deserve punishment. Whether or not punishment should be inflicted depends on a whole host of issues. Most utilitarians do not think insults should be punished, even though they are often of net disutility. Why they believe this is left as an exercise for the reader.

Because, again, you cannot look at a single “act” + “punishment” in a microscopic (myopic, even) view. You can have a utilitarianism that views society and its values and principles as a whole and concludes that while insults decrease utility, living society in which there is no freedom to be critical decreases utility even more.

No wonder utilitarianism is held in such poor regard — people imagine it to be hopelessly naive in analyzing the actual consequences of actions.

Oren may have his own ‘sophisticated utilitarian’ perspective, but the dominant view is that punishment is right only if it produces future good consequences.

That is my view as well, only I conclude
(1) A society in which wrongdoers (net-negative-utility-makers) are punished is one that respects the rights of others.
(2) A society that respects the rights of others is a future good consequence.
∴ Punishing the wrongdoer increases the future good consequences.

That is, there is definite and real future good consequences to upholding standards that require (and enforce by physical coercion) individuals to respect the rights of others. To wit, we get (drumroll), a society in which individual rights are respected!

In other words, utilitarians are not committed to a silly view of punishment that divorces it from the larger system of ethical values that enables the good consequences of an orderly society.

This is not specieism precisely because it is not discrimination as to moral standing based simply on species membership. It is quite possible that a human in a permanent vegetative state has less capacity for suffering than the average mouse.

“Capacity for suffering” is not an empirical quantity that can be measured in any way. It is ultimately just as arbitrary as designation by species.

I need examples to keep the cynical voices in my head quiet and maintain my naivete into middle-age. The voices tell me that MLK, jr, and Gandhi both went up against Christian democracies and that Tibetans and Falun Gongers don’t appear to have so much traction against the Commies.

Singer does distinguish between degrees of suffering, and those degrees are understood with a view to the capacities of the sufferer. The average adult mouse and the average young human have differing capacities for suffering.

This is not specieism precisely because it is not discrimination as to moral standing based simply on species membership. It is quite possible that a human in a permanent vegetative state has less capacity for suffering than the average mouse.

I think q has the standard [rule] utilitarian position on punishment right, here. Oren may have his own ‘sophisticated utilitarian’ perspective, but the dominant view is that punishment is right only if it produces future good consequences.

Of course, a good utilitarian will include among those consequences the actual likely responses of the public. If the public will be outraged by failure to punish, this is a disutility. Still, the pain to be suffered by the person punished is also part of the calculation, no matter what prior disutility he has caused.

He deserves punishment for the real, consequential, results of his actions that created a whole heap of disutility in the world. Punishing him is just because what he did (create disutility) is wrong. You can hardly call yourself a utilitarian if you don’t believe that creating disutility is wrong.

Why does he “deserve” punishment? To be a utilitarian, every action has to be tied into utility. Utilitarians do not accept punishment for the sake of punishment, as every marginal punishment decreases overall utility. They accept punishment because of its overall deterring effect.

Yes, utilitarians think actions that cause net disutility are wrong. But that doesn’t mean they should automatically conclude all such wrongs deserve punishment. Whether or not punishment should be inflicted depends on a whole host of issues. Most utilitarians do not think insults should be punished, even though they are often of net disutility. Why they believe this is left as an exercise for the reader.

Chris Travers: I am not saying nonviolence is the answer to all the world’s problems but I think this misrepresents the case against nonviolence. Non-violent resistance works best when folks are willing to lay down their lives en masse to make a moral point and appeal to the conscience of others.

If Germans had been willing to nonviolently put their lives on the line to halt the German war machine, I think it would have halted very quickly. Humans are social animals and when nonviolence is used to force someone to choose between our inborn social instincts and orders, it can be quite powerful indeed. Regardless what you may believe about Hitler, it is doubtful to me that every German was fundamentally evil. At SOME point it is possible to appeal to the conscience of the footsoldier, the policeman, etc.

And yet that’s exactly the position that many people (primarily on the left, but also many others) maintained at the start of World War II, but how did it work out in practice? The principal effect was not to cause Germans to rise up against the war, but to enfeeble the willingness of folks like the French to vigorously and enthusiastically defend themselves, with the result that the German panzers rode right over them.

Farsighted physicist Freeman Dyson wrote about that critical period in his tremendously thought-provoking book Weapons and Hope, which people can read about here.

PatHMV: redc1c4, he is your President. Our fellow citizens elected him under democratic procedures we agreed to. He’s our president for the duration. You can (and should) criticize him all you want; he deserves plenty of criticism. But President Bush was the President of the whole country, no matter how often obnoxious liberals tried to claim “not MY president,” and likewise President Obama is our president for the time being.As for Honduras, I agree that he’s handled that miserably, but his actions there don’t directly contradict his statement. We are not at war against a democracy there (we’re not at war there at all), and we don’t actually know how he would have reacted had Zelaya actually tried to hold onto office past his final term. As I say, I think he handled it miserably and was sympathetic to the wrong side in that whole debacle, but it doesn’t justify calling him a “lying scumbag.” And “Ear Leader” may be funny in some circles, but not if you want to be taken at all seriously.

“For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies.”

I am not saying nonviolence is the answer to all the world’s problems but I think this misrepresents the case against nonviolence. Non-violent resistance works best when folks are willing to lay down their lives en masse to make a moral point and appeal to the conscience of others.

If Germans had been willing to nonviolently put their lives on the line to halt the German war machine, I think it would have halted very quickly. Humans are social animals and when nonviolence is used to force someone to choose between our inborn social instincts and orders, it can be quite powerful indeed. Regardless what you may believe about Hitler, it is doubtful to me that every German was fundamentally evil. At SOME point it is possible to appeal to the conscience of the footsoldier, the policeman, etc.

We may well ask how the martyred Buddhist monks in South Vietnam, who burned themselves alive in protest, affected the fall of South Vietnam, or how the Tienanmen Square protesters have affected China’s course in economic development.

Imagine further the result if the Palestinians decided to, en masse, dismantle Israeli checkpoints and security walls despite being under threat of deadly force. Imagine further that this was done by a group espousing no violence towards human life. Imagine further that pictures of Palestinians being shot were then broadcast all over the world by news organizations. What impact would this have on Israeli policies? What impact would it have on foreign trade with Israel? If the Palestinians could pull such a thing off and smuggle digital media instead of explosives and guns, they would have full independence very, very quickly.

Non-violence works best when folks are willing to martyr themselves en masse to make a moral point, and to bring full presence of self to that process. It is thus an attack on a level that is fundamentally different and more subtle than any bomb, gun, or sword.

This being said, non-violence as a solution breaks down sometimes and it shouldn’t be the only tool one has. Sometimes it can be more destructive than just striking back. It fundamentally depends on what one really wants out of the process, and in a few cases (domestic abuse for example) it can make the problem fundamentally worse.

Sara: I would say Switzerland in both 1776 and 1812. Whereas, GB was a monarchic aristocracy with a “rotten borough” overlay.

DNJ: I wouldn’t count the US as democratic in 1812.

Alexis de Tocqueville writing in the 1830s (and who as a liberal Frenchman was quite aware of the case of Switzerland) specifically declared that the United States of the time was the most democratic nation in the world. If that was true in 1831 when Tocqueville visited this country, it was also true in 1812. Moreover, I’d trust his views as a contemporary of those times far more than all the above latter day democratic theorizers.

As to democracies supposedly never warring on each other, I think that strictly speaking is false. While historically it happens quite seldom, it’s quite possible I believe for one country’s relatively democratically elected government to engage in policies that infringe (or are perceived to infringe) on another’s territory and/or rights, which lead the latter to declare war on the former — which basically is exactly what occurred in 1812 (as a result of British impressment of American seamen), and in 1776 for that matter.

Singer … a speciesist? (If that’s how you spell it). I’m shocked at his casual disregard for the life-rights of rats and bacteria.

Glenn Bowen says:

“I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.”

Great Sublime Narcissist-in-Chief has an eye affliction… er, an “I” affliction.

…and the fact is our tin horn president doesn’t belong in Oslo picking up that tin-plated award, anyway.

I am glad to find it’s not just me who hits the I & me wall when he speaks. It does stop the flow of words because of their frequency of use. IT’s ALL ABOUT ME! Except when someone in his admin does something wrong, then they did it….

It is quite irritating and seems to be quite indicative of how he thinks.

Oren: Yup, the guy that thinks I commit a genocide every time I wake up and kill the billions of innocent bacteria that have colonized my face. Very convincing!

That’s a pretty egregious misstatement of Singer’s views. Have you read anything by him? Here’s part of his answer to the question of whether he would save the life of a human or a mouse if he had to choose:

“[W]hen it comes to a question of taking life, or allowing life to end, it matters whether a being is the kind of being who can see that he or she actually has a life — that is, can see that he or she is the same being who exists now, who existed in the past, and who will exist in the future. Such a being has more to lose than a being incapable of understand this. Any normal human being past infancy will have such a sense of existing over time. I’m not sure that mice do, and if they do, their time frame is probably much more limited. So normally, the death of a human being is a greater loss to the human than the death of a mouse is to the mouse – for the human, it cuts off plans for the distant future, for example, but not in the case of the mouse.”

Now, I’m neither a pure utilitarian nor a Singer-ite but it doesn’t do much good to argue against straw men.

And of course that means that the US is not a democracy either by those terms. Look up what makes a “US National” different from a “US Citizen.”

Asked and answered already, thanks for playing.

Your argument regarding the fact that committing a serious crime shows a disregard to utility is fundamentally inconsistent with utilitarianism. It is a plausible argument (though I do not agree with it) but it is not a utilitarian one. To a utilitarian punishing the criminal for the sake of punishment (or retribution) would be compounding one wrong with another.

Nonsense on stilts. First, it’s manifestly obvious, irrespective of whether you are a utilitarian or not, that a rapist has contemptuous disregard for the general welfare — inflicting massive damage on others for his own limited gain.

Second, you misapprehend the reasoning of my argument. He deserves punishment for the real, consequential, results of his actions that created a whole heap of disutility in the world. Punishing him is just because what he did (create disutility) is wrong. You can hardly call yourself a utilitarian if you don’t believe that creating disutility is wrong.

Because of the unfair distribution, I think the gang-rape in this hypothetical would be morally unjustified.

There’s a much easier way to get to this conclusion that does not require contortions:

(1) Respect for individual rights, as a principle enforced by society, maximize total utility. This has the advantage of being indisputably empirically true by a huge margin.
(2) The rapist, by shitting on those rights, moves our society towards disrespect for those rights — an action that encourages others to violate them and weakens our resolve to protect them.
(∴) The rape is wrong, whether or not it’s utility-positive in the micro view, because in the macro picture, it leads to a state of much lower total utility — to wit, one in which individual rights are not respected.

Well, Peter Singer for one.

Yup, the guy that thinks I commit a genocide every time I wake up and kill the billions of innocent bacteria that have colonized my face. Very convincing!

To the rest of you, there are perfectly sane utilitarians out there. I count myself among them. There is no reason to descend into the myopic view that does not consider the values and principles of society as a whole.

Dave Hardy: Does anyone more than 25 years old seriously believe utilitaristism?

Well, Peter Singer for one.

“For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies.”
Cue internet lib: “omg Obama violates Godwin!!” (while making a powerful and obvious point).
1. Are people who lazily invoke Godwin as a substitute for actual thought douchebags? (I believe so.)
2. There should be a Godwin meta-law: anyone who reflexively invokes Godwin as a substitute for an actual argument is a douchebag of the first order.

Wow, it’s like one of those old-timey craft villages where you get to watch the artisans actually build the strawmen out of straw, then set fire to them. Are we supposed to tip?

If that is the case, there are going to be some pissed off Norwegians in the not too distant future as we begin to increase our presence in Pakistan in order to strike at the heart of a genuine threat.

Peg C.: There is no evidence whatsoever that Obama believes a word of what he said. Some people refuse to see and acknowledge this man’s radical and anti-American roots.The man lies like he breathes. Some of us are not fooled.

And there’s no evidence you aren’t Nancy Pelosi’s sock puppet, trolling ludicrously to embarrass conservatives. Plausible though that is, I assume you’re just who you say you are, and the embarrassment is unintentional. But as long as we’re reading minds, I’ll guess you spent a good part of eight years accusing liberals of BDS, and you find nothing ironic about it.

ChrisTS: Leo Marvin:Oh, Leo, you liberal wack job. Will you never learn?

A liberal learn? Don’t be crazy.

Exactly. Why should I regard the happiness of a rapist as an equivalent of my own, quite normal, happiness? I’d suggest that in the eyes of most normal folk, the happiness of a rapist was on a par with … well, somewhat below his getting a bullet in the head. Or in the gut. As a general rule, the amount of pleasure, if any, gained by a rapist would be far below the pleasure enjoyed by a thousand normal folks watching him getting gut-shot, flung into a septic tank, urinated on by a dozen normal folk, and left to drown.

Does anyone more than 25 years old seriously believe utilitaristism?

The idea that democracies don’t wage wars against eachother was a lie that George W Bush tried to leverage that Obama is trying to get additional mileage out of here.

And how you counted British Dominion over their foreign acquisitions. Democracy, as I understand it, does not permit the government elected by the population of one island to justly exercise authority over those living elsewhere.

And of course that means that the US is not a democracy either by those terms. Look up what makes a “US National” different from a “US Citizen.”

Some of these injuries may perhaps admit a peaceable remedy. Where that is competent, it is always the most desirable. But some of them are of a nature to be met by force only, and all of them may lead to it. I cannot, therefore, but recommend such preparations as circumstances call for.

In short, did Mr Obama get his statement from the minister or the former president.

Peg C.: There is no evidence whatsoever that Obama believes a word of what he said. Some people refuse to see and acknowledge this man’s radical and anti-American roots.The man lies like he breathes. Some of us are not fooled.

Roots! He has Roots? Where are they from? Kenya? Alaska? Indonesia?

There is no Constitutional right to vote, only a Constitutional right not to be denied the vote based on certain factors.

Well, I don’t agree with this, but we’ll save the argument for another day. I will say this, though: if there’s no constitutional right to vote, on what basis do we refer to the US as a democracy (or republic)?