Rational egoism vs. Utilitarianism

[myrkul]

but from a utalitarian standpoint it would be perfectly good to lie IF it maximises happiness. eg.
scared person to you and you see which way he runs. murder comes asking "which way did he run?". do you lie and save the persons life, or tell the truth and let the person die? a utilitarian would lie, a Kantian(deontolog?) would panic and be incapable of performing any action(must not lie, must save lifes), and a rational egoist would not care.

Would not being a party to murder reduce one's happiness?

sounds meaningful, but unable to understand?? please reformulate.

You claim that a rational egoist would not care about the outcome of this particular scenario. Rational egoists care about their own happiness. Being party to a murder would reduce that happiness (see the formula on page one - it would increase psychological pain) for all but the most psycho/sociopathic of them. Ergo, the rational egoist would not desire to be party to a murder, and lie to the murderer. That the murderer's happiness is reduced by this doesn't matter to the egoist.

logic is sound. rational egoist would not *have to* care, unless he feels like it. better? and again he does not do it for the victim, but for himself.

And yet, the victim's happiness is improved, and the utilitarian goal of maximizing overall happiness is achieved. All from acting in self-interest.

[comboy]

wow these threads escalate quickly

Nice one.

But utilitarianism is not that simple. When you think about it, in most cases it's more like rational egoism but expanded to group of people you are in contact with. You cannot possibly be able to optimize for sum of happiness on the planet (too little information, too little computational power).

in reality that is true. but this is philosophy it does not care about reality(we all know that it does not exist anyway: solipsism ). it might be better to explain utilitarianism as: would you sacrifice your happiness if it maximizes a group's(or worlds) happiness.

Yes, but then this utilitarianism differs quite a lot, you don't care about whole humanity, you select some individuals from human race (this group) and optimize for their happiness. This sounds more like.. I don't know... a government?

I'm pointing it out because if you agree on that that's more like a choice between selfishness vs altruism, which seems to be quite separate problem from the original post to me. Original post reminds me something like a choice between my happiness and doing something positive for the world. Where the most intriguing part to me is what something positive for the world means.

Maybe if you will be nice to everyone it will slow down overall world progress?  Or is progress something positive? Maybe it will cause our self destruction? Or maybe it will let us save ourselves from something like e.g. big asteroid?

[johnyj]

Rational egoism: Get ASIC mining device and mine BTC with 20X + speed
Utilitarianism:  Get ASIC mining device to as much people as possible, so that a 51% attack will not be possible

[DoomDumas]

1st, It's not a human nature issue.  I believe we are more product of the environment (nurture) than the product of our gene (nature) !

2nd, I truly believe that we cannot live on our own self, we are social/tribal creature.  It's been proven that a human without contact with other human will die, even if all physical need fullfilled.  Human need social interaction and touch to survive.

3rd, Proven too, cooperation will succeed much more than competition, and make human involved much more happy.  We tend to believe that competition is better, like the free market encouraging competition, but it's all man made conception, several experimentation conclude that cooperation is a lot better.

This said, I can only stand by the point of view that helping other benefit more to ourselve than helping ourself alone.  If someone help his tribe/community/social circle, he knows that other will care for him too.  Helping others, taking care of family, friend, neighboor, community, while knowing that each other care for you, it's greater than being egoist of our time and ressources.

You want facts about my assomptions, google it, read books, listen to intelligent podcast, but first and most important of all : close your TV, stop playing games, and get a real social life, you could learn a lot !

Nothing personal, have read the thread and know that this kind of debate are a lot polarized.. I was on the Rational egoism side before, but I've learn a lot... I'm now Ultra-Utilitarianist !

Most important, Shut down the most effective propaganda machine ever, that have so much empowerment over the society, shut down those so called TV.. Close them all, sell those poisonous TV that pollute our minds..

was my two satoshi !

[DoomDumas]

Rational egoism is based on human nature, whereas utilitarianism is just a nice idealistic concept. To be honest, not many people really care about sufferings of unknown people that are far away.


Though upbringing in society usually injects utilitarian values into human mind (and it is difficult to overcome them), thus it is person's best interest to do something good for society if it is not too expensive for him/her personally.

Doing bad for other or nature, is doing bad to yourself... remember, if you push the button, the next one to do so kills you !

[kokjo]

Rational egoism: Get ASIC mining device and mine BTC with 20X + speed
Utilitarianism:  Get ASIC mining device to as much people as possible, so that a 51% attack will not be possible

the rational egoism would not want 51% attack either, not even if he is the attacker, as he would ruin the network and make bitcoin worthless(assuming that he wants bitcoin to succeed)

[dank]

I concur with DoomDumas.

[kokjo]

I concur with DoomDumas.

that does not mean that you are right.
utiltarism does not say anything about lying, cheating, killing, genocide, suicide. The only thing it states is:
"Do what necessary to maximizes the sum of happiness".

If that mean that you are gonna lie, or kill some people, SO BE IT! if the world is a happier place, you did the right thing. as long as the benefit outweighs the cost, every things is good. Utiltarism does say that you have to do these things, if they are what maximizes happiness(but in most situations they aren't).

[cunicula]

Rational egoism: Get ASIC mining device and mine BTC with 20X + speed
Utilitarianism:  Get ASIC mining device to as much people as possible, so that a 51% attack will not be possible

the rational egoism would not want 51% attack either, not even if he is the attacker, as he would ruin the network and make bitcoin worthless(assuming that he wants bitcoin to succeed)

Nah, the rational egoist is more creative than this. He is an entrepreneur not an idiot. There are many ways to profit by disrupting markets. You don't get rich by sitting on your ass and thinking like everyone else.

Suppose our egoist is pirate for example. Collect 400k BTC debt, convert to USD, 51% attack, payoff debt after BTC devaluation, go off on your way with a suitcase full of cash, and without breaking any laws.
Worst case scenario btc holds its value and you just pull a regular pirate. Everyone seems to be convinced that a 51% attack is the death of bitcoin though. So you should be safe from breaking the law.
Seems like a legit business plan.
 
[Can't wait to see someone pull this off! This is what is called 'creative destruction'.]