You're Probably Already a Utilitarian

Most people already think like utilitarians in their daily decisions, even if they've never heard the term.

«‘Meta used BitTorrent because it was a MORE EFFICIENT and reliable means of obtaining the datasets …’ Meta’s attorney writes.»

Seriously ‽ They’re arguing that expediency justifies systematic and widespread copyright infringement for the sake of MAXIMIZING WEALTH‽

#utilitarianism runs completely #amok #buckvbell revisited https://m.einverne.info/@HackerNewsBot/116188132461060163

HackerNewsBot (@[email protected])

Uploading Pirated Books via BitTorrent Qualifies as Fair Use, Meta Argues https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47285960 #hackernews #tech

EV Mastodon
dellara on Instagram: "on why “hardworking immigrant” isn’t a compliment"

22K likes, 576 comments - dellara on February 12, 2026: "on why “hardworking immigrant” isn’t a compliment".

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The Petitio Principii Fallacy in the Kaldor-Hicks Principle, Law & Economics, and Cost-Benefit Analysis:

A prime example of intellectual conformity (a.k.a. cowardice) in conventional Economics

PolyMathy Musings / David Ellerman

@jlou Well yes but is seems arbitrary, couldn't you say that you're making that decision based on the consequences of not doing so, making it more of a rule-utilitarian position.

#Consequentialism #Utilitarianism #Ethics

@wouldinotcallmyselfahumanbeing Preference utilitarianism also prevents interpersonal comparisons necessary to even notice that inequality is worth solving. The recognition of freedom as a fundamental moral value allows interpersonal comparisons between the rich and the poor, which justify wealth and income redistribution.

Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate your pushing back, and have also enjoyed the conversation.

@sz_duras

#philosophy #utilitarianism #consequentialism

RE: https://mastodon.social/@jlou/115970177564955152

@ArthurI what do you think of this resolution I came up with to the consequentialist judgement paradox you came up with?

#philosophy #ethics #Consequentialism #utilitarian #utilitarianism #consequentialist #deontology #deontological

In the context of workplace mobbing, how can managers balance the happiness of the majority with the well-being of the individual, and what role does empathy play in moral decision-making?
https://www.mobingas.lt/en/when-killing-brings-more-happiness-or-how-to-protect-from-mobbing/
#WorkplaceBullying #Utilitarianism #Synderesis #science

#RenéeGood is dead. An #ICE agent shot her three times through her car window in #Minneapolis. Video shows the agent had time to step away—instead he drew his weapon and fired. This wasn’t self-defense. It was execution.

Philosopher Harry Binswanger traces the philosophical chain: https://hbletter.com/trumps-gestapo-is-now-murdering-protestors/

ICE exists because we philosophically and politically destroyed the concept of #IndividualRights.#Bentham called #rights “nonsense upon stilts” 20 years after #Kant. That became settled doctrine. Without a defensible theory of rights grounded in reality, we got the #Progressive movement’s #collectivism, then the xenophobia that built ICE, and now we have federal agents executing protesters in the street.

ICE has no legitimate function—it exists to grab and deport people, operating with arbitrary force. "The nature of an action follows from the nature of the entity that acts.” ICE's nature is thuggery wrapped in the language of #LawEnforcement.

But there’s also a commercial-political chain that made this possible: government agencies contract with private #surveillance companies to bypass #FourthAmendment protections. What the government can’t collect directly, it purchases from #DataBrokers and information services.

The technical infrastructure—databases, APIs, real-time intelligence platforms—gets built by engineers who think they're just solving technical problems. That infrastructure feeds into operations that put agents on Minneapolis streets with intelligence they couldn’t legally gather themselves.

This didn't have to happen.

Rights theory didn't have to lose to #utilitarianism and Kantian duty. We didn’t have to allow commercial surveillance to become a Fourth Amendment bypass. But we did, and now 37-year-old Renée Good is dead because an agent felt empowered to approach her car, try her door handle, and shoot when she tried to leave.

The horror isn’t just that Renée Good died. It’s that her death was philosophically, politically, and technically inevitable once we abandoned individual rights and built the infrastructure to enforce #collectivist #immigration policy at scale.

#ReneeGood #philosophy #politics #USpol #USpolitics #SurveillanceState #SurveillanceCapitalism

Trump’s Gestapo is now murdering protestors – HBL

“Utilitarianism asks: greatest happiness for the greatest number. Does the majority always know what’s best?”

#Utilitarianism #Ethics #Consequentialism