Non-Reductionists about Mind Should not be Utilitarians

My brother had an interesting argument against utilitarianism that I would like to share. It focuses on the fact that utilitarianism requires there to be some kind of calculus by which one can determine what will bring about the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. In this calculus, happiness is typically defined in terms of pleasure. Here lies the problem. Pleasure is a feeling or sensation that subjects can experience and so is a type of qualia. However, qualia cannot be quantified, by definition, otherwise they simply would not be qulia. This poses a significant threat to utilitarianism as many of its forms require that pleasure be quantifiable, but it simply cannot be. If successful, this argument should motivate most philosophers to abandon utilitarianism since reductive theories of mind are quite unpopular among contemporary philosophers and even more so among philosophers of mind. (see here: https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/5010, https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/5010?aos=16). Here is a syllogistic form of the argument:


  1. Utilitarianism requires that pleasure be quantifiable.

  2. If pleasure is not quantifiable, then utilitarianism is false.

  3. Pleasure is a type of qualia.

  4. If pleasure is a type of qualia, then pleasure is not quantifiable.

  5. So, pleasure is not quantifiable.

  6. So, utilitarianism is false.

Comments

  1. JacobJuly 3, 2022 at 7:23 PM

    Most classical utilitarians would reject the calculus claim, and its hard to commit them to it

    ReplyDelete

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