I don't think that's the question. Clearly, any action which results in net positive amount of happiness is a morally good action according to utilitarianism. It already answers your question. The question for you should be whether or not you agree with that, if you could ever think killing for pleasure is morally right. And if there are scenarios where utilitarianism would allow for it to be, whether or not that completely invalidates utilitarianism in other situations, like abortion.

For me, it doesn't. I don't require utilitarianism to be flawless like you seem to do. I can apply it when it makes sense to do so and not when it doesn't. For example utilitarianism would have me break laws for good consquences, but when it comes to laws, I think a normative approach is better. I generally think that we should follow the laws in our society, even if happiness could be maximized by breaking them.

So whether or not it is possible to dream up a scenario where utilitarianism defends what you perceive as the wrong action is, to me, not really interesting. Your requirement for a morale theory to be flawless in regards to your own moral interests is, in my opinion, unrealistic. If you submit different moral theories to extreme testing, like you have with utilitarianism, none of them will satisfy you in every instance. Utilitarianism is not unique in that way.

The reason I didn't mention competition is because abortion is not a matter of competition. But sure, we have an us and them sort of thinking. Most of the people you meet in your society, you'd probably include under the "us" umbrella.

Yes, utilitarianism will often protect animals over humans because it doesn't say that human suffering is more important than animal suffering. But what does that have to do with abortions?

I disagree and think that jealousy is completely natural. We all have an unconscious desire for sex, that is to pass our genes on to the next generation because our nature doesn't know about prevention like condoms. But in order to effectively pass on your genes, you also have to be careful with your resources and not squander them, because you have to survive and preferably help your children do so as well. (As a side note, other people are potential resources to us if they will cooperate.)

But, let's say you are a man and you have a female partner. That partner goes and has sex with someone else and becomes pregnant. If you have no jealousy, you would be less likely to find out and you would raise the child like your own. From an evolutionary point of view, you would have been the victim of an exploitation strategy from the other male who impregnated your woman. After all, you spent your resources rearing his child, his genes. He is the one getting rewarded while you've been penalized, I guess you could say. Jealousy is a defense against being exploited in that way and, as a result, some level of natural jealousy seems a reasonable expectation for humans to have.

So to summarize, nature is full of defense behaviours and emotions that have evolved as a response to such exploitation. Jealousy is one of them.

Tore and John, the way you argue makes me feel like an idiot. Just wanted to say, you're both incredibly intelligent and articulate, and I hope that in no way comes across as gay.:) You're both a great example of how to have a debate with wildly differing views without descending into name-calling or sulkiness or the other stuff that sometimes happens in these cases. You should both be proud of yourselves, I mean that.

You just had to include that phrase didn't you? couldn't you have left it out or used a different phrase.

It seems the hot topic on here at the moment.

I agree with TH, for Tore and John it is very interesting reading their points.

It does seem like beating a dead horse but come on. Why associate the word gay with being something negative?

I don't think that's necessary.

You just couldn't leave it without drawing attention to what was obviously a joke and a nod-and-a-wink when I was talking about praising two guys, and make it something more than it was supposed to be, could you? What are you: the male CrazyVegn? :rofl:

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a joke is just a joke, my reptilian friend...

nevermind I guess you don't get it and I should just leave it alone. :banghead:


I know the context of said joke but you are still making it seem like being gay is a bad/wrong thing regardless of if it is a joke or not.

If you still see it as harmless then so be it.

andrei you're perfect just sayin'

THATS AS GAY AS IT COMES BTW I MEANT IT IN THE GAYEST WAY POSSIBLE

ALL THE GAY

seriously though admiring people for their intellect/ideas is gay? why is this is a thing
just like the whole "girl crush" phenom, like

stahp

If this is true I'm even gayer than I thought I was.

Where did I ever say that? All I was doing is making it clear that I personally was not, and am not gay. I have no problem whatever with homosexuality or lesbianism, not in the least. I never intended my remark to give that impression, and I would think/hope that anyone else reading it would have realised this was "gay in a Batlord kind of way", in other words a simple joke that was meant to be inoffensive.

Christ! You can make anything offensive if you try. If someone wrote "he's a thick Irishman" or as thick as an Irishman I would be annoyed but would not take a huge amount of offence to it, just as if someone said to Fetcher you scots are all mean. It doesn't mean you denigrate the object of your comment. And anyway, what the ****? You've managed to completely misdirect and misrepresent my comment by picking holes in it. You've turned a completely sincere compliment into something you see as dubious. Why can't you just let things slide? It's not like I was saying gays are wrong, or to be gay is wrong! How careful do you have to be what you say around people like you? Christ! Again! :mad:

I'm a born again Christian and this offends me.