Comment on This Didn't Have To Happen

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:39:54 GMT

It's hard to reconcile any western lifestyle with traditional utilitarianism though so if that's your main concern with cryonics perhaps you need to reconsider your ethics rather than worry about cryonics.

One of the beauties of utilitarianism is that its ethics can adapt to different circumstances without losing objectivity. I don't think every "western lifestyle" is necessarily reprobate under utilitarianism. First off, if westerners abandoned their western lifestyles, humanity would be sunk: next to the collapse of aggregate demand that would ensue, our present economic problems would look very mild. We can't all afford to be Gandhi. The rub is trying to avoid being a part of really harmful, unsustainable things like commercial ocean fishing or low fuel-efficiency cars without causing an ethically greater amount of inconvenience or economic harm.

All that said, I'd be really interested in reading a post by you on rationalist but non-utilitarian ethics. It seems to me that support for utilitarianism on this site is almost as strong as support for cryonics.

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