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Mark_Lu comments on A (small) critique of total utilitarianism - Less Wrong
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"State" doesn't have to mean "frozen state" or something similar, it could mean "state of the world/universe". E.g. "a state of the universe" in which many people are being tortured includes the torture process in it's description. I think this is how it's normally used.
Well, if you are to coherently take it that the transitions have value, rather than states, then you arrive at morality that regulates the transitions that the agent should try to make happen, ending up with morality that is more about means than about ends.
I think it's simply that the pain feels like a state rather than dynamic process, and so utilitarianism treats it as state, while doing something feels like a dynamic process, so utilitarianism doesn't treat it as state and is only concerned with difference in utilities.