But HU wouldn't necessarily say that someone's preference for something else than pleasure or pain would be mistaken - if it's interpreted within a subjectivist framework, HU is just a description of preferences that are different.
I really don't think that this is correct. If this were true, first of all, hedonistic utilitarianism would simply reduce to preference utilitarianism. In actual fact, neither view is merely about one's own terminal values.
If someone, personally, cares only about pain and pleasure, but acknowledges that other people may have other things as terminal values, and thinks that The Good lies in satisfying everyone's preferences maximally — which, for themselves, means maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, and for other people may mean other things — then that person is not a hedonistic utilitarian. They are a preference utilitarian. Referring to them as an HU is simply not correct, because that's not how the term is used in the philosophical literature.
On the other hand, if someone cares only about pain and pleasure — both theirs and other peoples' — and would prefer that everyone's pleasure be maximized and everyone's pain be minimized; but this person is not a moral realist, and has no opinion on what constitutes The Good or thinks there's no fact of the matter about whether an act is right or wrong; well, then this person is not a utilitarian at all. Again, describing this person as a hedonistic or any other kind of utilitarian completely fails to match up with how the term is used in the philosophical literature.
As for ethical subjectivism — uh, I don't think that's an actual thing. I'd not heard of anything by that name until today. I don't like going by wikipedia's definitions of philosophical principles, so I tried tracking it down to a source, such as perhaps a major philosopher espousing the view or at least describing it coherently. No such luck. Take a look at that list of references on its wikipedia page; two are to a single book (written in 1959 by some guy I've never heard of — have you? — and the shortness whose wikipedia page suggests that he wasn't anyone interesting), and one is to a barely-related page that mentions the thing once, in passing, by a different name. I'm not convinced. As best I can tell, it's a label that some modern-day historians of philosophy have used to describe... a not-quite-consistent family of views. (Divine command theory, for one.)
But let's attempt to take it at face value. You say:
Someone could be an ethical subjectivist and say that utilitarianism is the theory that best describes their particular attitudes, or at least that subset of their attitudes that they endorse.
Very well. Are their attitudes correct, do they think? If they say there's no fact of the matter about that, then they're not a utilitiarian. "Utilitiarianism" is a quite established term in the literature. You can't just apply it to any old thing.
Of course, this is Lesswrong; we don't argue about definitions; we're interested in what people actually think. However in this case I think getting our terms straight is important, for two reasons:
When most people say they're utilitarians, they mean it in the usual sense, I think. So to understand what's going on in these discussions, and in the heads of the people we're talking to, we need to know what is the usual sense.
If you hold some view which is not one of the usual views with commonly-known terms, you shouldn't call it by one of the commonly-known terms, because then I won't have any idea what you're talking about and we'll keep getting into comment threads like this one.
...On the other hand, if someone cares only about pain and pleasure — both theirs and other peoples' — and would prefer that everyone's pleasure be maximized and everyone's pain be minimized; but this person is not a moral realist, and has no opinion on what constitutes The Good or thinks there's no fact of the matter about whether an act is right or wrong; well, then this person is not a utilitarian at all. Again, describing this person as a hedonistic or any other kind of utilitarian completely fails to match up with how the term is used in the philosophi
I'm pleased to announce the first annual survey of effective altruists. This is a short survey of around 40 questions (generally multiple choice), which several collaborators and I have put a great deal of work into and would be very grateful if you took. I'll offer $250 of my own money to one participant.
Take the survey at http://survey.effectivealtruismhub.com/
The survey should yield some interesting results such as EAs' political and religious views, what actions they take, and the causes they favour and donate to. It will also enable useful applications which will be launched immediately afterwards, such as a map of EAs with contact details and a cause-neutral register of planned donations or pledges which can be verified each year. I'll also provide an open platform for followup surveys and other actions people can take. If you'd like to suggest questions, email me or comment.
Anonymised results will be shared publicly and not belong to any individual or organisation. The most robust privacy practices will be followed, with clear opt-ins and opt-outs.
I'd like to thank Jacy Anthis, Ben Landau-Taylor, David Moss and Peter Hurford for their help.
Other surveys' results, and predictions for this one
Other surveys have had intriguing results. For example, Joey Savoie and Xio Kikauka's interviewed 42 often highly active EAs over Skype, and found that they generally had left-leaning parents, donated on average 10%, and were altruistic before becoming EAs. The time they spent on EA activities was correlated with the percentage they donated (0.4), the time their parents spend volunteering (0.3), and the percentage of their friends who were EAs (0.3).
80,000 Hours also released a questionnaire and, while this was mainly focused on their impact, it yielded a list of which careers people plan to pursue: 16% for academia, 9% for both finance and software engineering, and 8% for both medicine and non-profits.
I'd be curious to hear people's predictions as to what the results of this survey will be. You might enjoy reading or sharing them here. For my part, I'd imagine we have few conservatives or even libertarians, are over 70% male, and have directed most of our donations to poverty charities.