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Lukas_Gloor comments on Does utilitarianism "require" extreme self sacrifice? If not why do people commonly say it does? - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: Princess_Stargirl 09 December 2014 08:32AM

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Comment author: MathiasZaman 09 December 2014 09:20:53AM 2 points [-]

If you want to completely optimize your life for creating more global utilons then, yes, utilitarianism requires extreme self-sacrifice. The time you spend playing that video-game or hanging out with friends netted you utility/happiness, but you could have spend that time working and donating the money to an effective charity. That tasty cheese you ate probably made you quite happy, but it didn't maximize utility. Better switch to the bare minimum you need to work the highest-paying job you can manage and give all the money you don't strictly need to an effective charity.

Of course, humans (generally) can't manage that. You won't be able to function at a high-paying job if you can't occasionally indulge in some tasty food or if your Fun-bar is in the red all the time. (Or, for that matter, most of your other bars. You'll probably spend a lot of time lying on the floor crying if you live like this.

While it might be morally optimal for you to ignore your own needs and work on the biggest gains you can manage, this isn't something that can be required of (most) people. You can use utilitarianism as a framework to base you decisions on without giving up everything. Giving up 100% of your income to a good charity might be morally optimal, but [giving 10% still makes a huge impact[(https://www.givingwhatwecan.org) and allows you a comfortable life yourself.

I don't think being perfectly utilitarian is something (most) humans should strive for. Use it as guidelines to influence the world around you, but don't let it drive you crazy.

Or to quote someone on skype::

[Considering yourself a bad person because utilitarianism] is like saying Usain Bolt is slow because he runs at such a tiny fraction of the speed of light.

Comment author: Lukas_Gloor 09 December 2014 02:59:41PM *  0 points [-]

That's a great quote! Despite its brevity it explains a big part of what I used hundreds of words to explain:)