Don’t know if I am preaching to the choir, but with how much libs try to use the trolley problem to support their favorite war criminal, it got me thinking just how cringe utilitarianism is.
Whatever utilitarianism may be in theory, in practice, it just trains people to think like bureaucrats who belive themselves to be impartial observers of society (not true), holding power over the lives of others for the sake of the common good. It’s imo a perfect distillation of bourgeois ideology into a theory of ethics. It’s a theory of ethics from the pov of a statesman or a capitalist. Only those groups of people have the power and information necessary to actually act in a meaningfully utilitarian manner.
It’s also note worthy just how prone to creating false dichotomies and ignoring historical context utilitarians are. Although this might just be the result of the trolley problem being so popular.
‘The ends justify the means’ is actually a(n undeservedly-maligned) good take. The ends are a primary thing that determines what means are appropriate, and I’m not sure how anybody can argue against this.
Utilitarianism is just garbage that is no more insightful than vibes-based examination of actions.
This is exactly how I feel, and is only a problem to liberals (I mean philosophical liberals) who don’t understand that certain ends can only be reached by certain means, and conversely certain means can never reach certain ends.
They live in a reality where “authoritarian” measures like a one-party state are just the personal preference of dictatorial leaders who are misguided or evil and who could have just chosen to be “good” instead, rather than those measures being the only way to survive the imperial onslaught.
They are particularly silly when you realise that, by their logic (that appropriate means are not dictated by the ends), because it is appropriate to do a thing that achieves one goal, it is appropriate to do that thing to try to achieve every goal, as, by their logic, the appropriate means are independent of the ends.
Everyone always asks if the ends justify the means, but no one ever asks if the means actually make progress to the ends.
That’s why the ends are a primary (but not the only one, mind you) thing that dictates what means are appropriate.