Thread: If you were a hardcore utilitarian, what would you spend all your time doing?

Originally Posted by MrShrike

I've never seen utilitarianism as a wholistic individual philosophy

Well that's because it absolutely cannot be, by nature.

Classical or traditional utilitarians (I've been through this with Ben but I'll just explain it for clarity's sake) equate happiness with utility.

Most modern utilitarians (commonly called Preference Utilitatians) equate the satisfaction of preferences with utility.

The difference is that the "happiness" cannot be falsely achieved; eg. through a virtual reality lie, a happy pill, etc. As I said to Ben, another valuable point is that gives reason for people to be treated preferentially over other creatures, because people can be defined as "creatures which are capable of having preferences".