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Utilitarianism is cringe (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not sure how you can argue that. It’s not about a division of labour at all. The difference between the popular understanding and the academic one is in what can be considered a merit. The academic understanding is broader.

Diving up tasks by the skills of the people involved is a pretty classical example of division if labor. That goes even if whether the job is running a society and the merit is one's political knowledge.

Also, I misread your comment a bit and didn't see how the academic understanding of meritocracy includes things like inheritance or being rich. I am not talking about these things when I say "meritocracy", especially as an ideology that justifies bourgeois rule. I am sure you have encountered liberals who struggle to reconcile capitalism's supposed meritocratic nature with the existence of inhereticance.

It’s also how feodals did so

It's more complicated with feudal lords. They portrayed themselves as God's chosen, rulers by moral virtue rather than by skill. As far as I know, the early bourgeois rebels against feudal rule heavily lambasted the un-meritocratic nature of feudalism.

is not unique to the bourgeoisie’s usage of them, and also predates their dominance in the first place.

This might just be my own ideological bias showing, but is this actually true? I don't see how class systems based on rigid inheritance can even pretend to be meritocratic. You would need at least some class mobility to make the illusion work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Diving up tasks by the skills of the people involved is a pretty classical example of division if labor

Meritocracy is not concerned with division of tasks by skills. It is concerned with rewarding people of merit, and providing them with power.

I am not talking about these things when I say "meritocracy"

Yeah, this is rather common, which is why I pointed out this discrepancy between how meritocracy is understood popularly and how it is understood academically.

I am sure you have encountered liberals who struggle to reconcile capitalism's supposed meritocratic nature with the existence of inhereticance

A part of my interest in commenting here is not having prepared an answer quickly enough to one such person whom I did try to turn socialist. After one of our conversations, they said that they looked into and like 'some right-wing ideas', and, as an example they provided meritocracy. I already had my issues with meritocracy, but couldn't provide a comprehensive critique at that moment, so I did not pursue that topic. This is kind of an outlet for my thoughts on that matter.

It's more complicated with feudal lords. They portrayed themselves as God's chosen, rulers by moral virtue rather than by skill

I'm confident that they also claimed to be more skilled than the non-aristocratic members of society, and that inheritance allowed them to produce most qualified people in the society.

Also, being a 'god's chosen' is a merit under the relevant systems.

I don't see how class systems based on rigid inheritance can even pretend to be meritocratic

You have people who believe that such traits are inheritable as well, and that educating their spawn from early age for rather specific tasks (such as ruling a fief) creates the most skilful members of society.

You would need at least some class mobility to make the illusion work

There was, indeed, some class mobility.
For example, unless I'm missing something and bourgeoisie was already dominant in the Russian Empire of the 18th century, there is Mikhail Lomonosov, one of the most important scientists of the time, who came from a peasant family and managed to become a noble by becoming a professor. The Russian Imperial table of ranks provided a systemic way of achieving inheritable noble status (starting with different ranks for military and civilian ranks).