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Negative Utilitarianism
Negative utilitarianism is a form of negative consequentialism that can be described as the view that people should minimize the total amount of aggregate suffering, or that they should minimize suffering and then, secondarily, maximize the total amount of happiness. It can be considered as a version of utilitarianism that gives greater priority to reducing suffering (negative utility or 'disutility') than to increasing pleasure (positive utility). This differs from classical utilitarianism, which does not claim that reducing suffering is intrinsically more important than increasing happiness. Both versions of utilitarianism hold that morally right and morally wrong actions depend solely on the consequences for overall aggregate well-being. 'Well-being' refers to the state of the individual. Negative utilitarianism would thus differ from other consequentialist views, such as negative prioritarianism or negative consequentialist egalitarianism. While these other theories would al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Negative Consequentialism
Negative consequentialism is a version of consequentialism, which is "one of the major theories of normative ethics." Like other versions of consequentialism, negative consequentialism holds that moral right and wrong depend only on the value of outcomes. That is, for negative and other versions of consequentialism, questions such as "what should I do?" and "what kind of person should I be?" are answered only based on consequences. Negative consequentialism differs from other versions of consequentialism by giving greater weight in moral deliberations to what is bad (e.g. suffering or injustice) than what is good (e.g. happiness or justice). Due to this, it can be considered an instance of what has been called "suffering-focused ethics", the view that the reduction of suffering has moral priority over any other possible duties we may think of. Negative Utilitarianism A specific type of consequentialism is utilitarianism, which says that the consequences that matter are those that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hegesias Of Cyrene
Hegesias ( el, Ἡγησίας; fl. 290 BC) of Cyrene was a Cyrenaic philosopher. He argued that eudaimonia (happiness) is impossible to achieve, and that the goal of life should be the avoidance of pain and sorrow. Conventional values such as wealth, poverty, freedom, and slavery are all indifferent and produce no more pleasure than pain. Cicero claims that Hegesias wrote a book called ἀποκαρτερῶν (''Death by Starvation''), which persuaded so many people that death is more desirable than life that Hegesias was banned from teaching in Alexandria. It has been thought by some that Hegesias was influenced by Buddhist teachings. Life Diogenes Laërtius describes Hegesias as the pupil of Paraebates, who was a pupil of Epitimedes, who was a pupil of Antipater of Cyrene, who was a pupil of Aristippus (c. 435 – c. 360 BC). He was the fellow-student of Anniceris, but he differed from Anniceris by presenting the system which Anniceris softened and improved in its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Negative Consequentialism
Negative consequentialism is a version of consequentialism, which is "one of the major theories of normative ethics." Like other versions of consequentialism, negative consequentialism holds that moral right and wrong depend only on the value of outcomes. That is, for negative and other versions of consequentialism, questions such as "what should I do?" and "what kind of person should I be?" are answered only based on consequences. Negative consequentialism differs from other versions of consequentialism by giving greater weight in moral deliberations to what is bad (e.g. suffering or injustice) than what is good (e.g. happiness or justice). Due to this, it can be considered an instance of what has been called "suffering-focused ethics", the view that the reduction of suffering has moral priority over any other possible duties we may think of. Negative Utilitarianism A specific type of consequentialism is utilitarianism, which says that the consequences that matter are those that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eradication Of Suffering
The eradication or abolition of suffering is the concept of using biotechnology to create a permanent absence of involuntary pain and suffering in all sentient beings. Biology and medicine The discovery of modern anesthesia in the 19th century was an early breakthrough in the elimination of pain during surgery, but acceptance was not universal. Some medical practitioners at the time believed that anesthesia was an artificial and harmful intervention in the body's natural response to injury. Opposition to anesthesia has since dissipated, however the prospect of eradicating pain raises similar concerns about interfering with life's natural functions. People who are naturally incapable of feeling pain or unpleasant sensations due to rare conditions like pain asymbolia or congenital insensitivity to pain have been studied to discover the biological and genetic reasons for their pain-free lives. A Scottish woman with a previously unreported genetic mutation in a FAAH pseudogene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antinatalism
Antinatalism or anti-natalism is the view that procreation is wrong. Antinatalists argue that humans should abstain from procreation because it is morally wrong. In scholarly and literary writings, various ethical arguments have been put forth in defense of antinatalism. Some of the earliest surviving formulations of the idea that it would be better not to have been born can be found in ancient Greece. The term antinatalism is in opposition to the term natalism, pronatalism or pro-natalism, and was used probably for the first time as the name of the position by Théophile de Giraud in his book ''L'art de guillotiner les procréateurs: Manifeste anti-nataliste''. The most prominent recent arguments in favor of antinatalism have been put forward by South African philosopher David Benatar. Arguments In religion Buddhism The teaching of the Buddha, among other Four Noble Truths_and_the_beginning_of_ Mahāvagga,_is_interpreted_by_Mahāvagga,_is_interpreted_by_Hari_Singh_Gour" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antifrustrationism
Antifrustrationism is an axiological position proposed by German philosopher Christoph Fehige, which states that "we don't do any good by creating satisfied extra preferences. What matters about preferences is not that they have a satisfied existence, but that they don't have a frustrated existence." According to Fehige, "''maximizers of preference satisfaction'' should instead call themselves ''minimizers of preference frustration''." What makes the world better is "not its amount of preference satisfaction, but the ''avoided preference frustration''." In the words of Fehige, "we have obligations to make preferrers satisfied, but no obligations to make satisfied preferrers." The position stands in contrast to classical utilitarianism, among other ethical theories, which holds that creating "satisfied preferrers" is, or can be, a good in itself. Antifrustrationism has similarities with, although it is different from, negative utilitarianism, the teachings of Buddha, Stoicism, philo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ahimsa
Ahimsa (, IAST: ''ahiṃsā'', ) is the ancient Indian principle of nonviolence which applies to all living beings. It is a key virtue in most Indian religions: Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.Bajpai, Shiva (2011). The History of India – From Ancient to Modern Times', Himalayan Academy Publications (Hawaii, USA), ; see pages 8, 98 Ahimsa is one of the cardinal virtues of Jainism, where it is the first of the Pancha Mahavrata. It is also the first of the five precepts of Buddhism. ''Ahimsa'' is a multidimensional concept,John Arapura in K. R. Sundararajan and Bithika Mukerji Ed. (1997), Hindu spirituality: Postclassical and modern, ; see Chapter 20, pages 392–417 inspired by the premise that all living beings have the spark of the divine spiritual energy; therefore, to hurt another being is to hurt oneself. ''Ahimsa'' is also related to the notion that all acts of violence has karmic consequences. While ancient scholars of Brahmanism already investigated and refined th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henryk Hiż
Henryk Hiż (8 October 1917 – 19 December 2006) was a Polish analytical philosopher specializing in linguistics, philosophy of language, logic, mathematics and ethics, active for most of his life in the United States, one of the youngest representatives of the Lwów–Warsaw school. A disciple of Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Hiż studied at the University of Warsaw. During the German occupation of Poland in the World War II, he participated in the Polish resistance movement as a cryptographer in the Home Army. In 1944 he took part in the Warsaw Uprising. In 1948, he defended his Ph.D. at Harvard University under W.V.O. Quine. In 1950, he permanently emigrated to the United States. He kept in touch with the American logical environment, including with Alfred Tarski, and maintained lively contact with the Polish academic community. He lectured at the University of Pennsylvania between 1960 and 1988. In 1976 he was a Guggenheim Fellow and a visiting fellow at the University of Cambrid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toby Ord
Toby David Godfrey Ord (born July 1979) is an Australian philosopher. He founded Giving What We Can in 2009, an international society whose members pledge to donate at least 10% of their income to effective charities, and is a key figure in the effective altruism movement, which promotes using reason and evidence to help the lives of others as much as possible. He is a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, where his work is focused on existential risk. His book on the subject ''The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity'' was published in March 2020. Early life and education Ord was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1979. He later attended the University of Melbourne, where he initially studied computer science. On completing his first degree, he switched to studying philosophy to pursue his interest in ethics, later stating: "At this stage I knew that I wanted to make a large positive difference in the world and it s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John W
John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Epistle of John, often shortened to 2 John * Third Epistle of John, often shortened to 3 John People * John the Baptist (died c. AD 30), regarded as a prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ * John the Apostle (lived c. AD 30), one of the twelve apostles of Jesus * John the Evangelist, assigned author of the Fourth Gospel, once identified with the Apostle * John of Patmos, also known as John the Divine or John the Revelator, the author of the Book of Revelation, once identified with the Apostle * John the Presbyter, a figure either identified with or distinguished from the Apostle, the Evangelist and John of Patmos Other people with the given name Religious figures * John, father of Andrew the Apostle and Saint Peter * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Pearce (philosopher)
David Pearce (born April 1959) is a British transhumanist philosopher. He is the co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association, currently rebranded and incorporated as Humanity+. Pearce approaches ethical issues from a lexical negative utilitarian perspective. Based in Brighton, England, Pearce maintains a series of websites devoted to transhumanist topics and what he calls the "hedonistic imperative", a moral obligation to work towards the abolition of suffering in all sentient life. His self-published internet manifesto, ''The Hedonistic Imperative'' (1995), outlines how pharmacology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and neurosurgery could converge to eliminate all forms of unpleasant experience from human and non-human life, replacing suffering with "information-sensitive gradients of bliss".Bostrom (2005) 15. Pear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Axiology
Axiology (from Greek , ''axia'': "value, worth"; and , '' -logia'': "study of") is the philosophical study of value. It includes questions about the nature and classification of values and about what kinds of things have value. It is intimately connected with various other philosophical fields that crucially depend on the notion of value, like ethics, aesthetics or philosophy of religion. It is also closely related to value theory and meta-ethics. The term was first used by Paul Lapie, in 1902, and Eduard von Hartmann, in 1908. The distinction between ''intrinsic'' and ''extrinsic'' value is central to axiology. One conceptualization holds that something is ''intrinsically valuable'' if it is ''good in itself'' or ''good for its own sake''. It is usually held that intrinsic value ''depends'' on certain features of the valuable entity. For example, an experience may be said to be intrinsically valuable ''by virtue of'' being (because it is) pleasurable or beautiful or "true" (e. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
