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[Reelya]

Whereas to me, happiness and contentment are Good (capital G intended) and suffering is Bad.  Any conscious action taken by a moral actor to increase suffering or reduce happiness is Evil, and so too is any action to increase happiness or reduce suffering a Good one.  An action taken which results in one or the other without the intent to do so is consequentially good or evil, but not necessarily morally good or evil. Basic utilitarianism here, guys.

If I were to jump to extreme conclusions the way you did, I could imagine your outlook leading towards compulsory medication to ensure the maximization of chemicals that are biologically associated with happiness.  And I would bitterly fight such a motion.

Because happiness is not the same as fulfillment, and fulfillment is more important.  Happiness can be hollow. 

I love sitting around at home playing video games.  When I'm doing so, I am at least content, if not happy, the entire time, and not suffering.

I'm also about to go on my first serious vacation from work in over a year.  I'm not going to spend it sitting around playing video games.  I'm going to go kayaking/camping on a river for several days, where I will completely separate myself from the technology that I love, get sunburned, eaten up by bugs, physically exert myself, probably be really hungry at times but forced to ration food, etc.  I will not be maximizing the amount of happiness that I experience on my vacation by doing this.

But it will be many times more memorable than a vacation spent sitting around being blandly happy.

As much as I love sitting around playing video games as the most assured way for me to experience some happiness and minimize any suffering, those experiences are often the least memorable, adding the least enrichment to my life. 

Agreed.

Being a mathy-computer-programmy guy, the clearest example of this is in optimization functions. It's pretty easy to visualize. Graph "y = x^3-x^2" and imagine x is some input and y represents happiness. There's a local maximum to the left, and a global maximum off to the right. If you start on the left, with an iterative algorithm "increase happiness" you get stuck at the local maximum, and even if you're a bit further to the right, you get drawn to the local maximum and away from the global maximum. e.g. you have to go through the hard patch of lower happiness, because you have non-local information that there's a higher level of happiness possible, but it's only accessible through toil/relative suffering compared to the immediate happiness.

And that's what you can glean from optimizing a super-simple equation such as "y = x^3-x^2". In reality the equation of life is much more complex, and has many more local maximums / inversions and non-linear things going on. "local maximums" including things like drugs and drinking, gambling and immersion in video games. You feel worse when stopping doing them. This is why the formula "anything that increases happiness is good" doesn't work, because it's focused on the immediate "level of happiness" and having that "local/immediate" focus lets you get stuck in local maximums and miss out.

Also, any sort of mathematical utilitariannism comes up against classical arguments: say there's someone who likes dollars twice as much as everyone else. He gets 2x happiness per dollar than anyone. Should we give him all the dollars in the world, since that maximizes total happiness? e.g. some modest people won't miss a dollar as much as a greedy person enjoys getting the dollar, so to maximize total happiness we should tax wealth from the modest and give it to the greedy.

[Rowanas]

Sadly i'm at work, and therefore can't repeat the entire body of literature of utilitarianism, but in short -

Happiness here refers to peace, contentment and enjoyment of life (including the fulfillment of purpose), rather than purely physical or emotional pleasure.  Perfect utilitarianism requires a perfectly weighted algorithm for calculating the maximum happiness generated from any action, which is largely impossible.  An adequately weighted system attempts to provide everyone with a minimum global level of life enjoyment and focuses on the minimisation of unnecessary suffering (including but not limited to anguish, pain and grief), unnecessary here indicating suffering which does not yield a foreseeable net gain in happiness (and conversely, temporary happiness such as those described by SalmonGod or, less recently, Plato, that yield a net increase in suffering).  In a perfect utilitarian system, not only would happiness be increased, but it would be maximised, so that, over the foreseeable future, each person's happiness would be maximised to avoid taking actions which, as an opportunity cost, deprive that person of yet greater joys.

Non-harmful desires, such as the desire to be free (personally this seems a tremendously foolish thing to hold as your highest ideal, but there we go) could be considered by a perfect utilitarian algorithm and indulged so long as it yields the greatest possible happiness for all affected individuals.

SalmonGod, your previous point, about going camping and experiencing difficulties are an example of suffering that yield greater net happiness.  I go out and get myself thwacked at the weekends as often as possible. Sometimes it's muddy, too hot, exhausting and painful, but I do it because I experience total greater net happiness, both in the immediate because it's fun and I build emotional bonds with others, but also in the foreseeable long-term, because it's exercise and trains several skills which I take further pride in possessing.  What you described in your meths post was hedonism, which is just short-sighted, egocentric (even nihilist) utilitarianism.

I should've been working. Post over.

[Dunamisdeos]

If I purposefully ignore the concept of right and wrong, they just go away and I can't be held responsible for the things I do or say. I don't actually the mean the things I say, but I do say them constantly and defend them in detail. Your reactions don't matter to me, but I conversations with everyone I can about things I know will elicit a reaction.
 
I'm just a cool woke dude, you wouldn't understand.

[Rolan7]

SalmonGod, your previous point, about going camping and experiencing difficulties are an example of suffering that yield greater net happiness.  I go out and get myself thwacked at the weekends as often as possible. Sometimes it's muddy, too hot, exhausting and painful, but I do it because I experience total greater net happiness, both in the immediate because it's fun and I build emotional bonds with others, but also in the foreseeable long-term, because it's exercise and trains several skills which I take further pride in possessing.  What you described in your meths post was hedonism, which is just short-sighted, egocentric (even nihilist) utilitarianism.

Same.  Not so scheduled, but same.  I walk myself until the well runs dry (including the long walk back).  I do that whenever my unscheduled work allows me.  I wish for the schedule I once knew, but that is a luxury.  One my friends mostly don't have, either.

"Right" and "wrong" are subjective, Dunamisdeos, and that's the world we live in.  Responsibility is *each other*, holding us to a shared social contract.  Ideally, one where we are allowed to live in peace and equal opportunity.  That's my ideal, anyway - Libertarians would simply say "peace", and I understand their perspective.

[Dunamisdeos]

There is a better and a worse thing to do at all times. Noting that people have different opinions on what is the correct thing to do does not means the concept is irrelevant, it just means we've noticed that other people's opinions exist. It does not release us from the consequence or responsibility of our actions, and it certainly does not exempt oneself from criticism. There are times when an action can be considered wholly wrong on the basis that it has negative repercussions on everyone involved, or on all but the person performing said action. The actual world we live in is one where your actions can absolutely be (and will be) reviewed as acceptable and judged thereof.
 
Don't get me wrong it is an important concept that one's personal definition of good or right can not be applied to all people in all situations, but it's hardly a grand revelation and is trotted out too often as a get out of jail free card to avoid having to hold one's own opinions up to the light of scrutiny.

There your terror for today: everyone is always judging you, and they aren't always wrong to do so.

[Loud Whispers]

Can't be judged by people if they don't know you exist

[Maximum Spin]

Can't be judged by people if you killed them all and ate their children.

[Loud Whispers]

"No survivors means no witnesses" - Eversor job description

[bloop_bleep]

Keep in mind that right and wrong are not completely subjective, since for any given thing there exists an average of what the entirety of humanity feels about the thing. We don't get to decide how human brains are wired. Which is why we can almost unilaterally agree that, for example, murder (for some value of murder) is bad.

[Maximum Spin]

Keep in mind that right and wrong are not completely subjective, since for any given thing there exists an average of what the entirety of humanity feels about the thing. We don't get to decide how human brains are wired. Which is why we can almost unilaterally agree that, for example, murder (for some value of murder) is bad.

I've heard this argument before, but it doesn't seem to be quite up to snuff. The variation in what both individuals and cultures consider right or wrong is enormous, across both time and space. Even your example admits this implicitly: "for some value of murder" reduces murder to its most general definition, "a killing that is bad"; we may all agree that a killing that is bad is bad, but we certainly don't agree on what that means in practice. I can find you two people whose definitions of murder are completely mutually exclusive.

[Loud Whispers]

I've heard this argument before, but it doesn't seem to be quite up to snuff. The variation in what both individuals and cultures consider right or wrong is enormous, across both time and space. Even your example admits this implicitly: "for some value of murder" reduces murder to its most general definition, "a killing that is bad"; we may all agree that a killing that is bad is bad, but we certainly don't agree on what that means in practice. I can find you two people whose definitions of murder are completely mutually exclusive.

That and there are cultures & subcultures who have had or still have or have developed completely nonchalant or supportive attitudes towards murder

Very much violence as a matter of first resort types of people

[Rowanas]

After hearing Maximum Spins' ideas on the morality of suffering, I'm hesitant to agree, but I do agree nonetheless.

[Rolan7]

Keep in mind that right and wrong are not completely subjective, since for any given thing there exists an average of what the entirety of humanity feels about the thing. We don't get to decide how human brains are wired. Which is why we can almost unilaterally agree that, for example, murder (for some value of murder) is bad.

Right, certain things are "natural" for humans, in a sense.

There is a better and a worse thing to do at all times. Noting that people have different opinions on what is the correct thing to do does not means the concept is irrelevant, it just means we've noticed that other people's opinions exist. It does not release us from the consequence or responsibility of our actions, and it certainly does not exempt oneself from criticism.

I want objective morality to exist, but I still don't believe in it yet.
(Maybe because I sometimes consider objective morality to be a terrifying concept?  Occasionally even scarier than judgement by my peers?  Thread appropriate)

There are times when an action can be considered wholly wrong on the basis that it has negative repercussions on everyone involved, or on all but the person performing said action. The actual world we live in is one where your actions can absolutely be (and will be) reviewed as acceptable and judged thereof.

This is in line of my claim that good and evil are subjective, judged by our peers.
Which is terrifying.
No, really, it is horrible to think about.

Don't get me wrong it is an important concept that one's personal definition of good or right can not be applied to all people in all situations, but it's hardly a grand revelation and is trotted out too often as a get out of jail free card to avoid having to hold one's own opinions up to the light of scrutiny.

It's no grand revelation because it's a primal instinct that is in all of our hindbrains.  Which is to say, our brains.
Most people don't act out of desperation.  But the survival-instinct is still there, for when a crisis occurs.

[LordBaal]

Im kind of terrified on how this thread is going but I can't look away, its like seeing a monkey swallow a primed granade.

[Loud Whispers]

It has always struck me as disturbing when religions promise an end to suffering.

Buddhism is pretty on the nail though

They don't promise an end to suffering, so much as the promise that suffering will end. But then also that everything will end too