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Strong Utilitarian

Weak Utilitarian

Indifferent/Don't Know

Oppose Utilitarianism

[penguinofhonor]

Mostly meaning that you cannot get pleasure from the suffering of others as it doesn't minimize evil. I state that because most people don't seem to get it.

I think when most people hear 'Only doing things for maximum pleasure' they think of their own pleasure, and see how it could cause massive suffering to others, and think that it must be bad.
1. No. The point of utilitarianism is that because of the suffering of others, you do not do it. It brings more suffering than happyness to society as a single entity.
2. If your worried about the suffering of others, then such actions would not bring you pleasure, and you have a very shallow view of yourself.

Yeah, this is put pretty well. I'm not entirely sure what you meant by the second point though.

One of my few criticisms of utilitarianism lies in something most people don't even know about - in response to the criticisms that utilitarianism doesn't distinguish intellectual pleasure as superior to physical/non-intellectual pleasure, Mill goes and does some philosophy magic and comes to the conclusion that intellectual pleasures are, in fact, better. To me, this just reeks of "philosophy is written by educated white upper-class men for educated white upper-class men" syndrome. I've taken a "Dude, if you enjoy it and it's not hurting anyone else then you can go ahead and do it" attitude for a while now.

Of course, this is from Utilitarianism itself, and might not really be a core belief of the philosophy. I haven't actually read much about Utilitarianism besides Mill himself.

[Max White]

Ah, philosophy, the annoying parody of logic.

[Chaoswizkid]

I don't think the description is necessarily complete. I've always understood the philosophy of Utilitarianism as sort of a "One life for a hundred is acceptable" sort of thing. Everyone works together for the benefit of their fellows, and if the situation should call for one to die so that others may live, an individual should willingly sacrifice his- or herself. Although your explanation could be extrapolated to cover this, it was just odd for me to see an explanation of Utilitarianism that didn't cover it.

I'd say that I'm a Strong Utilitarian, although that philosophy breaks down at smaller scales. Would I sacrifice myself for a single individual, or a small group of people? Perhaps. Part of it would be to logically determine who would have the greatest chance of success in life, but even that is likely only a reasoning placed on a deeper instinct for self-preservation. At larger scales, though, conviction in philosophy should be sufficient to override that instinct.

Still though, don't know. With how you explained it, I do indeed live by that philosophy (I would go through some pain or inconvenience of self to help or care for others) , but in extreme cases (sacrifice and such), I'm not sure I'd have that conviction (and let's hope it never comes to that).

[Grek]

And what would you do with someone who has a sacrifice complex? A person who wishes to suffer altruistically, so that others may be happy?

Preference utility! Instead of measuring the utility of an action (ie. its reletive goodness/badness) in terms how much pleasure/suffering it causes, you measure it in terms of how much everyone involved in the utility calculation prefers the results of the action that is being measured.

It also prevents the rather obvious failure mode of maximizing pleasure by electrically stimulating the pleasure centres of the brain and minimizing suffering by lobotomizing the bits of the brain that process suffering.

[kaijyuu]

Ah, moral philosophy, the annoying parody of logic.

Fixed that for ya.