Alternative to utilitarianism?

MayCaesar

I do not think utilitarianism is a good principle to live by. For one, no one can ever know what is "good" for others, and it is possible that your vision of what is good for the majority of people diverges from those people's vision. More so, even if someone claims that they know what is good for them, we know from our everyday experience that such a claim is almost always wrong, and even the most self-aware of us often act against our self-interest.

This is the practical consideration. The moral objection against utilitarianism I have is slightly different: it ultimately prescribes becoming a part of a hive and doing others' bidding, at the expense of one's own. I do not want humans to be ants striving for developing the hive and not having personal aspirations. To me, this is an abominable state of being, and any ideology that endorses it is morally problematic.

What I practice instead is what I would call "rational individualism" (not quite in Ayn Rand's definition of the term, albeit inspired by it). I think that every individual should prioritise their own well-being above anything else. This, however, does not mean that individuals are free to betray and backstab others and walk over them in order to achieve their goals. Rational individualists believe that human individuals gain the biggest satisfaction in life from improving their well-being by offering value to other people; it is the most sustainable and pragmatic way to live and consistently become better off. That conversely means that if someone wants/needs something from someone else, then they need to offer them something they value higher than that, otherwise they are being immoral.

Rational individualists do not see it as wrong/immoral to promote oneself through aggressive marketing. Shameless self-promotion such as "I am the best in the world at my craft, and paying me a lot of money would be the best choice you have made in your life" should be a standard behavioral mode of anyone striving for excellence. We believe that we really have a lot to give to other people, and we cannot do so without letting them know just how much they need us.
There is also nothing wrong with becoming extremely rich and "hoarding" the money. If you have earned something by giving tremendous value to others, then it is yours to keep, and what you do with it is completely up to you. Of course, we encourage philanthropy, as making the world a better place is always fulfilling - but if a billionaire refuses to partake in one, then it is his/her moral right.
What we do see as wrong is behavior demanding something in exchange for nothing: begging on the streets, advocating for forceful resource redistribution, feeling of guilt and shame over being better than others and employing self-defeating rhetoric in this regard... These things are despicable.
If a homeless person needs money urgently, then they should not beg random strangers for money. What they should do is this: offer something that is worth the money they request. Need $50 urgently? Offer to do people's laundry, cut their grass or water their flowers. Make some art and try to sell it. Share your life experience with people on a video and find a sponsor to make it viral, so you can cash in on ads. Do something that gives value to someone else, and then what you receive will be earned.

Now imagine if the society as a whole operated this way. If, instead of constantly worrying about how they do not have enough, people worried about how they can create more value for others. We would all be value-generating machines, and the world would brim with mutually beneficial interactions. Ironically, this mode of collective behavior would lead to a much better collective outcome, than focusing on maximising the collective outcome in the first place would.

This is the mistake a lot of utilitarians make: they think that everyone who does not want to benefit the collective at their own expense is heartless and arrogant. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are not heartless and arrogant; in fact, we care about other people very deeply. And that is why we want them to engage in more productive modes of behavior, and constantly educate them on how they can do that. We understand that just giving them money for free is a temporary fix, and they must learn to create value to other people consistently if they want to resolve their issues. Aside from that, we also do not believe that we "owe" them something by default, but we do genuinely want them to be better off, just not at someone else's expense. The world is not a zero sum game, and instead of redistributing, we should focus on creating. And everyone can create, they only need to do an inner search and study the people around them a bit, and they will definitely find something that other people value.

So I propose rational individualism as a better alternative to utilitarianism. Do not think about the collective; think about how you interact with the individual members of the collective. And encourage others to do the same. If enough people start doing that, then we will have a much better world to live in. And if not, then it was not meant to be, and the best you can do is practice these principles yourself, even if others do not.

대왕광개토

@MayCaesar ;
If a homeless person needs money urgently, then they should not beg random strangers for money. What they should do is this: offer something that is worth the money they request. Need $50 urgently? Offer to do people's laundry, cut their grass or water their flowers. Make some art and try to sell it. Share your life experience with people on a video and find a sponsor to make it viral, so you can cash in on ads. Do something that gives value to someone else, and then what you receive will be earned. 

> I do not think that homeless people have enough skill to make attractive artworks. Even if they had one, people will not try to buy homeless people's artworks when there are shops and artists that produce much better artworks. It is like people do not care about twentieth best product when they can easily get the top ten best products. Homeless people would not be able to create stuffs valuable enough to meet people's standards unless they get enough money to develop their skills(For example, a painter would need to buy canvases, paints, and brushes). 

 That conversely means that if someone wants/needs something from someone else, then they need to offer them something they value higher than that, otherwise they are being immoral.
 
>  What about severely mentally retarded people who are not able to offer things in exchange for the aids they get from others? Are they immoral then?

So I propose rational individualism as a better alternative to utilitarianism. Do not think about the collective; think about how you interact with the individual members of the collective. And encourage others to do the same. If enough people start doing that, then we will have a much better world to live in. And if not, then it was not meant to be, and the best you can do is practice these principles yourself, even if others do not.

> How about the situations where we have to choose between saving the small portion of population and saving the population except that small portion of population? For example, in the situation where there are ten people who must be sacrificed in order to save the humanity, how can rational individualism help us make the best decision? Isn't utilitarianism unavoidable in that case?

piloteer

 @대왕광개토

Maycaesars "rational individualism" doesn't seem to me to be leaving out any consideration for charity or individual choices to sacrifice ones own happiness for the sake of others happiness. What I gather from his description of individualism, it seems that he believes that charity is only truly charitable if it's done by choice, not if it's done because of some social construction of what is expected of us. If we are somehow forced to be charitable because that's what everybody expects from everybody, it takes the righteousness out of those charitable acts because they weren't done for the purpose of making others happy, they were done out of fear of not living up to societies standards. Truly charitable acts are done when an individual feels they would be happier themself if they could make someone else happier. I'm willing to bet Maycaesar believes that a truly charitable acts is actually for the sake of individual happiness, which has self satisfying intention in it. If we choose to make individual sacrifices for the sake of others happiness, it in turn makes us happier to know that we've made other happier. The true intention is still to make ourselves happier. 

Also, your argument about homeless people and art was excruciatingly shallow, and it hurt my eyes to have to read it. Art is for everybody, not just people who can afford to enjoy it or create it. It also doesn't take money to hone ones artistic skill, it takes patients and persistence.