This is the utilitarianism I'm talking about in this article. Desiric, energetic, and monetary are all merely estimates of the true utility (hedonic utility). Desiric is your prediction of how good an action will be for you. Energetic and monetary are both quantifications for how much (of your time or money) you would trade for the desired outcome. Reproductive utility is an interesting concept, but I would view the experience of the individual as different and separate from the propagation of a gene or set of genes. Genes have no experience and so should not be directly considered in a moral framework. Of course, it is relevant since if humans die out, there will be no more human experiences to add to the total utility achieved.
> How could we know the net hedonic effect
How we can know the hedonic effect is a secondary point. The primary point of utilitarianism is that maximizing what you're calling hedonic utility is good. It can be perfectly valid to say that something that leads to more total future utility is better than something that leads to less, while at the same time having no way to apply that knowledge/theory. It would potentially be a useless theory if so, but its uselessness wouldn't make it any less true.
In any case, we do have ways of measuring. For one, you can ask someone how they feel. We can measure neurological pain and pleasure and other sensations. We can see how people act. All of these things plus the fact that as humans we are all incredibly similar to each other allows us to be reasonably accurate in many cases. In any case, being able to be accurate to some degree at all is all we need to be able to apply utilitarian theory.
> You must be hungry to enjoy food.
This is not true. But even if it was, hunger is not pain. Hunger may be unpleasant in the extreme, but usually it is simply a signal that has no significnat negative impact. The pleasure from eating is far greater than the displeasure from hunger.
> If you are cold, then you feel pleasure from warming up, but you feel no pleasure from simply being at a normal body temperature.
Anyone who enjoys a hot tub or hot shower can tell you that it is not simply while warming up that you enjoy it.
> our ancestors were not miserable because they lived in premodern conditions.
The literature including religious literature talking about the misery inherent in life is evidence to the contrary. Surely I agree that life was not constant misery. But it seems silly to believe without evidence that their harder lives weren't often miserable more often than ours.
> Beautiful people are not happier than ugly people.
I do believe you are asserting these things without evidence.
I do not believe that pain and pleasure balance out. But I'll leave it there since your argument doesn't rely on that belief.
> It would be very convenient if value was a substance that could be quantified, measured, compared, given, received, aggregated, produced and consumed — but it isn’t.
These things are regularly and frequently quantified, measured, compared, and aggregated. The very concept of justice is meaningless without these things. It seems we disagree quite deeply on this subject.
Related: https://thewaywardaxolotl.blogspot.com/2025/03/a-critique-of-utility.html
> hedonic utility
This is the utilitarianism I'm talking about in this article. Desiric, energetic, and monetary are all merely estimates of the true utility (hedonic utility). Desiric is your prediction of how good an action will be for you. Energetic and monetary are both quantifications for how much (of your time or money) you would trade for the desired outcome. Reproductive utility is an interesting concept, but I would view the experience of the individual as different and separate from the propagation of a gene or set of genes. Genes have no experience and so should not be directly considered in a moral framework. Of course, it is relevant since if humans die out, there will be no more human experiences to add to the total utility achieved.
> How could we know the net hedonic effect
How we can know the hedonic effect is a secondary point. The primary point of utilitarianism is that maximizing what you're calling hedonic utility is good. It can be perfectly valid to say that something that leads to more total future utility is better than something that leads to less, while at the same time having no way to apply that knowledge/theory. It would potentially be a useless theory if so, but its uselessness wouldn't make it any less true.
In any case, we do have ways of measuring. For one, you can ask someone how they feel. We can measure neurological pain and pleasure and other sensations. We can see how people act. All of these things plus the fact that as humans we are all incredibly similar to each other allows us to be reasonably accurate in many cases. In any case, being able to be accurate to some degree at all is all we need to be able to apply utilitarian theory.
> You must be hungry to enjoy food.
This is not true. But even if it was, hunger is not pain. Hunger may be unpleasant in the extreme, but usually it is simply a signal that has no significnat negative impact. The pleasure from eating is far greater than the displeasure from hunger.
> If you are cold, then you feel pleasure from warming up, but you feel no pleasure from simply being at a normal body temperature.
Anyone who enjoys a hot tub or hot shower can tell you that it is not simply while warming up that you enjoy it.
> our ancestors were not miserable because they lived in premodern conditions.
The literature including religious literature talking about the misery inherent in life is evidence to the contrary. Surely I agree that life was not constant misery. But it seems silly to believe without evidence that their harder lives weren't often miserable more often than ours.
> Rich men are not happier than poor men
I noted things that show how this is false in my article on welfare. https://substack.com/@governology/p-151568018 I know of at least 2 studies that show it to be false: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2016976118
> Beautiful people are not happier than ugly people.
I do believe you are asserting these things without evidence.
I do not believe that pain and pleasure balance out. But I'll leave it there since your argument doesn't rely on that belief.
> It would be very convenient if value was a substance that could be quantified, measured, compared, given, received, aggregated, produced and consumed — but it isn’t.
These things are regularly and frequently quantified, measured, compared, and aggregated. The very concept of justice is meaningless without these things. It seems we disagree quite deeply on this subject.
Wow, I didn't expect such an in-depth response, but your effort is commendable. We disagree on so much that I'm not even sure where to begin...