How many deaths would have been an acceptable price for abolition of slavery?

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

At what point would the deaths have outweighed the rather extreme negative effects of slavery? That would be your answer.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

At what point would the deaths have outweighed the rather extreme negative effects of slavery? That would be your answer.

Certainly you could come up with a negative economic value for slavery.  Adam Smith understood and wrote about it as early as 1775:  "From the experience of all ages and nations, I believe, that the work done by free men comes cheaper in the end than the work performed by slaves. Whatever work he does, beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own."  You could project the costs of purchasing and maintaining slaves, to be passed on to the consumer of the goods produced by their labor, onto a time period of one year.  You could also find a value of a human life for one year by assuming a worker's average contribution to the GDP and dividing it by the number of years that the human is able to work.  Divide the former by the latter and round to the nearest integer and you'll have your answer.

That seems to me rather like the description of measuring poetry on a page which Robin Williams' character had the students rip out of a literature book in Dead Poets Society.  Create a cartesian co-ordinate plane and place the importance of the poem on one axis and its artfulness on the other and determine the area of the rectangle created.  This will give you the value of the poem. 

That page deserved to be ripped out of the book.  Poetry, like the value of a human life, probably shouldn't be measured this way.  The morality which allows one to measure human lives in units of political goals seems as impoverished as the morality which encourages enslavement of men. 

I wasn't talking in an economic sense...

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I wasn't talking in an economic sense...

well, then, it's worse than I thought.  (actually, it was obvious that you weren't talking in an economic sense but I was being generous)  Since you're willing to bring it up:  If you're not measuring the economy of it, you must be trying to put a price on the intrinsic value of a human life vis-a-vis political goals. 

That's some serious Che Guevara shit right there.  ("¡¿Qué vale la vida de un hombre cuando está en peligro el futuro de la humanidad?!")  I'll wash my hands of this whole sordid business and leave it to the rest of you to figure out that price.

Believing that people should be pragmatic and try to reduce and avoid human suffering as much as possible is worse then valuing human lives merely by economic output? Your definition of reprehensible is f**ked up.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I wasn't talking in an economic sense...

well, then, it's worse than I thought.  (actually, it was obvious that you weren't talking in an economic sense but I was being generous)  Since you're willing to bring it up:  If you're not measuring the economy of it, you must be trying to put a price on the intrinsic value of a human life vis-a-vis political goals. 

That's some serious Che Guevara shit right there.  ("¡¿Qué vale la vida de un hombre cuando está en peligro el futuro de la humanidad?!")  I'll wash my hands of this whole sordid business and leave it to the rest of you to figure out that price.

Believing that people should be pragmatic and try to reduce and avoid human suffering as much as possible is worse then valuing human lives merely by economic output? Your definition of reprehensible is f**ked up.

You do realize the most effective way to end human suffering is to kill all humans, right?

Death is kind of a bad thing, though. And it also ends all good things in life.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I wasn't talking in an economic sense...

well, then, it's worse than I thought.  (actually, it was obvious that you weren't talking in an economic sense but I was being generous)  Since you're willing to bring it up:  If you're not measuring the economy of it, you must be trying to put a price on the intrinsic value of a human life vis-a-vis political goals. 

That's some serious Che Guevara shit right there.  ("¡¿Qué vale la vida de un hombre cuando está en peligro el futuro de la humanidad?!")  I'll wash my hands of this whole sordid business and leave it to the rest of you to figure out that price.

Believing that people should be pragmatic and try to reduce and avoid human suffering as much as possible is worse then valuing human lives merely by economic output? Your definition of reprehensible is f**ked up.

You do realize the most effective way to end human suffering is to kill all humans, right?

Death is kind of a bad thing, though. And it also ends all good things in life.

Why is death a bad thing? Dead people don't suffer (unless you believe in hell, which I don't think you do), so obviously it can't be on account of suffering.

An end to consciousness. Not existing is kind of awful. It prevents feeling anything. No love, no care, no pleasure, no drive. Nothing.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I just tore apart utilitarianism in the class I teach. I'm grateful I got this opportunity.

Really? How?

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I just tore apart utilitarianism in the class I teach. I'm grateful I got this opportunity.

Really? How?

I didn't have to do much, honestly. Mostly I just opened it up for discussion and the students came up with the most relevant remarks themselves. Occasionally I asked some follow-up questions to nudge them.

I'm not convinced it was as much of a "tearing apart" as you think.

Or maybe actual utilitarianism isn't what I think it is. I don't put the most scrutiny into labels for this kind of thing.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Or maybe actual utilitarianism isn't what I think it is. I don't put the most scrutiny into labels for this kind of thing.

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Essentially, it's the theory that good consists in maximizing aggregate pleasure.

Most of my students could see what the problems with this theory are. I'm curious if you can.

You're aware that "pleasure" is a lot more broad then just food, sex, etc, right?

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Or maybe actual utilitarianism isn't what I think it is. I don't put the most scrutiny into labels for this kind of thing.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Essentially, it's the theory that good consists in maximizing aggregate pleasure.

Most of my students could see what the problems with this theory are. I'm curious if you can.

You're aware that "pleasure" is a lot more broad then just food, sex, etc, right?

Yes.

So, tell me, what is your problem with it.