| The world destruction argument is originally used to attack negative utilitarianism.Although it is used to attack negative utilitarianism,it causes serious trouble for classical utilitarianism.Negative utilitarianism is a branch of utilitarianism.Negative utilitarianism emphasizes the moral value of eliminating suffering and negates the moral value of increasing pleasure.This theoretical basis gives it two competitive advantages within the internal school of utilitarianism.First,it fits with the moral intuition of many that liberating people from suffering makes more moral sense than increasing happiness.Second,it solves the philosophical problem of Derek Parfit’s repugnant conclusion.However,while this theory has these two advantages,it also has some serious problems,the most serious of which is called the world destruction argument.Since the immediate destruction of the world is considered a confirmatory way to eliminate all suffering,some argue that this makes it morally right to destroy the world immediately according to negative utilitarianism.There have been several responses to this question.However,I think they are all problematic.In addition,Simon Knutsson has demonstrated that the destruction of the world can not only be used as a way to reduce pain,but also as one of the ways to increase happiness in the world.Therefore,it also constitutes the trouble to classical utilitarianism.I’m trying to argue,based on empirical research in psychology,that there are multiple levels of cognitive gaps between our judgments of other people’s pain and pleasure,and I’m trying to distinguish between the factors that contribute to pain and the state of pain itself,and on that basis,to argue that most people don’t have pain in their lives that is denied by negative utilitarianism.In addition,I also try to explain that we should adopt an attitude of psychological reductionism towards the identity of people.However,such a reduction dose not sacrifices the characteristics of psychological connectedness between temporary slices of persons and their own feelings before and after them,thus avoiding the problem of prophylactically killing people who might be in pain,which is a form of trade-off.After dealing with the destruction of the world argument,I take a somewhat weaker defensive position,acknowledging that while negative utilitarianism does not advocate actively killing people,it does not deny that human death itself is bad.Such values may only be accepted by a small number of people.Finally,I also try to show that although my argument can defend both negative utilitarianism and classical utilitarianism,the strength of the defense is not the same.Combined with the advantages of negative utilitarianism mentioned earlier,negative utilitarianism is therefore probably a theory that deserves more attention.My discussion also involves an analysis of the relationship between pain and pleasure and so on. |
