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comment by aeromill
aeromill  ·  3440 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Repugnant Conclusion

>So "utility" is both "happiness" and "something that's useful towards the end of happiness".

No. Utility is the usefulness in achieving the end. And the end is happiness. And achieving the end well is aggregating a lot of happiness. Therefore high utility is high happiness. For that reason philosophers equate utility with happiness. It's a definition specific to philosophy.

Hopefully that clears things up.





shiranaihito  ·  3440 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You're still equating it with both the end and the means towards it. In other words, you're still not making sense.

aeromill  ·  3440 days ago  ·  link  ·  

No.

The Utility is the how well it accomplishes the end. It's a way of describing how good the means are. The end is happiness. I'm not saying that utility is the means. I'm saying that utility is how it's measured.

shiranaihito  ·  3440 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Here's what you originally said:

    utility, especially for utilitarians, is not usefulness, it's happiness. It's called utility because it's useful towards the end of happiness

But now you're saying.. something different that I can't be bothered to parse right now.

I give up.