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    Spencer's deductive hedonism fails as a moral system — Carmelics
    Home/Virtue Ethics
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    Spencer's deductive hedonism fails as a moral system

    ConsequentialismVirtue Ethics
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Spencer grounds moral rules in evolutionary adaptation, but evolution selects for reproductive fitness, not hedonic experience, making pleasure epiphenomenal to his own foundational mechanism.
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    • 2.G.E. Moore's open question argument demonstrates that identifying 'good' with 'pleasurable' commits a naturalistic fallacy, undermining Spencer's deductive bridge from evolutionary facts to hedonic norms.
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    • 3.A deductive system deriving ought from is cannot survive Hume's guillotine; Spencer's derivation of pleasure-maximizing duties from biological facts inherits this foundational logical gap.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Sidgwick demonstrated in Methods of Ethics that hedonism requires interpersonal utility comparisons that cannot be resolved without an independent standard Spencer's system lacks.
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    • 2.Spencer's absolute moral rules presuppose static human nature, but his own evolutionary framework entails that human psychology and hedonic responses are perpetually in flux, making permanent rules self-defeating.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Deductive hedonism requires a general science of the causes of pleasure and pain
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    • 2.No general science of the causes of pleasure and pain exists
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    • 3.Without such a science, universal and indefeasible moral rules for promoting happiness cannot be formulated
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    Topics

    Virtue EthicsConsequentialism

    Connections

    3 topics

    Truth & Knowledge1 linkedSkepticism1 linkedMoral Responsibility1 linked

    Related

    A deductive system deriving ought from is cannot survive Hume's guillotine; Spen...Deductive hedonism requires a general science of the causes of pleasure and painG.E. Moore's open question argument demonstrates that identifying 'good' with 'p...No general science of the causes of pleasure and pain exists
    +4 moreShow less
    Sidgwick demonstrated in Methods of Ethics that hedonism requires interpersonal ...Spencer grounds moral rules in evolutionary adaptation, but evolution selects fo...

    Similar

    Spencer's appeal to ideal moral rules for perfectly moral human beings...90%Leibniz's theory of the good cannot be characterized as mere hedonism79%Sidgwick holds evaluative hedonism but explicitly rejects psychologica...79%Ross considered hedonism a dead end and did not seriously engage with ...77%

    Source

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    SEP: spencer
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    For Sidgwick, Spencer’s utilitarianism was merely seemingly deductive even though it purported to be more scientific and rigorously rational than “empirical” utilitarianism. However, deductive hedonism fails because, contrary to what deductive hedonists like Spencer think, no general science of the causes of pleasure and pain exists, insuring that we will never succeed in formulating universal, indefeasible moral rules for promoting happiness. Moreover, Spencer only makes matters worse for himse
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    Details

    Spencer's absolute moral rules presuppose static human nature, but his own evolu...
    Without such a science, universal and indefeasible moral rules for promoting hap...
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit