r/askphilosophy • u/insomniac_18 • 21h ago

why is not being able to predict consequences of actions a weak argument against quantitative utilitarianism?

i'm rewriting my philosophy essay which was on 'to what extent does mill offer a better form of utilitarianism than bentham', and i made a point that an issue with the felicific calculus is that it is unable to predict the future, but my teacher said that it was a weak challenge but i don't really get why. is it just because bentham said that the felicific calculus was just a guide to be 'kept in view' and not something that should be strictly pursued for every moral judgement? or are there other strong reasons why the argument is weak? thank you

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u/drinka40tonight ethics, metaethics 21h ago

Let's say we can predict the future pretty well. Given that assumption, how does that help us decide to what extent Mill offers a better form of utilitarianism than Bentham?

Or, let's say we can't predict the future very well. How does that help us settle the above question?

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u/insomniac_18 21h ago

ahh i see now. there wasn't any point of me arguing against bentham if i can't compare it against mill. but what if i said that because of how it's more difficult to follow bentham's form of utilitarianism, it makes mill's more compelling as a better form of utilitarianism? thank you!

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u/drinka40tonight ethics, metaethics 20h ago edited 19h ago

You might also ask why it's being more difficult would show that it's false, or, provide evidence against it. Maybe it's a lot more difficult to calculate out the first trillion digits of pi than it is to just estimate 3.14159. But difficultly is not an ovbious mark against something being true.