Reddit reviews Utilitarianism

I think you will learn the most by reading five textbooks, such as A History of Philosophy, volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; or something like Metaphysics: The Fundamentals, The Fundamentals of Ethics, Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, and An Introduction to Political Philosophy.

If what you have in mind is more of a "Great Books" program to get your feet wet with some classic works that are not too difficult, you could do a lot worse than:

• Plato's Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, often published together under the title The Trial and Death of Socrates. Socrates is so important that we lump together all Greek philosophers before him as "the Presocratics," and this cycle of dialogues is a great window on who he was and what he is famous for.
  
• The Basic Works of Aristotle. "The philosopher of common sense" is not a particularly easy read. Cicero compared his writing style to "a flowing river of gold," but all the works he prepared for publication are gone, and what we have is an unauthorised collection of lecture notes written in a terse, cramped style that admits of multiple interpretations. Even so, one can find in Aristotle a very attractive system of metaphysics and ethics which played a major role in the history of philosophy, and holds up well even today.
  
• René Descartes, Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes is called the father of modern philosophy, not so much because modern philosophers have widely followed his particular positions (they haven't) but because he set the agenda, in a way, with his introduction of methodological scepticism.
  
• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. I think Elizabeth Anscombe had it right in judging Hume a "mere brilliant sophist", in that his arguments are ultimately flawed, but there is great insight to be derived from teasing out why they are wrong.
  
• If I can cheat just a little more, I will lump together three short, important treatises on ethics: Immanuel Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and Anscombe's paper "Modern Moral Philosophy".

> I would like to create this book, but don't know where to start.

That's alright, largely because such books actually exist. This is one of many such works created by real world thinkers within the philosophical field known as ethics.

Specifically, you are probably interested in material from what Wikipedia deems Normative Ethics, which as the page says are ethical theories dealing with figuring out general rules for defining right and wrong (for both actions and the agent that performs those actions; that is to say, to define what is the right thing to do, and what it means to be a good person). This is about as close to real world guidelines for what good and evil are as you can probably find, so it's probably the best place to start.

Word of warning: philosophy written by actual philosophers can be a touch dry for pleasure reading, so you may want to find and stick to the cliff notes (or equivalent) version when and where you can. That said, I think you'll find the ideas expressed by the history of normative ethics as precisely the sort of ideas you'd like to lift for your own use.

In Utilitarianism by Mill there is a distinction drawn between the intent of the action and the motive of the action. Unfortunately, the PDF version I can find does not have this exact response of Mill's to a criticism, but it is found in Chapter 2 under the objection against utilitarianism's standard.

In this exchange, the scenario is laid out "What if a tyrant's enemy throws himself into the ocean to keep from being captured by the tyrant? The tyrant saves him from drowning, however, with the motive of torturing him. Then we can see that the act of saving the person is a bad act, because of the motive." Mill disagrees, drawing a distinction between intention and motive. The tyrant's intention of recoverying the drowning man is to save him. Therefore, this act is, by itself, a good act. The intent to save someone is a good intent. However, the tyrant's motive, which is beyond that single intention speaks to the worth of the agent regardless of the action. And, in that way, we can say that the motive of saving the person is bad.

Going to your example under a similar lens, the act of murder is a bad one. It does not matter whether or not it is to save others. Your motive may be good, but your intent to murder is bad. One thing to think about with these sort of hypothetical examples is that we often do not actually think them all the way through; that is: we assume things we couldn't possibly know and ignore things we ought to know. In your example, how do you know that the person will murder other people and how is it such that your only recourse is to murder them first? There are a lot of assumptions drawn into this situation that make it not really a moral question, just a thought experiment that comes about maybe only as useful to define things, e.g. intent vs motive.

As to utilitarianism in general, /u/gildor1 links good resources. I'd also suggest the book Utilitarianism, this is the copy I own with that same exchange. It's really, really short. 64 pages. It's a good primer into what utilitarianism is and isn't from one of the most prominent utilitarians ever.

At least for Anarchists or other left-libertarians it should also be important to actually read up on some basic or even fundamental ethical texts given most political views and arguments are fundamentally rooted in morality (unless you're a orthodox Marxist or Monarchist). I'm sadly not familiar enough with applied ethics to link collections of arguments for specific ethical problems, but it's very important to know what broad system you're using to evaluate what's right or wrong to not contradict yourself.

At least a few very old texts will also be available for free somewhere on the internet like The Anarchist Library.

Some good intro books:

• The Fundamentals of Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau
  
• The Elements of Moral Philosophy by James and Stuart Rachels
  
• Ethics: A Very Short Introduction by Simon Blackburn
  
  Some foundational texts and contemporary authors of every main view within normative ethics:
  
  
• Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotles for Classic Virtue-Ethics. Martha Nussbaum would be a contemporary left-wing Virtue-Ethicist who has used Marx account of alienation to argue for Global Justice.
  
• Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel (or Emmanuel) Kant for Classic Deontology. Kantianism is a popular system to argue for anti-statism I believe even though Kant himself was a classical liberal. Christine Korsgaard would be an example of a contemporary Kantian.
  
• The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick for Classic Utilitarianism. People usually recommend Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill, but most contemporary Ethicists believe his arguments for Utilitarianism suck. 2 other important writers have been R. M. Hare and G. E. Moore with very unique deviations from classic Utilitarianism. A contemporary writer would be Peter Singer. Utilitarianism is sometimes seemingly leading people away from Socialism, but this isn't necessarily the case.
  
• Between Facts and Norms and other works by the contemporary Critical Theorist Jürgen Habermas may be particularly interesting to Neo-Marxists.
  
• A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. I know Rawls is a famous liberal, but his work can still be interpreted to support further left Ideologies. In his later works like Justice as Fairness: A Restatement you can see him tending closer to Democratic Socialism.
  
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche for... Nietzsche's very odd type of Egoism. His ethical work was especially influential to Anarchists such as Max Stirner, Emma Goldman or Murray Bookchin and also Accelerationists like Jean Baudrillard.
  
• In case you think moralism and ethics is just bourgeois propaganda maybe read something on subjectivism like Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong by J. L. Mackie
  
• Or if you want to hear a strong defense of objective morality read Moral Realism: A Defense by Russ Shafer-Landau orc

At the outset, please note that this topic is exceedingly slippery. I am convinced that the most efficient way to understand these issues is through the study of philosophy of ethics.

> Where do atheists get their [sense of] morality?

Nature, nurture, and the phenomenological self-model.

> What defines the "good" and "bad" that has
permeated much of human society?

Easy: notice that personal definitions of morality between individuals immersed in the same culture tend to strongly overlap (e.g., most moderns consider rape to be "bad").

From this considerable volume of data, it is fairly simple to construct principles that adequately generalize these working definitions, such as "promote happiness", and "mitigate pain".

> [If you're not caught, why not murder? Why donate to charity? Does might make right?]

These questions appear to have both practical and intuitive solutions.

What are you trying to understand?

> How do atheists tend to reconcile moral relativism?

What do you mean?

> Barring the above deconstructions, how do atheists account for morality?

Moral theories largely attempt to bridge the gap between descriptive facts and normative commands:

• Kant argued that norms are not discovered via our senses, but are simply axiomatic principles.
  
• Rawls argued that norms are the product of a hypothetical agreement in which all ideally rational humans would affirm certain values (Social Contract) if they didn't know their fate in advance (Veil Of Ignorance).
  
• Mill argued that norms are best expressed through the need to increase pleasure and decrease pain.
  
• Parfit argued that these three approaches don't really contradict one another.
  
• Nietzsche argued that norms and artistic tastes are the same.
  
• Mackie argued that norms are human inventions that include social welfare considerations.