[klipt]

Anything that causes huge suffering, like forcing eugenics on people, is obviously not utilitarian because suffering has negative utility.

Unless you mean things like parents choosing to screen for Down syndrome, which is not what most people call "eugenics" since it's completely voluntary.

[throwanem]

That's just, like, your utility function, maaaaaaan.

I joke, but that actually is the problem. I mean, look at you! Even trying to disclaim eugenics you can't manage not to espouse it, just in the "positive" or "voluntary" or "new eugenics" or "liberal eugenics" variety that bothers people less than all the others.

I mean, I get why a programmable system of ethics appeals to programmers, just as a mathematical one to mathematicians, and for like cause in both cases. But you are required to acknowledge reality has the permanent right of veto, not merely pay lip service to the concept of it possibly for the moment holding that privilege.

[klipt]

So you're saying it should be illegal to test for Down syndrome in utero?

Because that's a common practice in most developed countries. And it hasn't led to Nazi Germany in those countries.

[throwanem]

I'm saying you should own yourself a eugenicist and at least be honest about that, rather than strive to advance a heterodox and unappealing, actually rather amoral and inhuman, ideology through instrumental deceit. You certainly should not do so on the backs of parents facing what I understand can be one of a lifetime's more difficult decisions.

You know as well as I do suffering under utilitarianism has exactly the value the advocate of the moment cares to give it at the moment, whether that be negative, neutral, or vastly to the greater good. Why even attempt such a trivially obvious lie?

[klipt]

> parents facing what I understand can be one of a lifetime's more difficult decisions.

Do you believe that parents who choose to terminate a downs fetus are evil/utilitarian?

Or are the doctors who perform the testing/abortion the evil/utilitarian ones?

Or the lawmakers who allow such testing/abortion to be legal?

Where exactly is the responsibility for being evil/utilitarian in your mind?

[throwanem]

What? How does any of this follow from anything I've said? What's utilitarian about demanding a scapegoat for something that isn't even indictable?

I'm not criticizing parents' decisions, but yours. This specifically includes your using the sorrow of others, in this case parents faced with a harrowing dilemma, as an excuse for your own behavior, rather than demonstrate anything resembling the courage of your supposed convictions.

[klipt]

> I'm not criticizing parents' decisions, but yours.

I don't know man, if you think it's fine for parents to abort downs babies, I think that means you're the utilitarian.

You can try deny it, but in your heart of hearts you think it's fine to value avoiding the inconvenience of a downs baby higher than the value of a fetus's life.

That's pretty damn utilitarian.