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I'm just going to say that I do not believe you are a "former leftist and atheist who's cringing at other atheists." This looks like the umpteenth iteration of a particular persona who keeps returning here.
The rejoinder you are complaining about is indeed a certain kind of smug gotcha line that's kind of cringe, but it's a rejoinder to an equally smug and cringeworthy argument. When theists try to play gotcha like that, they invite gotchas in return. This is why atheists who've gotten over their "arguing with evangelicals" phase usually aren't interested in that kind of debate. I'm fine actually talking about why I do or do not believe in God. But the sort of Christian who uses the "How can you be moral without God?" argument (usually followed by some variant of "You don't actually believe there is no God, you're just pretending") isn't interested in genuine discussion, but in seeing who can win the gotcha contest.
I think your Lizzo/Muslim analogy is kind of ridiculous. I don't personally care whether or not Ayan Hirsi Ali really believes in Christianity, but I can see why actual believers would care if someone is just wearing Christianity as a skin suit. You are overthinking the attraction to Islam; it's been pointed out here plenty of times that the left's infatuation with Islam isn't because of any intrinsic qualities of Islam (if it were practiced mostly by white people, they'd be condemning it as a Bronze age death cult). It's purely and solely because Islam is mostly practiced by brown third-worlders.
I think in a lot of cases, that is a sincere question. Most Christians are at least nominal deontologists, with God as the ultimate judge of what is right and wrong. If that’s the only moral system you know and can model, an atheist is going to seem like an ethically unmoored individual. In that context, the question isn’t a gotcha, but indicative of ignorance of utilitarianism.
Or a rejection there of.
Utilitarianism is an ideology predicated on demonstrably false premises that exists chiefly to help sociopaths, autists, and misanthropes reframe their negative behaviors as positive virtues.
As I have argued at length in the past, the so-called "AI alignment problem" has fuck-all to do with intelligence (artificial or otherwise) and is better understood as the "utilitarian alignment problem".
I really wonder how you're defining "utilitarianism" here such that other moral ideologies aren't predicated on demonstrably false premises. I rarely encounter critics of utilitarianism who can pass an ITT/Steel Man of what most actual utilitarians believe.
"Your belief system leads to horrible outcomes!" Well, thank god I'm a consequentialist so that I can adjust to edge cases and new knowledge.
There are many flavors of utilitarianism, but we use some simple version of it in life any time we're doing say cost-benefit analysis.
I have a hard time wrapping around any moral philosophy that isn't consequentialist, with rule utilitarianism being my preferred subcategory, in that if your beliefs aren't intended to lead to good outcomes (however those might be defined), what exactly are you trying to do?
Yes, there are many flavors of utilitarianism, but they are all predicated on the same fundamental lie. Namely that "utility" is both quantifiable and fungible. IE that there is some sort of commutative quality or equivalence between one person being x amount "worse" off and another being x amount "better" off.
The thing about reality is that it often forces us to make choices about tradeoffs where it is not really possible to assign particular numerical values in any "objective" sense.
Recognizing that doesn't defeat utilitarianism anymore than it does economics. We assign numerical values under uncertainty out of necessity all the time. We make the craziest things fungible. Fuzzy math tends to be a lot better than no math.
I'd argue utilitarianism is far more honest in its predicates than e.g. the lie that there are supernatural powers that dictate what the rules are or what virtue is. And I'll reiterate that no other moral philosophy has some immunity to weaknesses and fail modes on edge cases.
Sure, but but I'll readily accuse utilitarians of not just using fuzzy math, but no math at all. The supposedly mathematical nature of the philosophy is entirely a sham. No numerical values, no matter how fuzzy or how broadly bounded by uncertainty bars, are ever assigned, other than "number of people affected".
"Too much fake math" vs. "no math at all." Well okay then.
Of which utilitarians do you speak? You're gonna have to cite specific cases for me to give any coherent response. There are certainly bad utilitarians out there with whom I disagree--SBF being perhaps the near-perfect case of being so good at math and yet so bad at basic decision theory (on top of the fraud).
Not every moral quandary requires particular math beyond considering general outcomes and scale, relative to alternatives.
Personally, I think a combo of secular humanism + rule utilitarianism + Tyler Cowen's "economic growth plus human rights" does the job.
Can you give me an example of utilitarians applying mathematics to calculate anything broadly resembling utilons, beyond "number of humans affected"? Any examples of quantification they use?
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