1.

Util Afterlab
a. Utilitarianism
i. Moral action is action that produces most good
ii. S ome believe self-enclosed version of good
a. Moral claims by af
2. Non-consequentialist but utilitarian
intrinsically good
a. i.e. act of ending slaverydoesnt
matter if it actually happens, but this
is good because the process is good
b. Consequentialism
i. Notion of good which relies on outcomes
1. To not be a consequentialist means that you
dont care about the outcomes
c. Rationalist Paradigm
i. Hobbestreat everyone equally
ii. We all want to find out a basic way to live with
each other
iii. Do we view humanity as essentially bad or good?
iv. Evolved as advice to people ruling countries
d. Policy makers making decisionsif we enter in a
common dialogue, outcome will be mutually
advantageousgreater good utilitarianism
i. Things are not zero sum
1. Not that in order for someone to win,
someone must lose
ii. Pathosappeals in debate roundsextinction
outweightseveryone involves
e. Common objections to util as a doctrine
i. Rejects intuitive moral claims
1. i.e. killing one person for greater good (i.e.
The Lottery)
2. some things are not justified in the name of
the greater good
a. i.e. rapelike raping a bunch of
people for saving a bunch of people
b. see book The Drowned and the Saved
by Primo Levi
i. example of util
3. util denies the humanity of individuals
a. treats individuals as a means to an
end
b. humanists think that qualities if taken
away makes somebody no longer
human

ii.

iii.

iv.

v.

i. goal of society is to create social

arrangements so more people
can use benefits of being human
ii. human is a social concept that
has evolved recently
how do utilitarians deal with these objections?
1. They believe there is a distinction between
these hypotheticals and hypotheticals in
debate rounds
2. When we make these public decisions on
behalf of the USFG, you have a
responsibility to calculate the greater good
so try to act as a calculator
a. Treat everyones life as equal to your
own and make decisions with this in
mind
3. Moral absoluteanything that you say we
do, in reality you do worse (Isaac evidence)
4. If everyone has diferent intuitive morality
plans, then we cant really discuss this
Utilitarianisms golden arrow
1. Idea that it is impossible not to be utilitarian
(Scandler)
a. You cant not want to maximize the
greater good
b. When you reach this point, then it
seems like pure util can solve
anything
2. Problem is that in practice, not all of us are
like that
a. Util can be used for a justification for
doing things i.e. Hitler
b. The science of decision-making is
really young
Side Constraint Morality/Rule Utilitiarianism
1. If everyone agrees that something should
never happen, then it should just be a
permanent and universal side constraint on
those actions
2. Maximizing greatest good for greatest
number, but not about a single act
a. We should just the moral value of a
ruled, governed action
Moral absolutismpeople who wont change their
stance if their mind is already made up on what is
good

1. Baudrillard Afterlab
a. An interest in objects
i. Technical and decorative creates systems of meaning
b. The fundamentals of capitalism
i. What is capital?
1. Not a thingit is a circulation
2. Exists in 3 states
a. Monetary form
b. Productive form
c. Commodity form
3. 2 people participate in circulations
a. Capitalists and laborers
4. Labor begins with a commodity
a. Labor = commodity
b. Then they try to sell itturn it into
productive capital
c. Then you get paid
d. Then it goes back to commodity by
buying stuf (commodity)
5. Monetary capital starts capitalist circulation
a. Then procure productive capital
b. Then produce commodities
c. Then sell commodities for more money
6. Covered by value exchange
a. Use value
i. Utility of consuming the good
1. More subjective component
how useful it is to you
b. Exchange value
i. Value of object in relation to other
commodities
c. Money = the empty commodity
i. Price is the actualization of
exchange value
1. Measures the value of a
commodity against money
c. Baudrillards Kritik of Capitalism
i. Its based of the metaphysics of production
1. Metaphysics = a system of thought that bases
its arguments on an abstract principle that
cant be shown to be valid
2. Metaphysics of production
a. The notion that the individual who is both
separate and part of the world is one who
possesses transcendent needs, wants,

and desires; and to fulfill those,

manipulates those objects according to
their use value
3. Problem is that the notion of needs is
ideological
a. To say that there is a transcended need
requires defining the essence of a person
divorced from the social environment
4. Needs are defined by the internal logic of the
system
a. Theyre only needs because the system
needs them
b. if the system could function w/o feeding
its workers, there would be no bread.
i. The system = consumer
capitalism
c. Premise of needs assumes an individual
separated from others
i. Individual will break down these
things in order to survive and
reproduce
1. Assumes a state of scarcity
and competition for these
resources
a. Problem with this is
that these are efects
of cultural practice, not
causes
b. Rather, youre born into
a community with
valued norms and a
language, and whether
you care about that
stuf is just a question
of how good that
community is at
producing individuals
2. Exist separate of cultural
meaning
ii. Capitalist societies consumers
are produced
d. Baudrillards Kritik of Marxism
i. The form of his kritik occurs in other areas, such as
media, feminism, etc.

ii. Marxism says that the problem w/ capitalism is that it

obscures the social relations that result in the
exploitation of workers
1. Exchange value = Baudrillards problem
a. Doesnt like the way capitalism exploits
the meaning of commodities
i. Marx doesnt talk about how
representational practices impact
this relationship in society
1. Political economy (the term
used for studying production
and trade and their relations
to things like law, custom,
govt, how wealth is
distributed, etc.)
ii. Marx has an issue with an oppress
exchange value, but Marx still
thinks that objects have a use
value
iii. **Baudrillard basically thinks that
Marxism is incomplete because he
thinks that use value is just
ideology
2. Systems of reps
a. The essential part of the process in which
meaning is transferred between
members of a cultural society
i. Via the use of signs, languages,
images, etc
b. How does language work?
i. Made up of signs
ii. Signs are units of meaning
1. Signifieracoustic sound or
visual mark thats devoid of
meaning (sound)
2. Signifieda concept of
meaning associated with the
signifier (meaning)
iii. Fixed nature of the relationship
between signifier and signified is
wrong
1. Language is fluidsignifiers
are never fixed; plurality of
meaning

a. Makes language a
political, not technical
thing
c. Parallel structure between economic
value and signification
i. The signifier gets its use from the
signifier
ii. **Use value and signifies are like
artifacts of exchange value and
systems of representations
1. Exchange value makes social
convention of use values
2. Signifiers make social
convention of signifies
3. Simulation models
a. They are produced by exchange value
and signifiers
i. Political economy needed use value
to institute exchange value
1. Only if there is a system of
equivalence between all
values
2. The simulacrum is never
that which conceals the
truth. It is the truth, which
conceals that there is none.
b. Actual process of replacing the real world
i. Proliferates signs and models
c. The 4 Orders of Simulation
4. Representationswith dissimulations
i. Distort what is true although core is
real
ii. i.e. Capitalism distorted the real
economy by alienating labor from
one another by commodities
(Marxist)