Quote:
Originally Posted by
NameBack 
No? This is just a different/better way of understanding and determining morality -- it's not amoral. People would still know that they're acting morally, there would still be opinions and notions of "moral" and "immoral" behavior in this hypothetical.
I wasn't saying your position was amoral, I was trying to snare it in a circular definition. On examination, I could have thought my own position out a little better. Basically, your "hedonic" argument seems like a broadend version of utilitarian ethics. It describes a state of affairs- maximal hedonic yield- but does not explicate a path for getting there, nor explain how this maximal value is arrived at in a world of competing interests. For instance, what if a state of affairs worked out fantastically for the great majority, but at the expense of a small handful of individuals being royally screwed blue? Well, we would hope that
some of the more conscientious members of the majority would be upset at this injustice, resulting in a further hedonic negative even beyond the misery of the slighted minority-- people, generally speaking,
take pleasure in believing that they are doing the right thing. So we can't meaningfully say that morality is "whatever effects a state of maximal hedonic yield" without appealing to outside moral conceptions like "fairness". Of course, human nature being what it is, most people would simply take pleasure in reaping the benefits of exploiting this minority. If people are happy with things as they are, this conception of morality doesn't give them incentive to look beyond their own pleasure and correct their own beliefs as to what is right and wrong. This is the problem with all conceptions of morality as something socially-determined or socially-constructed; ultimately, consistency becomes the only virtue.
