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Philosophy bear's avatar

You seem to be conflating utilitarianism with a specific variant of utilitarianism, perhaps hedonic utilitarianism or perhaps preference utilitarianism. Utilitarianism simply says that the good is whatever maximizes aggregate welfare. Welfare is a free variable here and can be, on the basis of the beliefs of the utilitarian, among other things: desire satisfaction, hedonia or eudaimonia.

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Neonomos's avatar

Thanks for the comment! All of these varieties appear to be some form of agent-relative subjective states, which is what I focus on. Yet let me know if there are significant qualifiers where the above argument does not apply.

My priority is towards agency itself, rather than a particular agent-relative state.

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