My point is that the perception is fake. Like in The Matrix, there is no spoon. Do you see what I mean?

But it's the perception itself that we're talking about; not the thing it's supposed to represent. In the matrix there is no spoon, but there is an image of a spoon. If our only goal was to maximise people's experience of spoons then the matrix would achieve that goal just as well as a real spoon would. Likewise, if our goal is to maximise people's happiness then we only need to maximise their feelings; we don't need to maximise whatever it is that they think they're happy about.

Quote from Zed

But it's the perception itself that we're talking about; not the thing it's supposed to represent. In the matrix there is no spoon, but there is an image of a spoon. If our only goal was to maximise people's experience of spoons then the matrix would achieve that goal just as well as a real spoon would. Likewise, if our goal is to maximise people's happiness then we only need to maximise their feelings; we don't need to maximise whatever it is that they think they're happy about.

How do you plan on increasing happiness without makes them happy? Again, that would just be a high.

What do you think "happiness" means?

Quote from WyzDM

What makes a better place? Is it one with less freedoms but more governed control, a system depicted in George Orwell's 1984? What of hiding the truth as in the The Giver? That was a perfect utopia, no pain and no suffering. Those worlds built upon distorting reality would be better according to this philosophy. And if we go that far, we can reason why lying is acceptable at any time, because it works for some benefit in due course.

Quote from Molgera

In some situations, it's best if people don't know the truth.
Lying is acceptable if its for the best.

Humans aren't omniscient, we could only strive to do what we think will be for the best, we could quite easily try to do something we thought was right that failed horribly and ended up being negative.

Lying and lying by omission have to be deliberate and if we assume that being just mistaken is never wrong then the wrong/right would rest with the intent. Determining if our lie is good or bad by trying to gauge if it will lead to good is never going to be totally reliable. Likewise, if you could save someone's life by lying but don't then you could be arguably considered to have made the wrong choice too.

You can draw a distinction between good actions and a good person. For example, if Hitler intended to make the world a better place then he might have been a good person despite his actions being abysmal.

Note the "can" and the "might".

Quote from Zed

You can draw a distinction between good actions and a good person. For example, if Hitler intended to make the world a better place then he might have been a good person despite his actions being abysmal.

Note the "can" and the "might".

How does good intent and bad intent come into someone making no coherent good or bad thought before they do something?
Eg impulse reactions not involving your mind.

Then they would be performing good or bad actions without themselves necessarily being either. It would be similar to actions performed by a machine - guns do bad things but we don't say the gun itself is evil.

Quote from Zed

Then they would be performing good or bad actions without themselves necessarily being either. It would be similar to actions performed by a machine - guns do bad things but we don't say the gun itself is evil.

I agree somewhat here but, guns do generally one thing: launch projectiles at high speed. Mr Johnson pointing said projectile at Ms Mary Sue across the street for no reason would be doing wrong, not the gun. This may add a bit to the example, though, so, carry on.

Quote from Naimad

I agree somewhat here but, guns do generally one thing: launch projectiles at high speed. Mr Johnson pointing said projectile at Ms Mary Sue across the street for no reason would be doing wrong, not the gun. This may add a bit to the example, though, so, carry on.

Has the person who made the gun done wrong, and/or the person who gave a gun to someone who was going to kill someone done wrong?
If I made a drone coded for war that could kill, someone else mistakenly caused it to end in a civilian area and it shot a load of innocent people because it was coded for war and knew nothing else, has anyone done wrong? The motive/intent in every case was not wrong in of itself, but people were still killed. Back on topic though, I can't think of a situation where that sort of thing would happen with lying.

Quote from Exxmorphing

However, justifying the actions that may or may not make a lie acceptable that the lie causes should be up to other people.

Would that make all justifications for acceptability retrospective then? Finding out that the person lied in the first place would also surely be needed then, and not necessarily will all lies will get found out to be justified by a group.

Quote from walker90234

Wasn't this debate pretty much solved on the first page? Why are we still discussing it?

This page is not the quite the same as the first page, though a large part of this discussion seems over.

Quote from walker90234

Wasn't this debate pretty much solved on the first page? Why are we still discussing it?

Why not discuss?

People can disgree with the first-pagers and the first page ended with a question.

Hang on, going back to what Zed said on the first page, surely games such as poker are an exception, because everyone has consented that others will be supplying them false info.