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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.
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,
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)