OBJECTIVE MORALITY
You know what is so great about Philosophy Talk? Philosophy, according to the Greeks, is most effectively conducted as a rational dialogue. Writing and lecturing are just one-sided sophistry, advocacy, very narrow-minded and definitional. I have the same problem with definitional philosophy as practiced by Searle and Bertrand Russell (whose work I respect greatly): the person who defines the terms of the issue, mandates the conclusion he/she is advocating.
A better method is rational dialogue, where every proposition is tested by another?s rational processing. An analogy is integral calculus: the two who are engaged in the dialogue never reach the ?end point,? but the process of getting ever closer is the elucidating and enlightening process that is ?doing philosophy.?
The rational dialogue between John and Ken and often the guest, is real ?doing philosophy,? and it is unique in all media today. It is so valuable for the audience of thinkers, not just to hear the dialogue, but to witness the method in action.
That said, there is no point in talking about objective or subjective morality without first exposing the notions ?objective? and ?subjective? to this kind of philosophical study. It is a crucial preliminary examination which was left out of the show, sadly. The Greeks had another way of understanding, aside from rational dialogue; that is to see what is ?normal,? i.e. what is generally understood to be real by everyone (except nut-cases). This second kind of analysis is not helpful in the objective/subjective examination; there is no ?normal? understanding of these terms.

陀思妥耶夫斯基(Dostoyevsky)在他说“如果没有上帝，一切都是允许的”时，就提到了这样一种观点:如果没有上帝，就没有理由向善，也就没有权威来约束我们所有人(以及我们的社会和政府——法律)，这种观点取决于某种关于上帝的神学，以及某种关于道德的哲学。
首先，考虑上帝在道德中的角色。有些神学像摩西那样描述上帝，但很多不是这样。几乎所有的基督徒都拒绝摩西的一些律法(或使它们成为可选的)。在这里，我并不想问哪些是正确的——只是说，事实上，基督徒并不接受摩西的所有律法对他们有约束力，他们选择了那些他们认为仍然适用于我们的律法。现在我认为，一个严肃的原因是，他们不觉得我们的行为受到法律的约束——保罗在找到基督之前一直是摩西的虔诚追随者(反之亦然)。今天，和过去一样，很多人试图把耶稣和摩西联系起来，我不认为他们是完全不相容的，就像铜和橡胶不相容一样。
Blessed are the meek. What kind of moral law is that? Is it a commandment or a regulator of our behavior? Meekness truly does affect behavior, but not as an objective, outside influence or authority over us, keeping us from doing as we please--for it regulates what pleases us. This law/commandment I leave with you, Jesus said at the Last Supper, that you love one another. What kind of law is that? To find what is the loving thing to do requires judgment, wisdom, and a spiritual perception of others (and ourselves).
第二点，关于道德的哲学……当我还是个孩子的时候，我就看到了这样一个逻辑问题:我们应该做好事，这样我们就能上天堂——因为那样我们的愿望就是自私的——因此就不是好事。我们应该希望它，因为它是好的。康德也这么说过，但我当时还不了解康德。
And a thing is not good because God says so, even if God is always right about it--because if it were so, then to call God good would be meaningless--God says do what God says.
也许最不受尊敬的道德哲学家(总的来说)是g·e·摩尔。他说，一件东西之所以好，是因为它真的很好。简单而整洁，但是什么呢?这是什么意思?随着时间的推移，人们可能会发现他比当时看起来更聪明。毕竟，我们为什么要称一件事情是好的，除非我们真的认为它是好的?或者为什么柏拉图或康德会说一件事是好的，因为它有良好的道德理由，除非我们真的认为它是好的?为什么说爱是唯一绝对的——是创造宇宙的力量，是把星系抛向天空的力量(数亿个星系)，是赋予整体目的的力量，是我们所有人的目标——除非它真的是有效的、物质的和最终的原因?
Give me any theology but the Pharisees, and any ethics but the Sophists (including Nietzsche and the postmodernists), or any who say morality is a vain delusion, or is really something else.

I suggest viewing or reading the play God on Trial.
The Bible was produced by Jewish scribes of Babylon on the occasion of their being ?freed? by the Persians (more likely they were told that their services were no longer needed). Their problem, of course, was to submit a rough country folk, used to an egalitarian ethic (the elites if Israel wiped themselves out some centuries previous) to their rule. Without political or military power to do so, they resorted to mythic traditions which they alone could interpret to the people now inhabiting their former land. Ask yourself why the Bible was written in Hebrew at a time when the people of Israel had already adopted Aramaic? Also, they were not monotheist at that time, but were ?converted? to it by these returnees, with their sacred book.
?Was it a god, or some man, who was the author of your laws?? Thus opens Plato's Laws. Clearly, Plato recognized even then how deep was the prejudice that common folk must be supplied with a divine law in order to instil morality in them. More accurately, it is a means of elites to cut through the confusion, not about morality, but about who is sovereign. In any social exchanges more complex than individual intimacies, sovereign systems emerge claiming authority over us that tends to undermine our moral intuitions. At a time when most Northern Europeans lived either in an exquisitely democratic and moral relation between individual and community (The Open Field system, as it was called in England) or in a Feudal system only misunderstood as hierarchical but was actually a system of covenants, not of contractual obligations, but of a bond of friendship, to the death, Vatican and kings vied for absolute rule, each claiming that there could be no order in the world but through complete obedience of the people to one or the other of them. But what order in fact there was came from the people themselves. The more ancient claim of the priestly caste of Israel that only obedience to the Law of Moses (the very existence of whom there is no evidence whatsoever outside the blatant propaganda of the Bible) conspired with the latter day ambitions of church and king to foist upon us the myth that ordinary people are lacking moral compass. It is closer to the truth to say that on an individual basis people are mostly quite competent in moral sense, but that in a complex social setting confused sovereignties emerge, leaving even the most decent and morally well grounded individuals at a loss as to which claim upon them to rely upon. This is why, for instance, regimes of racism or classism are so resistant to mitigation, because we fail to understand how conflicting power clusters get so firm a grip on us. Consider that many persons would commit crimes on behalf of their employer they would never dream of committing on their own. In certain groupings people lose the moral compass that comes naturally when alone. Like the young man that is well behaved amongst adults or girls, but in the company of other young men engages in insane criminal or dangerous activity. It's not that god isn't present, it's that too many of the same sort are (not necessarily the wrong sort per se). We don't need another or a revived god, we just need to keep our heads. Though it does help to have institutions that prevent certain associations or that mitigates their effects on us. If anything, religion makes matters, makes us, worse.

Truth Is:
Just is God
God is just another name for everything, and everything another name for One.
Be One, just One,
For the good of One equal's the good of all.
= is One
=

Well said Gary!
The only thing in need of government is government. To freedom. =

这是进化的问题。道德可能已经进化，给了我们良心，因为我们作为一个群体生存有道德比没有道德更好。道德鼓励我们考虑群体的福祉，而不是我们自己，当然，一个特征的进化会选择无论该特征是如何产生的。
This is not a reason, in itself, to be moral; but its no reason, either, to disagree with such a noble instinct. We seem to go along with quite happily with other instincts, such as falling in love, self preservation . . . why not go along with our moral instinct, as well? C

Michael,
Still singing that song?

Paul,
Peter Singer wrote a book, The Expanding Circle, which develops your theme. But it's too simplistic to explain the phenomenon. A simple reading of DNA does not explain the astounding complexity of complex organisms, let alone the mind, and evolution is far too simplistic. But talking genetics or evolution with a true believer is an enterprise in frustration, like trying to convince a devout theist there is no god. Everything said in evidence or reasoning against the faith gets turned into just another way of expressing it. But what if you had a book in which reading each word had the effect of altering the language, not only of the book as a whole, but of all other books as well, and of the reader? Real languages do just this as a commonplace. A commonplace that those of us (especially those well trained in "philosophy") committed to the written word as opposed to speech, are dogmatically opposed to recognizing. But just try to open your mind to the potential. The staggering complexity gets explained. Maybe not in a way suitable to the mechanical manipulations we insist upon so persistently (mindlessly!), but in a way that satisfies the phenomenal realities and our intuitions about them. Mechanism and formalism is just as prejudicial as doctrinaire theism.

Just another note, the religious right is dead set upon confusing religious freedom with religious authority. The law in Indiana is not about the right of individuals to believe what they believe, but the power of religious authority to impose itself upon others, and not just its own members, but employees and customers as well. It's all part of an even broader attack against individual liberty by establishing a corporate liberty (or "person")over individuals.

例如，我想知道，印第安纳州的法律是否允许哈西德派犹太人拒绝为未受割礼的男性服务?或检查吗?

上帝的概念和人类一样古老，无论你看向哪里，跨越时间和地域，人们形成宗教，就像我们本能地创造语言和音乐一样。如果你发现一个与世隔绝的印第安部落不受外界影响，你会发现某种形式的宗教。但这些宗教对上帝的定义不同。我认为宗教是人们接近现实的基本本质(一个好的谎言往往是建立在真理的基础上)。它们的相似之处在于，对理解“上帝”的追求实际上是对自然的追求，上帝只是存在的整体的表征(上帝有无限的视角等)。如果一场风暴来了，摧毁了一个城镇，这被认为是上帝的行为，这不是一件坏事，因为从宏观上看，天气需要以这种方式运行。在我看来，许多现代宗教的问题不是对“上帝”的信仰，而是侵蚀所有社会系统的熵。当人们把isis的宗教信仰作为反对宗教的论据时，我认为这是被误导的，因为它没有触及问题的根源，我们的心理。以同样的方式，认为一个人是同性恋就不那么道德也是错误的。从心理学的角度来看，道德似乎是我们预先设定好的，就像蚂蚁不经训练就知道如何建造蚁丘一样。 But our conscious mind can overide this by finding ways to rationalize things that we know in our heart (subconscious mind) to be wrong.
Personally I think that the basis of morality is empathy, in that we shouldn't treat other people, in a way that you wouldn't want to be treated. The reason torcher is bad is your are applying a standard to other people that you are not willing to be applied to yourself. You could say that the world is overpopulated so we need to kill off a large portion of the population for the greater good, how u can tell its immoral is if you asked someone who believes this if they would be willing to be the first to die. The immorality is that they are willing to impose this on other people but not on themselves, or impose it knowing it will have no effect on them. Like saying its ok to kill off all the people who make under 30,000 a year knowing you make more than that and would be exempt. My perspective is limited, im not saying empathy is the complete answer, but I have a suspicion it plays a big role.

我们不需要另一个或复活的神，我们只需要保持头脑清醒。尽管建立制度来防止某些联想或减轻它们对我们的影响确实有帮助。如果有什么区别的话，那就是宗教让事情变得更糟，让我们变得更糟。
When Plato asked if it was a man or a god who gave us the (moral) laws, it was a trick question--or perhaps a false dichotomy. For he above all would say it was a matter not of gods or men, but "keeping our heads"--reason--that makes the moral laws. In Thomas Jefferson's religion (and he thought himself Christian as a follower of Christ), reason rules the universe--God is the order and power of all things, which might be called Logos in Greece or Karma in India, and all men and all gods are subject to the One.
I don't disagree that popular religion has logical problems, but neither do I think the mystery of the Transcendent whence everything came and which is the ground of all being, itself beyond all, is entirely ruled out by rational people. One might argue rationally that there is "Something" to believe in, and that is only a deus ex machina, but one might certainly argue rationally also that one knows things through mind or spirit, or soul, as well as by the senses or mechanical logic. I believe that my mother loved me, and was not (as Hobbes thought) putting on a selfish act to deceive others. There was a mental/spiritual bond of knowing one another even though I cannot ever prove by science or logic that other minds exist, much less that one of them really loves me.
这样看来，我认为大多数有思想的信徒并不是盲目地相信，而是从他们对一种通过宗教经验显现出来的神的力量的真实体验中来相信。如果没有这一点，我同意确实有许多人说他们相信，但并不真正知道他们相信的是什么，除了说出来。因此，我们的道德法则是来自人还是来自神的问题，忽略了一个显而易见的问题——我们在经历精神/精神现实(如理性和爱)的直接影响下写下了我们的道德法则。理性和爱都是诗篇作者断言“上帝的律法写在人的心里”的表现。
It may come in some way from Beyond, but we must find moral judgments on our experience and knowledge of the world, including spiritual experience; religions do give us tools for decision (Scripture, clergy, prayer, meditation, community and dialog, etc.), but we are on our own in making the judgment. This was Bonhoeffer's point, I think, in "discipleship"--which admits of course to error. And it is behind his statement that "We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Unlike some believers, he built the human error in each of us into his account of religion, without denying that there is nevertheless truth and reality beyond our limits.
I don't see the sins of the world, of kings and governments and of the common herd, as relevant to moral reasoning--that is, what people do has no logical bearing on what they ought to do, right?

Please consider my newly released synthesis
uniting the fields
of behavioral psychology and value ethics with considerable
applications to a cooperative human mindset.
Here the instinctual terminology of operant conditioning pro-
vides an elementary foundation for the subjective hierarchy of
美德、价值和理想的传统组合This
formal tie-in with behavioral science effectively validates
the subjective prerequisites of the virtuous realm, an
innovation based upon a basic set of instinctual terms:
namely, rewards-leniency-appetite-aversion. These instinctual
terms, in turn, prove consistent with the higher linguistic
hierarchy characterizing the virtuous realm: innovation
further arranged as a hierarchy of metaperspectives - an
ascending sequence of personal, group, spiritual, humanitarian,
and transcendental power levels, specialized into both authority
and follower roles. The remaining incorporation of individual
terms is partially depicted below...
本来。奖励……提交。Leniency
怀旧。H-Worship .........内疚。Blame
Glory . . . . Prudence .......... Honor . Justice
Providence . . Faith .......... Liberty . Hope
Grace . . . . Beauty ........ Free-will . Truth
Tranquility . Ecstasy ........ Equality . Bliss
+ Reinforce....... Appetite . Neg. Reinforce....Aversion
Desire . . Approval-Seeking ..... Worry . Concern
Dignity . Temperance ...... Integrity . Fortitude
文明。慈善机构 .........紧缩政策。Decency
Magnanimity . Goodness .... Equanimity . Wisdom
Love . . . . . Joy ............. Peace . Harmony
Furthermore, the behavioral terminology for punishment serves as
the foundation for the darker realm of the vices of defect, a
mirror-image reflection of the virtuous mode, with the exception
that punishment discourages behaviors judged not suitably
solicitous or submissive: as partially portrayed below..
No Solicitous. No Rewards.. No Submissive . No Leniency
Laziness . Treachery ......... Negligence . Vindictiveness
耻辱。叛乱 ............耻辱。Vengeance
Prodigal . Betrayal ............. Slavery . Despair
忿怒。丑陋 ................暴政。Hypocrisy
Anger . Abomination ........... Prejudice . Perdition
惩罚……没有胃口。惩罚……No Aversion
冷漠。尽管 .............冷漠。恶意
愚蠢的。暴食 .............反复无常。Cowardice
Vulgarity . Avarice ............ Cruelty . Antagonism
Oppression . Evil .......... Persecution . Cunning
Hatred . Iniquity ......... Belligerence . Turpitude
In summary, the operant form of conditioned behavior represents
an instinctual legacy we share with the rest of the
动物王国。This behavioral foundation, in turn, permits
support for the linguistic hierarchy of motivational terms, an
innovation permitted through the symbolism of the human
语言词汇。Indeed, mankind's transition to an urban culture
lead to the development of the higher traditions of virtues and
values crucial for maintaining social order, as systematized
within the language tradition. For instance, the tradition of
the cardinal virtues was championed by the Greek
philosopher Plato to define the social stratification within the
Greek city-state of his day. Furthermore, the attendant spiritual
and humanitarian traditions celebrated timeless themes: such as the
classical Greek values and the humanistic values. Ultimately, a
mystical tradition emerges, as expressed in the crowning set of
mystical values (ecstasy-bliss-joy-harmony). What lies beyond
this final nameable realm of mysticism remains open to debate,
described only as the "supernatural" domain, permitting the
也可能产生“自上而下”的影响模式。
Indeed, this system has been granted US patents #6587846 and 7236963
A complete listing of ethical terms is posted at:www.angelfire.com/rnb/fairhaven/Masterdiagram.html
A more detailed treatment is also posted at:www.angelfire.com/rnb/fairhaven/schematics.html
www.charactervalues.com
Sincerely
John E. LaMuth

My first question is -
Is what I am about to write, is it right or wrong? and I don't know that.
I can say, I will reach no conclusion.
I can say the question should be - Why is morality so moral? or you could also
say, why is morality not so moral? Yes, to create an absolute morality you might need, God,
however morality exists, regardless of the question of whether God exists.
So, this might go on like ---- the post battle field conversation, and folks left around after the
battle, ( those would/should be victors, then ) thinking or asking --- was it all worth it?
The leader's job at that point is to say --- yes, it's all worth it, the price we paid is worth it ____
How can he say anything different? Or at least you have to ask, why would he say anything
different?
That is morality. But you see it in lots of situations. It exists because it is a persistent
人类在生活中的经验，你可以看到，因为它已经被逆转了
about for,,,, at the minimum >> 3,000 years?

@Marc Bellario我想你说的是确认偏见。或者只寻找支持你先入之见的东西，而选择性地忽略与之不符的东西的现象。通常我们对自己的要求与对别人的要求并不相同。问题是这样做值得吗?(来自上面战场的例子^)很可能是肯定的。这就像在兄弟会里被欺负，当他们羞辱你，让你做一些尴尬的事情来获得认可时，你不会对自己说，我是那种让别人这样对我的人。你无法接受这个答案，所以你会扭曲信息，这样你就不会觉得自己像个白痴。如果你想避免不和谐音(持有相反观点的不舒服感觉)，你就必须这么做。你会想出一些你可以忍受的东西，一个舒适但经常不一致的幻想。另一个关于观察自己和他人的一致性的例子是，当我被一块石头绊倒时，我很不开心，因为我的女朋友和我分手了，我无法集中精力。 When you trip over a rock your a stupid person. Another example is if you were to ask an Israeli why the bombings of Palestine are justified, they will say something like they are crazy jihad terrorists who will stop at nothing to wipe us out. if you ask a Palestinian why the car bombings are justified they will say something like the Israelites bomb us like cowards, this is simply the only way we can fight back, in self defense. They are both convinced they are in the right, while selectively ignoring the others view. Another example is democrats and republicans, if you affiliate yourself with one of the parties you will tend to read news that is favorable to your stance, and discredit anything that isn't. Or in the gaming community the debate of xbox vs playstation, and to the extremes the fanboys will go to defend the platform they choose, for no other reason than the fact they choose it.
The question: is this moral? I don't think so. Unless morality is just a pretty word for the ways we deceive ourselves.

Garry, hopefully I understand your point correctly. My assumption of morality is based on the finiteness of our understanding. Morality is very similar to knowledge in that, for something to bare any resemblance of "truth" it has to align with nature in some form (nature is the ultimate truth as far as we can tell). But like knowledge its is impossible to achieve "absolutely" without understanding everything in the universe perfectly. Its like predicting the weather, you can make a decent approximation of our knowlege of relationships, to predict the weather to an accuracy that is usefull. But in order to predict it perfectly you would have to take every possible condition into consideration. Like the influence the sun has on our weather, and the influence other stars have on our sun, to the galaxys and their interactions out to the infinity' degree. It would seem that making any prediction at all would be impossible. But for some reason our universe is incredibly self consistent and there seems to be rules that bind the universe (this is all based on the assumption our universe is causal). The fact that we can predict the weather at all is interesting. Aside by being told by a devine being (someone who understand the universe perfectly) ultimately our perspective is limited. So we have to move forward with the understanding that we will never be able to achieve absolute morality. We are forced to strive for better and better approximations. I guess what I'm saying is if someone claims to have absolute morality, then they are blinding themselves to finding better approximations. Its like knowledge, I would say being smart isnt how much you know, (passive) its your willingness to learn (active), because there is too much for anyone know everything.
唯一的一点是，当我们完全理解宇宙时，我们可以声称达到了“绝对”道德，反之亦然。我并不是说绝对道德不存在或者它是相对的(自然似乎真的独立于我们对它的理解)。只是在我们能够真正地说我们知道它之前，我们还有很长的路要走，我认为在我们寻求真理的过程中，理解我们的局限性是很重要的。

sbcpetew,
Buddhists call it compassion.
John,
Is a change of mind a moral act? What impact on moral consensus? Why do you suppose Socrates equates morality with suffering to be cross-examined?
Marc,
Or as Theoden toasted, after the Battle of Helm's Deep, "Hail the victorious dead!" I'd recommend reading Plato's (largely ignored) dialogue, Menexenus. It's a spoof on war memorials.
sbcpetew,
确定性的特征是道德与理性的症结所在。通过证明一个人的先决信念、假设和基础的不充分和不完整而结束于思想的改变，这是什么样的严格呢?要找到证据是很容易的，而我们并不打算承认这是反证。只有当我们用尽了所有不去相信的理由时，我们才会认为我们的信仰中有一些微弱的正义。但是，除了独断专行的人，谁能说他们已经全面而称职地完成了任务呢?答案正经受着严格的检验，但如果考官本身是一个教条主义者，他也可以自由地逆转这个过程。关键是，我们既不能道德，也不能理性。

Imperfection is at the root of all things. It is not evil. What demands perfection is demonic. All gods are demons, as all the patterns they, and we, impose upon reality are untrue in that most critical term proved them imperfect. But the gods do not suffer that proof. We, however, do. We emerge more completed from it. Not better approximations of what could be perfect, but more completed proofs of the imperfection of the terms of that approximation. If no god can save us, neither can a better system of concepts or geometry or numbers.
What is 'person'? Why does it evidence exception to the rules of logic and calculation and divine law? Are we stupid? Or do we have a point? We have an inveterate fascination for patterns. They never quite fit. But they never quite recede either. They ebb and flow. Certitude emerges and becomes entrenched and retrenched, disappoints, fades, and loses its fascination for us. And then change. The characterology of that ebb and flow is what 'person' is. Each of us a unique actor in the proof that absolutes and enduring patterns are all imperfect. But in that proof we perfect ourselves. Morality is not adhering to the pattern, it is the most rigorous disproof of it. You see, how can that disproof be the ultimate term of the pattern itself? What kind of being is completed that proof? Scientists derive universals from a ridiculously limited experimental review. Why do we always dismiss our fluctuating confidence in ourselves as unworthy of interest, mere emotion, evidence of nothing real? A change of mind is not evidence of waywardness if it is seriously derived. It is proof that we are better than the principles we suppose to govern us. But a change of mind is hardly an assertion of superior right or correctness. Alone it is anomaly. It is only how it frees us all that it means anything at all. It is an act of loss, lost conceit in the pattern or governance of the world. And it is its response recognize how freeing it is that is responsible of the worth of that loss being recognized. It is a virtuous dialectic of loss and love, as opposed to the vitiating dialectic of rival egos patterns or gods. And so, no, the loss of the gods is no threat to our ability to be moral.
你看过或读过话剧《上帝受审》吗?这是一个引人注目的故事。

一些比较知名的无神论者已经提出和/或强化了这样的观点:不管上帝是否存在，人类都会有好人和坏人。还有一些人甚至更直接地说，这两种方式都没有关系。世俗人文主义者似乎有最平等的观点，并对我们许多人努力生活的古老的黄金法则有健康的尊重。我有时会想，当布莱斯·帕斯卡(Blaise Pascal)从加州酒店(Hotel California)退房时，他发生了什么事?他的赌赢了吗，还是根本不重要?我想只有当我们拿出自己的筹码时才能找到答案。在我看来，上帝并不欣赏不真诚的人。但是，我没有办法证明或反驳这种怀疑。
Keep the good thoughts flowing,
Neuman.

两点:如果上帝存在，那么“最佳”道德就存在;然而，还有一个笛卡尔式的问题，即我们是否能知道它。如果人类是不完美的，那么我们如何知道存在的神的道德原则?一个人认为唯一的真神只对他和他的信徒说话，而不对其他人说话，这是自恋吗?
Second, why is the Rawlsian/economist's point of view not an objective morality? I take here the broader perspective of an economic point of view than a strict utilitarian.*
假设一个人在无知的面纱后面，选择了一种社会形式，它具有完整的道德和伦理原则、制度和立法机构，……不知道自己对消费品和休闲的偏好，不知道自己在市场上的能力，不知道自己的社会地位……将。不知道社会或经济会受到什么样的冲击——技术冲击、气候事件、疾病爆发……当这些发生时，政府、制度、道德、伦理都会发挥作用。
Why would not the solution to such a problem be the basis of an objective morality?
The solution does presume that the agent is the individual, that what matters is choosing the set of principles and tenets, institutions and such that make this individual as well off as possible. However, this is defensible since it is an individual who chooses to act -- the value of familial lineage or social identity is a possible tenet whereby the individual would incorporate the well-being/honor of his family/society into his own preferences. But it is still the individual who acts.

There will always be tough times and obstacles in your life. But
God always has something for you.
A KEY for every PROBLEM
A LIGHT for every SHADOW
A RELIEF for every SORROW
A PLAN for every TOMORROW
https://www.zenethculture.com/life-and-your-numbers/

Utilitarianism is not an ethical system. Ethics deals with right and wrong. Utilitarianism deals with efficient and inefficient. The dictum "the greatest good for the greatest number" begs the question of what is good and who counts in the number comparisons. Should they be ethnic groups? Religious groups? People with different hair colors?