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comment by Jeremy Bentham (jeremy-bentham) · 2023-02-08T16:57:21.598Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Yes, many of us do. But a good Utilitarian should adhere to commonly accepted negative duties, even when they are really confident that they’re right in any particular instance. There are numerous reasons why this is the case. As Eliezer said in one of his posts: if you cannot spontaneously and unprompted see all those other (so-called second order) considerations in the formal form of "consequences" and "utilities", then you shouldn’t be a consequentialist or a utilitarian. They aren’t merely side-constraints: they’re real consequences that you’re likely and predictably failing to take into consideration.