It's a selcouth thought to consider that the little bundle of rutilant smiles in the picture above would be interested in things like nuclear fusion tokamaks and Einstein's theory of special relativity. The pink shirt certainly doesn't bespeak the future of this kid.
In Ethics class this week we're talking about Utilitarianism. Basically, the notion that morality primarily stands on the principle of greatest happiness, that the outcomes sought should be those that result in the greatest total happiness. I think the problems with this hinge on the matter of the authority of happiness. That is, who's to say what the greatest happiness possible is in any given situation? I suppose one could respond "historical trial and error", but is that really the greatest happiness or just the greatest happiness so far? Jeremy Bentham, considered a founding advocate of Utilitarianism, seems to suggest that the decision is largely up to the individual. However, it doesn't seem that individuals have the necessary perspective to accurately discern the greatest happiness. Christopher Hitchens brought up this same problem (well, a problem of the same kind at least) in his speech at the University of Toronto in 2006. He questioned, in response to a proposition that would criminalize hate speech, who the audience would trust as their censor. He asked, who would they deem worthy of that role? In the issue of the greatest happiness principle, if all of human history has not sufficient authority, then the principle actually seeks a more supreme, and in that case perhaps necessarily nonhuman, authority.
