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I'm not sure how utilitarianism actually does any of that?
If we suppose that there is no objective standard, no objective normativity to the universe, and no authority or lawmaker capable of providing such, then there's only social convention, right? Moral rules are not different in kind to legal rules - they are shared fictions.
And obviously you could build a shared fiction on any foundation you like. Utilitarianism is one option, but in this hypothetical godless, moralityless universe, there are still plenty of other options. The categorical imperative is just as possible a candidate for foundation as is any concept of utility. Take your pick. All that matters is getting enough people to agree on it.
I'd also nitpick that there isn't an exterior moral authority for utilitarianism; Bentham is of only historical interest. At any rate, if we live in a universe without objective values, then the only thing there is is whether we collectively decide to adopt utilitarianism (or whatever it may be) as a kind of shared code of conduct. That's it.
This is true of some utilitarianisms, but not all, I would say? I think this is a fair criticism of e.g. Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape, which rests, ultimately, on the unjustified assertion that 'human flourishing' or 'human welfare' is good and therefore morality is the maximisation of this good. But J. L. Mackie takes a utilitarian position (or rather, a nuanced one he calls a kind of 'rule-right-duty-disposition utilitarianism'), and he does this after bluntly admitting that there is no objective standard, there are no objective values, and this is just an attempt to try to figure out how humans can live together in a way that he and many others would find congenial.
And that's a fine explanation. I'm saying that there is no reason to say that religion is made-up or fake or the rest of it, because it's all made-up and fake. There is no objective universal law of mercy for the downtrodden. If we invent a standard we want to apply, then it doesn't make a difference if it's "god say love our enemies" or a utilitarian philosopher. One is, by this measure, just as real as the other. Saying "but god does not exist" is no objection, because nothing exists to make rules except how we decide we want to make rules, and if I want to have a god who is a rule-giver, that works just as well as creating a philosophical basis for maximising human flourishing. We're both pulling our justification out of the aether.
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How is it an "unjustified assertion" by Harris to define "the wellbeing of conscious creature" as an axiom on which to build moral principles?
You have to start somewhere and there's literally no way to do that without asserting some kind of value/goal (or establishing a deity's authority to dictate).
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