To think that someone made a breakthrough in the field of ethical philosophy at the whims of someone more powerful all for the ends of having people be okay with whatever leader is in power to do what he wants under the guise of Utilitarianism is far fetched.

Socrates was suicided for "corrupting the young", where "corrupting the young" is an euphemism for "being a threat to rulers' continued rule". That must have had a "chilling effect" on philosophy too.

What you're essentially saying is that we aren't perfect and we can never have all the data that is involved in a certain situation; and that's fine.

No, what I was saying is that the perceived moral value of an action is subjective.

Every moral system would suffer from this, even the "Non-Aggression Principle" which I'll get to later.

No, because if you're never going to aggress against anyone, you'll never need a perceived justification for doing so, and therefore, you will never act immorally. Therefore, the problem of subjectivity does not apply to the NAP, but it does to Utilitarianism.

Therefore, The NAP is preferrable to Utilitarianism.

Furthermore, it also seems that you're saying it's far to difficult to have all the information and to execute perfectly accordingly. To respond, first: something being difficult doesn't make it not true.

That's not an argument against the problem of subjectivity.

Second: unintended consequences would be a problem in any ethical system, even in "intention based" ethics.

Nope. The NAP wins again because there are no unintended consequences to not doing something.

But again, the outcome of people trying to maximize the happiness of everyone else if better than any alternative I can think of.

I guess here we get to how Utilitarianism relates to rulers. Maximizing the happiness of "everyone else" is thinking in collectivist terms, as if we're some sort of collective entity instead of individuals, and that's exactly the way rulers want us to think, because otherwise we'd refuse to be ruled.

People think that handing out other people's money to the needy masses is somehow a good thing. They're completely blind to the immorality of taking people's property by force, and taxation's effects on the economy.

As an example, would you produce goods and services if 100% of the proceeds were taken away from you? Of course not. It would be clear to you that you're an outright slave.

But when 50% is taken from you, it's just a difference in the degree of enslavement, and a huge demotivational factor compared to no taxation.

Then there are massive effects related to the misallocation of resources and distortions in prices and so on.

Essentially he says that we should respect the liberty and autonomy of everyone because forcing someone to do some other action (even if its a better alternative to what they're doing) is ultimately worse for their well-being.

That's compatible with the NAP, but rules out the end justifying the means. He wasn't very consistent then.

Utilitarianism is an objective moral system. Could you please clarify what you meant here?

I was referring to the subjectivity of the perceived moral value of an action. That's a problem you can't get around. A moral system that's based on subjective evaluations of the morality of various actions is, by its very nature, not objective. "Happiness" is subjective too.

But the NAP can be applied to everyone equally, at the same time, with no contradictions and no arbitrariness. That's not much of a "system", but it certainly is objective. In fact, it's just an objective moral principle.

It's not outlandish to think that if we had 1 situation where we had to choose an action and there were two people present, that those two people can have their consciousness tell them to do opposite actions.

If they're both healthy and sane, it's just so extremely unlikely to happen that it's irrelevant to this discussion.

That being granted, if you're saying that consciousness defines the good of an action

The idea was that we have a "built-in objective morality", guided by our consciences.

You are essentially saying action A is good and action !A (not A) is also good.

I think we've established that this is not the case.

However, you're freely asserting this as a moral truth without any backup. "What you freely assert I freely dismiss."

Do you really need me to back up the idea that it's immoral to aggress against people? :D

That's the thing. If you have a conscience, it will deter you from aggressing against others. So you could say that your conscience is my backup :P

But I did go into more detail in this message. Maybe that helps.

"Do what makes you happy, while not harming others in the process"

You might realize that this is a perfect fit for the NAP.