Assuming that everything of interest can be quantified,that the quantities can be aggregated and compated, and assuming that anyone can take any amount of loss for the greater good...ie assuming all the stuff that utiliatarins assume and that their opponents don’t.
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No. You cant leap from “a reflectively coherent CEV-like [..] utility function for this one human” to a solution of conflicts of interest between agents. All you have is a set of exquisite model of individual interests, and no way of combining them, or trading them off.
Two individual interests: Making paperclips and saving human lives. Prisoners’ dilemma between the two. Is there any sort of theory of morality that will “solve” the problem or do better than number-crunching for Pareto optimality?
Even things that cannot be quantified can be quantified. I can quantify non-quantifiable things with “1” and “0″. Then I can count them. Then I can compare them: I’d rather have Unquantifiable-A than Unquantifiable-B, unless there’s also Unquantifiable-C, so B < A < B+C. I can add any number of unquantifiables and/or unbreakable rules, and devise a numerical system that encodes all my comparative preferences in which higher numbers are better. Then I can use this to find numbers to put on my Prisoners Dilemma matrix or any other game-theoretic system and situation.
Relevant claim from an earlier comment of mine, reworded: There does not exist any “objective”, human-independent method of comparing and trading the values within human morality functions.
Game Theory is the science of figuring out what to do in case you have different agents with incompatible utility functions. It provides solutions and formalisms both when comparisons between agents’ payoffs are impossible and when they are possible. Isn’t this exactly what you’re looking for? All that’s left is applied stuff—figuring out what exactly each individual cares about, which things all humans care about so that we can simplify some calculations, and so on. That’s obviously the most time-consuming, research-intensive part, too.
That is simply false.
Two individual interests: Making paperclips and saving human lives. Prisoners’ dilemma between the two. Is there any sort of theory of morality that will “solve” the problem or do better than number-crunching for Pareto optimality?
Even things that cannot be quantified can be quantified. I can quantify non-quantifiable things with “1” and “0″. Then I can count them. Then I can compare them: I’d rather have Unquantifiable-A than Unquantifiable-B, unless there’s also Unquantifiable-C, so B < A < B+C. I can add any number of unquantifiables and/or unbreakable rules, and devise a numerical system that encodes all my comparative preferences in which higher numbers are better. Then I can use this to find numbers to put on my Prisoners Dilemma matrix or any other game-theoretic system and situation.
Relevant claim from an earlier comment of mine, reworded: There does not exist any “objective”, human-independent method of comparing and trading the values within human morality functions.
Game Theory is the science of figuring out what to do in case you have different agents with incompatible utility functions. It provides solutions and formalisms both when comparisons between agents’ payoffs are impossible and when they are possible. Isn’t this exactly what you’re looking for? All that’s left is applied stuff—figuring out what exactly each individual cares about, which things all humans care about so that we can simplify some calculations, and so on. That’s obviously the most time-consuming, research-intensive part, too.