A small change—the differences between average and total utility occur in decisions on whether to create a person or not. Average utilitarians create people if their utility would be higher than average, while toatl utilitarians create people if their utility would be positive.
That’s true. I was only addressing dust specks vs. torture, where people are neither created nor destroyed. Just saying that would have been sufficient; it’s a generally sufficient condition for the preferred outcome to be the same under avg. vs total.
A small change—the differences between average and total utility occur in decisions on whether to create a person or not. Average utilitarians create people if their utility would be higher than average, while toatl utilitarians create people if their utility would be positive.
And if they would not, in existing, decrease anyone else’s utility by enough to offset their own.
That’s true. I was only addressing dust specks vs. torture, where people are neither created nor destroyed. Just saying that would have been sufficient; it’s a generally sufficient condition for the preferred outcome to be the same under avg. vs total.