A slightly deeper conclusion is that we tend to care about other people’s utility more than their happiness (for example I would not consider ‘they won’t be unhappy about it for long’ an acceptable justification for blowing people’s legs off).
This is sloppy thinking—I find the example much more easily explained by the fact that happiness is a vague metric, that we can’t easily affect directly, while number of legs is a concrete metric and an amputation measurably decreases said number.
But if you ask me whether I’d prefer to be happy and legless, or constantly sad and legged, and I’d answer the former. So since I’d prefer the former, how can you say that the latter has more utility?
I didn’t say it had more utility. I merely said the having legs has utility regardless of its relation to happiness, as shown by the fact that even people who know that losing their legs will not make them unhappy for long will still put a lot of effort into not losing their legs.
Happiness also has utility, and in your case it clearly has more. All I am saying is that it is not the only thing to have utility, and that if I am feeling altruistic it is other people’s utility, rather than their happiness, that I protect.
Besides, happiness is easy to increase directly, recreational drugs spring to mind.
I think the literature on this point is complicated. Wikipedia defines utility as ” a measure of relative satisfaction .” A hypothetical crack addict might maximize his consumption of crack without much “satisfaction” or “happiness.” Or maybe not, depending on the definitions used.
Hmm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference would conclude that they had some kind of preference for consuming crack—but yes, defining utility in subjective terms is pretty vague—and it allows all kinds of positions to be argued.
I think that this conclusion is of limited depth.
A slightly deeper conclusion is that we tend to care about other people’s utility more than their happiness (for example I would not consider ‘they won’t be unhappy about it for long’ an acceptable justification for blowing people’s legs off).
This is sloppy thinking—I find the example much more easily explained by the fact that happiness is a vague metric, that we can’t easily affect directly, while number of legs is a concrete metric and an amputation measurably decreases said number.
But if you ask me whether I’d prefer to be happy and legless, or constantly sad and legged, and I’d answer the former. So since I’d prefer the former, how can you say that the latter has more utility?
I didn’t say it had more utility. I merely said the having legs has utility regardless of its relation to happiness, as shown by the fact that even people who know that losing their legs will not make them unhappy for long will still put a lot of effort into not losing their legs.
Happiness also has utility, and in your case it clearly has more. All I am saying is that it is not the only thing to have utility, and that if I am feeling altruistic it is other people’s utility, rather than their happiness, that I protect.
Besides, happiness is easy to increase directly, recreational drugs spring to mind.
‘Utility’ is ‘that which is maximized’, then. That is pretty standard.
I think the literature on this point is complicated. Wikipedia defines utility as ” a measure of relative satisfaction .” A hypothetical crack addict might maximize his consumption of crack without much “satisfaction” or “happiness.” Or maybe not, depending on the definitions used.
Hmm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference would conclude that they had some kind of preference for consuming crack—but yes, defining utility in subjective terms is pretty vague—and it allows all kinds of positions to be argued.