It seems like this is based more on the person’s ability to optimize. The altruistic person who realized this flaw would then be able to (assuming s/he had the intelligence and rationality to do so) calculate the best possible wish to benefit the most number of people.
Notice how you had to assume the altruist to have the extraordinary degree of intelligence and rationality to calculate the best possible wish and Stephen merely had to assume that the selfishness was of the goodwill-toward-men-if-it-doesn’t-cost-me-anything sort? When you require less implausible assumptions to render a given ethical philosophy genie-resilient, the philosophy is more genie-resilient.
It seems like this is based more on the person’s ability to optimize. The altruistic person who realized this flaw would then be able to (assuming s/he had the intelligence and rationality to do so) calculate the best possible wish to benefit the most number of people.
Notice how you had to assume the altruist to have the extraordinary degree of intelligence and rationality to calculate the best possible wish and Stephen merely had to assume that the selfishness was of the goodwill-toward-men-if-it-doesn’t-cost-me-anything sort? When you require less implausible assumptions to render a given ethical philosophy genie-resilient, the philosophy is more genie-resilient.