That is . . . a pretty solid criticism. Half of the reason I posted this was to have people tear holes in it.
I’m looking for some way of modeling utilitarianism that adequately expresses the badness of death and supports resurrecting the dead, but maybe this isn’t it. Perhaps a big negative penalty for deaths or “time spent dead,” though that seems inelegant.
EDIT: Looking at this again later, I’m not sure what counts as a pareto improvement. Someone popping into existence, living happily for one day, and then disappearing would not be a good thing according to my (current conception of) my values. That implies there’s some length of time or amount of happiness experienced necessary for a life to be worth creating.
Isn’t there something a little bit broken about trying to find a utility system that will produce the conclusions you presently hold? How would you ever know if your intuitions were wrong?
What basis do I have for a utility system besides my moral intuitions? If my intuitions are inconsistent, I’ll notice that because every system I formulate will be inconsistent. (Currently, I think that if my intuitions are inconsistent the best fix will be accepting the repugnant conclusion, which I would be relatively okay with.)
I understand what you are saying. But when I start with a conclusion, what I find myself doing is rationalizing. Even if my reasons are logically consistent I am suspicious of any product based on this process.
If it helps, the thought process that produced the great^4-grandparent was something like this:
“Total utilitarianism leads to the repugnant conclusion; average leads to killing unhappy people. If there was some middle ground between these two broken concepts . . . hm, what if people who were alive and are now dead count as having zero utility, versus the utility they could be experiencing? That makes sense, and it’s mathematically elegant. And it weighs preserving and restoring life over creating it! This is starting to look like a good approximation of my values. Better post it on LW and see if it stands up to scrutiny.”
That is . . . a pretty solid criticism. Half of the reason I posted this was to have people tear holes in it.
I’m looking for some way of modeling utilitarianism that adequately expresses the badness of death and supports resurrecting the dead, but maybe this isn’t it. Perhaps a big negative penalty for deaths or “time spent dead,” though that seems inelegant.
EDIT: Looking at this again later, I’m not sure what counts as a pareto improvement. Someone popping into existence, living happily for one day, and then disappearing would not be a good thing according to my (current conception of) my values. That implies there’s some length of time or amount of happiness experienced necessary for a life to be worth creating.
Isn’t there something a little bit broken about trying to find a utility system that will produce the conclusions you presently hold? How would you ever know if your intuitions were wrong?
What basis do I have for a utility system besides my moral intuitions? If my intuitions are inconsistent, I’ll notice that because every system I formulate will be inconsistent. (Currently, I think that if my intuitions are inconsistent the best fix will be accepting the repugnant conclusion, which I would be relatively okay with.)
I understand what you are saying. But when I start with a conclusion, what I find myself doing is rationalizing. Even if my reasons are logically consistent I am suspicious of any product based on this process.
If it helps, the thought process that produced the great^4-grandparent was something like this:
“Total utilitarianism leads to the repugnant conclusion; average leads to killing unhappy people. If there was some middle ground between these two broken concepts . . . hm, what if people who were alive and are now dead count as having zero utility, versus the utility they could be experiencing? That makes sense, and it’s mathematically elegant. And it weighs preserving and restoring life over creating it! This is starting to look like a good approximation of my values. Better post it on LW and see if it stands up to scrutiny.”