response a)
My life gets better with each year I live. I learn new things and make new friends. 2 people who live 12 years will not have the same amount of happiness as I will on my birthday, when I turn 24. I see no reason why the same should not hold for even longer lifespans.
Response b) I privilege people that already exist over people who do not exist. A person living 800 years is more valuable to me EVEN if you say the same amount of happiness happens in both cases. I care about existing people being happy, and about not creating sad people, but I don’t particularly care about creating new happy entities unless it’s necessary for the perpetuation of humanity, which is something I value.
response c) The personal response, I value my own happiness significantly higher than that of other people. 1 year of my own life is worth more to me than 1 year of someone else’s life. If my decision was between creating 10 people as happy as I am or making myself 10 times happier, I will make myself 10 times happier.
Finally, you don’t seem to realize what is meant by caring about average utility. In your scenario, the TOTAL years lived remains the same in both cases, but the AVERAGE utility goes far down in the second case. 80 years per person is a lot less than 800 years per person.
In your scenario, the TOTAL years lived remains the same in both cases, but the AVERAGE utility goes far down in the second case. 80 years per person is a lot less than 800 years per person.
Not only that but there is a decent claim to be made to—within certain bounds—noting that ten people who live only 100 years is less preferable to a utilitarian than 1 person who lives 1,000 years, so long as we accept the notion that deaths cause others to experience negative utility. The same number of years are lived but even without attempting to average utility the 10x100 scenario has 9 additional negative-utility events the 1x1,000 does not.
Implied assumption: death causes more disutility to others than birth causes utility to others. Might be true, but ought to be included explicitly in any such calculation.
response a) My life gets better with each year I live. I learn new things and make new friends. 2 people who live 12 years will not have the same amount of happiness as I will on my birthday, when I turn 24. I see no reason why the same should not hold for even longer lifespans.
Response b) I privilege people that already exist over people who do not exist. A person living 800 years is more valuable to me EVEN if you say the same amount of happiness happens in both cases. I care about existing people being happy, and about not creating sad people, but I don’t particularly care about creating new happy entities unless it’s necessary for the perpetuation of humanity, which is something I value.
response c) The personal response, I value my own happiness significantly higher than that of other people. 1 year of my own life is worth more to me than 1 year of someone else’s life. If my decision was between creating 10 people as happy as I am or making myself 10 times happier, I will make myself 10 times happier.
Finally, you don’t seem to realize what is meant by caring about average utility. In your scenario, the TOTAL years lived remains the same in both cases, but the AVERAGE utility goes far down in the second case. 80 years per person is a lot less than 800 years per person.
Not only that but there is a decent claim to be made to—within certain bounds—noting that ten people who live only 100 years is less preferable to a utilitarian than 1 person who lives 1,000 years, so long as we accept the notion that deaths cause others to experience negative utility. The same number of years are lived but even without attempting to average utility the 10x100 scenario has 9 additional negative-utility events the 1x1,000 does not.
Implied assumption: death causes more disutility to others than birth causes utility to others. Might be true, but ought to be included explicitly in any such calculation.
True.
Thanks—I fixed the setup.
Please don’t do that. OP’s comment doesn’t make any sense now.
Ah, true! I edited it again to include the original setup, so that people will know what Logos01 and drethelin are referring to.