MMEU makes some sense in a world with death. When there’s a lower bound where negative utility doesn’t mean you’re just having a bad time but that you’re dead and can never recover from that negative utility then it makes sense to raise the minimum expected utility at least above the threshold of death, and preferably as far above death as possible.
If you take a MMEU approach to Utilitarianism (not MMEU over a single VNM utility function, but maximizing the minimum expected VNM utility function of every individual) it answers the torture vs specks question with specks, will only accept Pascal’s Muggings that threaten negative utility, won’t reduce most people’s utility to achieve the repugnant conclusion or to feed utility monsters, won’t take the garden path in the lifespan dilemma (this also applies to individual VNM utility functions), etc. In short it sounds like most people’s intuitive reaction to those dilemmas.
MMEU makes some sense in a world with death. When there’s a lower bound where negative utility doesn’t mean you’re just having a bad time but that you’re dead and can never recover from that negative utility then it makes sense to raise the minimum expected utility at least above the threshold of death, and preferably as far above death as possible.
If you take a MMEU approach to Utilitarianism (not MMEU over a single VNM utility function, but maximizing the minimum expected VNM utility function of every individual) it answers the torture vs specks question with specks, will only accept Pascal’s Muggings that threaten negative utility, won’t reduce most people’s utility to achieve the repugnant conclusion or to feed utility monsters, won’t take the garden path in the lifespan dilemma (this also applies to individual VNM utility functions), etc. In short it sounds like most people’s intuitive reaction to those dilemmas.