This fits with part of a larger thing I have where I think that utility doesn’t need to be “noticed” to be real
This is one of the reasons I object to utilitarianism. There’s no actual measure of utility. This isn’t just that it’s inconsistent in whether I notice it, or even that it’s inconsistent in which things I prefer at a given moment (though both are true). It’s that it’s so inconsistent across time and across individuals that it’s very hard to believe that it’s actually quantifiable at all.
Utility as an instantaneous ordinal preference, revealed by choice, is extremely well-supported. Utility as a quantity is far more useful for calculations, but far less justifiable by observation. Heck, most utilitarians can’t even tell me whether it’s a stock or a flow—do you save/spend utility, or just maximize each second’s utility value?
Curious—I know ordinal arithmetic exists though I’m no expert. Are there any theory of utilitarianism developed with that or similar exotic algebras that you know of?
Edit: On re-read, I think I misinterpreted what you were saying, and most of what I wrote is not relevant—my actual question is “why is pairwise ranking of events/states/choices not sufficient to quantify utility?”.
The inconsistency across time and individuals in evaluating marginal differences in utility does not necessarily preclude utility from being quantifiable.
In the extreme, almost everyone would, given the choice between “eternal happiness, fulfillment, and freedom for me and everyone I care about” and “the less desirable between eternal torture our oblivion for me and everyone I care about”, choose the former. It seems reasonable then to say that the former has higher utility to them than the latter. Given such a starting point, the utility of further events can be approximately quantified by ranking. You may (reasonably) conclude that you don’t care about imperceptible differences in utility without throwing away the concept of quantifiable utility in general.
Have I misinterpreted what you meant by “Utility as an instantaneous ordinal preference, revealed by choice, is extremely well-supported. Utility as a quantity is far more useful for calculations, but far less justifiable by observation” ? Is pairwise (approximate) ranking of choices not sufficient to quantify utility?
(P.S. Utilitarianism is not actually my foremost moral axiom, but quantification of utility does not seem incoherent to me)
This is one of the reasons I object to utilitarianism. There’s no actual measure of utility. This isn’t just that it’s inconsistent in whether I notice it, or even that it’s inconsistent in which things I prefer at a given moment (though both are true). It’s that it’s so inconsistent across time and across individuals that it’s very hard to believe that it’s actually quantifiable at all.
Utility as an instantaneous ordinal preference, revealed by choice, is extremely well-supported. Utility as a quantity is far more useful for calculations, but far less justifiable by observation. Heck, most utilitarians can’t even tell me whether it’s a stock or a flow—do you save/spend utility, or just maximize each second’s utility value?
Curious—I know ordinal arithmetic exists though I’m no expert. Are there any theory of utilitarianism developed with that or similar exotic algebras that you know of?
Edit: On re-read, I think I misinterpreted what you were saying, and most of what I wrote is not relevant—my actual question is “why is pairwise ranking of events/states/choices not sufficient to quantify utility?”.
The inconsistency across time and individuals in evaluating marginal differences in utility does not necessarily preclude utility from being quantifiable.
In the extreme, almost everyone would, given the choice between “eternal happiness, fulfillment, and freedom for me and everyone I care about” and “the less desirable between eternal torture our oblivion for me and everyone I care about”, choose the former. It seems reasonable then to say that the former has higher utility to them than the latter. Given such a starting point, the utility of further events can be approximately quantified by ranking. You may (reasonably) conclude that you don’t care about imperceptible differences in utility without throwing away the concept of quantifiable utility in general.
Have I misinterpreted what you meant by “Utility as an instantaneous ordinal preference, revealed by choice, is extremely well-supported. Utility as a quantity is far more useful for calculations, but far less justifiable by observation” ? Is pairwise (approximate) ranking of choices not sufficient to quantify utility?
(P.S. Utilitarianism is not actually my foremost moral axiom, but quantification of utility does not seem incoherent to me)