Even if you value equity separately from total utility,
Not sure where this came from.
MugaSofer gave two choices, neither of which had anything to do with total utility as I understood it. One choice was “inequality is a separate Bad Thing,” the other was that “it” (I assume inequality) was “equal to the total harm done to men minus the total harm done to women”. I agreed with the former. (I might also agree with the latter; it depends on how we understand “harm”.)
In any case, I don’t value equality separate from total utility. I do value it separate from total harm, which I also (negatively) value, and both values factor into my calculations of total utility. As do various other things.
contingent on any given level of equity, you should maximize total utility.
Sure. Further, I’d agree that I should maximize total utility independent of equality, with the understanding that how we calculate utility and how we total utilities is not obvious.
The rest of your comment is harder for me to make sense of, but if I’ve understood you correctly, you’re saying that if we maximize net aggregate utility for all humans—whatever that turns out to involve—it’s likely that when we’re done some group(s) might end up worse off than they’d have ended up if we’d instead maximized that group’s net aggregate utility. Yes?
Sure, I agree with that completely.
this could be considered either “misandry” or “misoginy”—it’s not clear that what we now know as misandry or misoginy would be preserved.
In any case, I don’t value equality separate from total utility. I do value it separate from total harm, which I also (negatively) value, and both values factor into my calculations of total utility.
In that case, you can replace “maximize total utility” with “minimize total harm” and the gist of my comment is unchanged (under mild assumptions, such as that increasing harm never yields an increase in utility).
some group(s) might end up worse off than they’d have ended up if we’d instead maximized that group’s net aggregate utility. Yes?
Not just worse off than maximizing that group’s aggregate U, or minimizing its aggregate harm (which is obvious), but also worse off than if we took equity into account and traded one group’s aggregate U against the given group’s.
This assumes a framework where inequality can be conflated with the difference in total harm done to each group (or with the difference in aggregate utility, again under plausible assumptions).
But, on the other hand, the assumption that “inequality is a separate Bad Thing” in the sense that instances of misandry create something called “inequality”, and instances of misogyny create inequality, and the two instances of inequality add up instead of canceling out, seems redundant. It’s just saying that “inequality” is a kind of harm, so there’s no reason to have it as a separate concept.
It’s just saying that “inequality” is a kind of harm, so there’s no reason to have it as a separate concept.
I agree that with a sufficiently robust shared understanding of harm, there’s no reason to call out other related concepts separately. That said, it’s not been my experience that the English word “harm” conveys anything like such an understanding in ordinary conversation, so sometimes using other words is helpful for communication.
Not sure where this came from.
MugaSofer gave two choices, neither of which had anything to do with total utility as I understood it. One choice was “inequality is a separate Bad Thing,” the other was that “it” (I assume inequality) was “equal to the total harm done to men minus the total harm done to women”. I agreed with the former. (I might also agree with the latter; it depends on how we understand “harm”.)
In any case, I don’t value equality separate from total utility. I do value it separate from total harm, which I also (negatively) value, and both values factor into my calculations of total utility. As do various other things.
Sure. Further, I’d agree that I should maximize total utility independent of equality, with the understanding that how we calculate utility and how we total utilities is not obvious.
The rest of your comment is harder for me to make sense of, but if I’ve understood you correctly, you’re saying that if we maximize net aggregate utility for all humans—whatever that turns out to involve—it’s likely that when we’re done some group(s) might end up worse off than they’d have ended up if we’d instead maximized that group’s net aggregate utility. Yes?
Sure, I agree with that completely.
Sure, that’s true.
In that case, you can replace “maximize total utility” with “minimize total harm” and the gist of my comment is unchanged (under mild assumptions, such as that increasing harm never yields an increase in utility).
Not just worse off than maximizing that group’s aggregate U, or minimizing its aggregate harm (which is obvious), but also worse off than if we took equity into account and traded one group’s aggregate U against the given group’s.
This assumes a framework where inequality can be conflated with the difference in total harm done to each group (or with the difference in aggregate utility, again under plausible assumptions).
But, on the other hand, the assumption that “inequality is a separate Bad Thing” in the sense that instances of misandry create something called “inequality”, and instances of misogyny create inequality, and the two instances of inequality add up instead of canceling out, seems redundant. It’s just saying that “inequality” is a kind of harm, so there’s no reason to have it as a separate concept.
I agree that with a sufficiently robust shared understanding of harm, there’s no reason to call out other related concepts separately. That said, it’s not been my experience that the English word “harm” conveys anything like such an understanding in ordinary conversation, so sometimes using other words is helpful for communication.