It is just that, since I cannot tell whether or not what I do will make such people happy, I have no motive to pay any attention to their preferences.
Is that your true objection? I expect you can figure out what would make these people happy fairly easily enough most of the time—e.g. by asking them.
That is a valid point. So, I am justified in treating them as rational agents to the extent that I can engage in trade with them. I just can’t enter into a long-term Nash bargain with them in which we jointly pledge to maximize some linear combination of our two utility functions in an unsupervised fashion. They can’t trust me to do what they want, and I can’t trust them to judge their own utility as bounded.
I think this is back to the point about infinities. The one I wish you would stop bringing up—and instead treat these folk as though they are discounting only a teeny, tiny bit.
Frankly, I generally find it hard to take these utilitarian types seriously in the first place. A “signalling” theory (holier-than-thou) explains the unusually high prevalance of utilitarianism among moral philosophers—and an “exploitation” theory explains its prevalance among those running charitable causes (utilitarianism-says-give-us-your-money). Those explanations do a good job of modelling the facts about utilitarianism—and are normally a lot more credible than the supplied justifications—IMHO.
I think this is back to the point about infinities.
Which suggests that we are failing to communicate. I am not surprised.
The one I wish you would stop bringing up—and instead treat these folk as though they are discounting only a teeny, tiny bit.
I do that! And I still discover that their utility functions are dominated by huge positive and negative utilities in the distant future, while mine are dominated by modest positive and negative utilities in the near future. They are still wrong even if they fudge it so that their math works.
I think this is back to the point about infinities.
Which suggests that we are failing to communicate. I am not surprised.
I went from your “I can’t trust them to judge their own utility as bounded” to your earlier “infinity” point. Possibly I am not trying very hard here, though...
My main issue was you apparently thinking that you couldn’t predict their desires in order to find mutually beneficial trades. I’m not really sure if this business about not being able to agree to maximise some shared function is a big deal for you.
That is a valid point. So, I am justified in treating them as rational agents to the extent that I can engage in trade with them. I just can’t enter into a long-term Nash bargain with them in which we jointly pledge to maximize some linear combination of our two utility functions in an unsupervised fashion. They can’t trust me to do what they want, and I can’t trust them to judge their own utility as bounded.
I think this is back to the point about infinities. The one I wish you would stop bringing up—and instead treat these folk as though they are discounting only a teeny, tiny bit.
Frankly, I generally find it hard to take these utilitarian types seriously in the first place. A “signalling” theory (holier-than-thou) explains the unusually high prevalance of utilitarianism among moral philosophers—and an “exploitation” theory explains its prevalance among those running charitable causes (utilitarianism-says-give-us-your-money). Those explanations do a good job of modelling the facts about utilitarianism—and are normally a lot more credible than the supplied justifications—IMHO.
Which suggests that we are failing to communicate. I am not surprised.
I do that! And I still discover that their utility functions are dominated by huge positive and negative utilities in the distant future, while mine are dominated by modest positive and negative utilities in the near future. They are still wrong even if they fudge it so that their math works.
I went from your “I can’t trust them to judge their own utility as bounded” to your earlier “infinity” point. Possibly I am not trying very hard here, though...
My main issue was you apparently thinking that you couldn’t predict their desires in order to find mutually beneficial trades. I’m not really sure if this business about not being able to agree to maximise some shared function is a big deal for you.