Something I have noted about Repugnant Conclusion arguments as they relate to Population ethics from reading this lead me to have a question about whether an idea I had was reasonable:
In Repugnant Conclusion arguments in general, you are losing Average Utility, but gaining Total Utility, with a rate of change that seems to vary heavily or remain unspecified from argument to argument. I think the rate of change of average and total utility seems to affect the overall repugnance of the chain of trades rather heavily.
(Note: I’m using towns since fractional towns makes more sense than fractional people)
Let’s say you begin with 1 towns of people at 10 average utility, Towns x Utility is 10.
and the next step is 1.222… towns of people at 9 average utility. Towns x Utility is 11.
With the next step, you might either:
A: Continue losing 1 average utility and gaining 1 total utility each step.
B: Continue losing 10% remaining average utility and gaining 10% total utility each step.
C: Continue raising average utility to approximately the 0.955 power with each step and raising Total utility to approximately the 1.041 power with each step.
A seems substantially more repugnant than B, and each step grows seemingly more repugnant in percentage terms. You trade a greater proportion of your average utility away on each trade for increasingly smaller percentage gains to total utility, so arguably at each point it looks like your next deal is getting worse. And in A you can’t actually get to 21 towns without going to negative total utility.
Whereas in B, you won’t ever actually reach 0 or negative average utility, even when they have towns> number of atoms in the universe, And at each point, you trade a equal proportion of your average utility away on each trade for an equal percentage gains to total utility, so arguably at each point it looks like your next deal is going to be of comparable quality to your previous deal. However, even in the case of B, the average utility is still approaching 0, which is usually considered crappy.
But with C, the average utility is instead approaching 1 and the total utility grows substantially faster. Each deal actually grows better over time in percentage terms. (At first, you trade away around 10% of your average utility to get around 10% more total utility, but later, you might be trading away only 2% of your remaining average utility to gain 50% more total utility. And at each point you would expect to get better trades in the future.)
I would hesitate to call B a repugnant solution when compared to how awful A is (Unless I call A the “Genocidal Conclusion” as per Ghatanathoah), and I would hesitate to call C a repugnant solution at all. Does that seem reasonable?
Something I have noted about Repugnant Conclusion arguments as they relate to Population ethics from reading this lead me to have a question about whether an idea I had was reasonable:
In Repugnant Conclusion arguments in general, you are losing Average Utility, but gaining Total Utility, with a rate of change that seems to vary heavily or remain unspecified from argument to argument. I think the rate of change of average and total utility seems to affect the overall repugnance of the chain of trades rather heavily.
(Note: I’m using towns since fractional towns makes more sense than fractional people)
Let’s say you begin with 1 towns of people at 10 average utility, Towns x Utility is 10.
and the next step is 1.222… towns of people at 9 average utility. Towns x Utility is 11.
With the next step, you might either:
A: Continue losing 1 average utility and gaining 1 total utility each step.
B: Continue losing 10% remaining average utility and gaining 10% total utility each step.
C: Continue raising average utility to approximately the 0.955 power with each step and raising Total utility to approximately the 1.041 power with each step.
A seems substantially more repugnant than B, and each step grows seemingly more repugnant in percentage terms. You trade a greater proportion of your average utility away on each trade for increasingly smaller percentage gains to total utility, so arguably at each point it looks like your next deal is getting worse. And in A you can’t actually get to 21 towns without going to negative total utility.
Whereas in B, you won’t ever actually reach 0 or negative average utility, even when they have towns> number of atoms in the universe, And at each point, you trade a equal proportion of your average utility away on each trade for an equal percentage gains to total utility, so arguably at each point it looks like your next deal is going to be of comparable quality to your previous deal. However, even in the case of B, the average utility is still approaching 0, which is usually considered crappy.
But with C, the average utility is instead approaching 1 and the total utility grows substantially faster. Each deal actually grows better over time in percentage terms. (At first, you trade away around 10% of your average utility to get around 10% more total utility, but later, you might be trading away only 2% of your remaining average utility to gain 50% more total utility. And at each point you would expect to get better trades in the future.)
I would hesitate to call B a repugnant solution when compared to how awful A is (Unless I call A the “Genocidal Conclusion” as per Ghatanathoah), and I would hesitate to call C a repugnant solution at all. Does that seem reasonable?
Edited to fix formatting