That would be an effective demonstration of scope insensitivity in an ideal scenario where money has a flat conversion to utility in that range for the individual in question. If $200 is in the subject’s budget, but $400 is not, this may be entirely rational behavior. A donation which puts you into debt will have a much more dramatic effect on your own utility than one which leaves you solvent.
You’re right, the $200 vs $400 example isn’t ironclad—even a rational altruist will still have a limited budget. The reason I ascribed scope insensitivity to the example was that it’s worded in terms of valuing ‘saving lives’ as opposed to valuing lives, which, as I explain, is a hallmark of scope insensitivity.
Saving 10 times more birds would make me 10 times more happy. Therefore, I would make a bigger celebration afterwards. But the celebration also comes from my limited budget, so there would be less money left to contribute to saving the birds.
That would be an effective demonstration of scope insensitivity in an ideal scenario where money has a flat conversion to utility in that range for the individual in question. If $200 is in the subject’s budget, but $400 is not, this may be entirely rational behavior. A donation which puts you into debt will have a much more dramatic effect on your own utility than one which leaves you solvent.
You’re right, the $200 vs $400 example isn’t ironclad—even a rational altruist will still have a limited budget. The reason I ascribed scope insensitivity to the example was that it’s worded in terms of valuing ‘saving lives’ as opposed to valuing lives, which, as I explain, is a hallmark of scope insensitivity.
Still doesn’t explain people paying less to save 20000 birds than to save 2000.
Saving 10 times more birds would make me 10 times more happy. Therefore, I would make a bigger celebration afterwards. But the celebration also comes from my limited budget, so there would be less money left to contribute to saving the birds.
(End of rationalization exercise.)
I never claimed that no effective demonstrations of scope insensitivity exist.