To me, this experiment shows that absolute utilitarianism does not make a good society. Conversely, a decision between, say, person A getting $100 and person B getting $1 or both of them getting $2 shows absolute egalitarianism isn’t satisfactory either (assuming simple transfers are banned). Perhaps the inevitable realization...is that some balance between them is possible, such as the weighted sum (sum indicating utilitarianism) with more weight applied to those who have less (this indicating egalitarianism) can provide such a balance?
To choose torture rather than dust specks is the utilitarian option, maximizing the total sum of subjective utility. This, however, causes extreme pain to 1 person to merely make everyone else receive slightly less negligible inconvenience. Anyone who picks dust specks is agreeing that utilitarianism is not always right (in fact eliezer says in his follow-up of this that in doing so, one rejects a certain kind of utilitarianism). If you chose torture though, I can see why you’d feel otherwise.
Where’s your argument to the effect that absolute utilitarianism does not make a good society? Further, could you taboo “good society” while you’re at it?
Right, I should have said “is not optimal” rather than “does not make a good society”. My basic point being that if we agree that dust specks are best (which I admit we’re not in unanimity about), we reject utilitarianism as an optimal allocation rule. I do not discredit it as a whole (i.e. utilitarianism still has some merit as a guideline), but if we reject it even once, “absolute utilitarianism” (the belief that it is always optimal) cannot hold.
Heh, no I’m not saying that if X holds then ~X fails to hold, I expect that to also be the case, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that we (those of us who chose dust specks) have chosen to reject utilitarianism and proposing an alternative, since we can’t merely choose nonapples over apples.
Heh, no I’m not saying that if X holds then ~X fails to hold.
I had a feeling you weren’t. :)
I’m saying that we (those of us who chose dust specks) have chosen to reject utilitarianism and proposing an alternative, since we can’t merely choose nonapples over apples.
Yes, that’s accurate. If you take utilitarianism to its logical conclusion, you reach things like Torture in T v. DS problems. This conversation reminds me a lot of the excellent book “The Limits of Morality.”
I’d be curious as to why anyone would choose to reject utilitarianism on the basis of this thought experiment, though.
Then it seems we’ve reached an agreement, as the agreement theorem says we should. And yes, this is a thought experiment, it is unlikely that anyone will ever have to choose between such extremes (or that 3^^^3 people will ever exist, at once or even in total). However, whether real or not, if one rejects utilitarianism here, they can’t simply say “Well it works in all real scenarios though”. Eliezer could have just as easily mentioned a utility monster, but he felt like conveying the same thought experiment in a more original way.
However, whether real or not, if one rejects utilitarianism here, they can’t simply say “Well it works in all real scenarios though”. Eliezer could have just as easily mentioned a utility monster, but he felt like conveying the same thought experiment in a more original way.
Right. I’m just unclear as to why people (not you specifically, I just meant it generally in my previous comment) interpret these kinds of stories as criticisms of utilitarianism. They are simply taking the axioms to their logical extremes, not offering arguments against accepting those axioms in the first place.
Ah, well if that’s the point you’re making then yes, you’re indeed correct. Eliezer has by no means argued that utilitarianism is entirely wrong, just shown that its logical extreme is wrong (which may or may not have been his intention). If you’re arguing that others are seeing this in a different way than we agreeably have, and have interpreted this article in a different way than is rational...well, you may also have a point there. It’s not particularly surprising though, since there are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of ways to succumb to 1 or more fallacies and only 1 way to succumb to none.
First of all, I am for the torture—so are 22.1% of the people recently surveyed vs 36.8% who are for the dust specks—the rest don’t want to respond or are unsure.
Secondly, the issue of small dispersed disutilities vs large concentrated ones is one we constantly encounter in the real world, and time after time society accepts that for the purpose of e.g. the convenience of driving, we can tolerate the unavoidable tradeoff of the occasional traffic accidents. Where we don’t sacrifice every tiny little luxury just to gather resources to save a single extra life. If you had to break 7 billion legs to save a single man from being tortured, most people would not accept this tradeoff as acceptable.
Once this logic is in place, all that remains is the scope insensitivity where people can’t really intuit the vast size of 3^^^3.
To me, this experiment shows that absolute utilitarianism does not make a good society. Conversely, a decision between, say, person A getting $100 and person B getting $1 or both of them getting $2 shows absolute egalitarianism isn’t satisfactory either (assuming simple transfers are banned). Perhaps the inevitable realization...is that some balance between them is possible, such as the weighted sum (sum indicating utilitarianism) with more weight applied to those who have less (this indicating egalitarianism) can provide such a balance?
I don’t see how you’ve arrived at that at all. Would you mind elaborating?
To choose torture rather than dust specks is the utilitarian option, maximizing the total sum of subjective utility. This, however, causes extreme pain to 1 person to merely make everyone else receive slightly less negligible inconvenience. Anyone who picks dust specks is agreeing that utilitarianism is not always right (in fact eliezer says in his follow-up of this that in doing so, one rejects a certain kind of utilitarianism). If you chose torture though, I can see why you’d feel otherwise.
Where’s your argument to the effect that absolute utilitarianism does not make a good society? Further, could you taboo “good society” while you’re at it?
Right, I should have said “is not optimal” rather than “does not make a good society”. My basic point being that if we agree that dust specks are best (which I admit we’re not in unanimity about), we reject utilitarianism as an optimal allocation rule. I do not discredit it as a whole (i.e. utilitarianism still has some merit as a guideline), but if we reject it even once, “absolute utilitarianism” (the belief that it is always optimal) cannot hold.
So your basic contention is: “If you agree that dust specks is the answer, you can’t say that torture is the answer”?
This sounds fairly obvious.
Heh, no I’m not saying that if X holds then ~X fails to hold, I expect that to also be the case, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that we (those of us who chose dust specks) have chosen to reject utilitarianism and proposing an alternative, since we can’t merely choose nonapples over apples.
I had a feeling you weren’t. :)
Yes, that’s accurate. If you take utilitarianism to its logical conclusion, you reach things like Torture in T v. DS problems. This conversation reminds me a lot of the excellent book “The Limits of Morality.”
I’d be curious as to why anyone would choose to reject utilitarianism on the basis of this thought experiment, though.
Then it seems we’ve reached an agreement, as the agreement theorem says we should. And yes, this is a thought experiment, it is unlikely that anyone will ever have to choose between such extremes (or that 3^^^3 people will ever exist, at once or even in total). However, whether real or not, if one rejects utilitarianism here, they can’t simply say “Well it works in all real scenarios though”. Eliezer could have just as easily mentioned a utility monster, but he felt like conveying the same thought experiment in a more original way.
Right. I’m just unclear as to why people (not you specifically, I just meant it generally in my previous comment) interpret these kinds of stories as criticisms of utilitarianism. They are simply taking the axioms to their logical extremes, not offering arguments against accepting those axioms in the first place.
Ah, well if that’s the point you’re making then yes, you’re indeed correct. Eliezer has by no means argued that utilitarianism is entirely wrong, just shown that its logical extreme is wrong (which may or may not have been his intention). If you’re arguing that others are seeing this in a different way than we agreeably have, and have interpreted this article in a different way than is rational...well, you may also have a point there. It’s not particularly surprising though, since there are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of ways to succumb to 1 or more fallacies and only 1 way to succumb to none.
First of all, I am for the torture—so are 22.1% of the people recently surveyed vs 36.8% who are for the dust specks—the rest don’t want to respond or are unsure.
Secondly, the issue of small dispersed disutilities vs large concentrated ones is one we constantly encounter in the real world, and time after time society accepts that for the purpose of e.g. the convenience of driving, we can tolerate the unavoidable tradeoff of the occasional traffic accidents. Where we don’t sacrifice every tiny little luxury just to gather resources to save a single extra life. If you had to break 7 billion legs to save a single man from being tortured, most people would not accept this tradeoff as acceptable.
Once this logic is in place, all that remains is the scope insensitivity where people can’t really intuit the vast size of 3^^^3.