Oh geez. Originally I had considered this question uninteresting so I ignored it, but considering the increasing devotion to it in later posts, I guess I should give my answer.
My justification, but not my answer, depends upon what how the change is made.
-If the offer is made to all of humanity before being implemented (“Do you want to be the ‘lots of people get specks race’ or the ‘one guy gets severe torture’ race?”) I believe people could all agree to the specks by “buying out” whoever eventually gets the torture. For an immeasurably small amount, less than the pain of a speck, they can together amass funds sufficient to return the torture to the indivdual’s indifference curve. OTOH, the person getting the torture couldn’t possibly buy out that many people. (In other words, the specks are Kaldor-Hicks efficient.)
-If the offer, at my decision, would just be thrown onto humanity without possibly of advance negotation, I would still take the specks because even if only people who feel bad for the tortured make a small contribution, it will still comparable to what they had to offer in the above paragraph, such is the nature of large numbers of people.
I don’t think this is the result of my revulsion toward the torture, although I have that. I think my decision stems from how such large (and superlinearly increasing) utility differences imply the possibility of “evening it out” through some transfer.
Oh geez. Originally I had considered this question uninteresting so I ignored it, but considering the increasing devotion to it in later posts, I guess I should give my answer.
My justification, but not my answer, depends upon what how the change is made.
-If the offer is made to all of humanity before being implemented (“Do you want to be the ‘lots of people get specks race’ or the ‘one guy gets severe torture’ race?”) I believe people could all agree to the specks by “buying out” whoever eventually gets the torture. For an immeasurably small amount, less than the pain of a speck, they can together amass funds sufficient to return the torture to the indivdual’s indifference curve. OTOH, the person getting the torture couldn’t possibly buy out that many people. (In other words, the specks are Kaldor-Hicks efficient.)
-If the offer, at my decision, would just be thrown onto humanity without possibly of advance negotation, I would still take the specks because even if only people who feel bad for the tortured make a small contribution, it will still comparable to what they had to offer in the above paragraph, such is the nature of large numbers of people.
I don’t think this is the result of my revulsion toward the torture, although I have that. I think my decision stems from how such large (and superlinearly increasing) utility differences imply the possibility of “evening it out” through some transfer.