I think I have a pretty simple solution to this: treat 0 as the point when each being is neither happy nor unhappy. Negative numbers are fine. You can still take the sum. In the example, this seems like just subtracting 10 from everyone, which is 0 in the dogless state and −3 with the dog. Thus: no puppy.
I think I have a pretty simple solution to this: treat 0 as the point when each being is neither happy nor unhappy. Negative numbers are fine. You can still take the sum. In the example, this seems like just subtracting 10 from everyone, which is 0 in the dogless state and −3 with the dog. Thus: no puppy.