So the average utility can never sink below au(f(n)): the average utility is bounded.
So some weaker versions of the mere addition argument do not imply the repugnant conclusion.
I’m not seeing how this is meaningfully different- it still argues that the average utility should be the lower bound. You’ve created a lower bound that’s perhaps more acceptable than “lives barely worth living,” but you could have done that just as easily by saying “it’s good to add lives with utility scores more than 9″ instead of “it’s good to add lives with utility scores more than 0.” It’s not obvious to me that this lower bound is the one you would want to use- should the initial population size really determine the minimal future happiness?
I’m not advocating this aggregation formula—for one, it still allows people to be killed and replaced with happier versions, and this is a net good. It’s more an investigation of various aggregation properties.
I’m not seeing how this is meaningfully different- it still argues that the average utility should be the lower bound. You’ve created a lower bound that’s perhaps more acceptable than “lives barely worth living,” but you could have done that just as easily by saying “it’s good to add lives with utility scores more than 9″ instead of “it’s good to add lives with utility scores more than 0.” It’s not obvious to me that this lower bound is the one you would want to use- should the initial population size really determine the minimal future happiness?
I’m not advocating this aggregation formula—for one, it still allows people to be killed and replaced with happier versions, and this is a net good. It’s more an investigation of various aggregation properties.