Well, if they’re roughly comparable in terms of moment-to-moment intensity of suffering, then obviously we (utilitarian consequentialists of any sane kind) would rather that a smaller number of people experience it for a brief period (and then die) than that a larger group of people experience it for a long time (and then die). It’s not even a Repugnant Conclusion issue, since it’s hard to argue that chronically malnourished lives have positive value on the margin.
That’s an easy argument but I’m not sure it’s a correct one. The answers to the following questions may be different:
Is it a good thing on the whole that A exists?
Now that A already exists, does A want to commit suicide?
for at least the following reasons:
Other people will be negatively affected (it may be worse to get to know someone and have them commit suicide, than never to encounter them at all).
People have an inbuilt preference for staying alive, for obvious biological reasons, so someone may go on wanting to live well beyond the point at which each day of life is substantially negative for them. (Just as someone may go on wanting to take heroin well beyond the point at which they’d be happier if they stopped.)
Even without taking into account cognitive biases and externalities, that argument only applies to people who don’t believe in afterlife: if you thought that by killing yourself you would go to hell and by enduring shit thirty more years you would go to heaven, you’d think twice before picking the former.
if they’re roughly comparable in terms of moment-to-moment intensity of suffering
So, um, you think that the life of the chronically malnourished consists of nothing but suffering comparable to that of someone dying from acute starvation??
It’s not even a Repugnant Conclusion issue, since it’s hard to argue that chronically malnourished lives have positive value on the margin.
It’s not a repugnant conclusion to decide that going around killing the chronically malnourished is a good thing—are you quite sure?
So, um, you think that the life of the chronically malnourished consists of nothing but suffering comparable to that of someone dying from acute starvation??
Not my area of expertise, but for the argument to work they only need to be within maybe an order of magnitude or so. Does that seem plausible?
It’s not a repugnant conclusion to decide that going around killing the chronically malnourished is a good thing—are you quite sure?
It certainly sounds repugnant, but I don’t think it’s equivalent to the Repugnant Conclusion, which is what I was referring to. In any case, you are correct that that would be the logical conclusion to draw from what I said, which is concerning me. Population ethics has always confused me—does anyone have any idea how this one might be resolved?
Well, if they have positive value on the margin, then that means it would be an increase in global utility if a bunch of children were born who were doomed to lives of permanent malnutrition. In fact, it would imply that a morally defensible solution to a Malthusian overpopulation problem would be to let the population explode in third world countries, and then just not let any resources be diverted to them. Heck, a sufficiently underserved African country, for example, could turn into a practically unstopppable utility factory—and quite cheaply!
In all seriousness, I think one of the issues here is that we’re conflating “has positive marginal utility in our utility function” with “considers their own life to be worth living (i.e., doesn’t kill themselves)”, when there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason those should always line up (especially if we’re not preference utilitarians).
Edit: This is a better summary of my line of thinking about this.
when there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason those should always line up
In which case it’s a good, moral, virtuous thing to go kill all those miserable wretches who are so misguided as to consider their own life to be worth living.
But you know what, maybe some good can be extracted out of them. I’ve got a Modest Proposal you might consider....
You may have noticed that I spent the entire first paragraph of my comment making that exact point. Again, I think that gjm summarized my line of thinking about this much better upthread, including laying out the more subtle points that I didn’t make in the parent. I think it should be clear by this point that we’re stuck in a false dilemma, since the two positions we’re considering both lead to highly unpalatable conclusions.
Better for whom and by which metric?
Well, if they’re roughly comparable in terms of moment-to-moment intensity of suffering, then obviously we (utilitarian consequentialists of any sane kind) would rather that a smaller number of people experience it for a brief period (and then die) than that a larger group of people experience it for a long time (and then die). It’s not even a Repugnant Conclusion issue, since it’s hard to argue that chronically malnourished lives have positive value on the margin.
It’s rather easy to argue—they don’t kill themselves, so they presumably think their lives are worth living.
That’s an easy argument but I’m not sure it’s a correct one. The answers to the following questions may be different:
Is it a good thing on the whole that A exists?
Now that A already exists, does A want to commit suicide?
for at least the following reasons:
Other people will be negatively affected (it may be worse to get to know someone and have them commit suicide, than never to encounter them at all).
People have an inbuilt preference for staying alive, for obvious biological reasons, so someone may go on wanting to live well beyond the point at which each day of life is substantially negative for them. (Just as someone may go on wanting to take heroin well beyond the point at which they’d be happier if they stopped.)
Even without taking into account cognitive biases and externalities, that argument only applies to people who don’t believe in afterlife: if you thought that by killing yourself you would go to hell and by enduring shit thirty more years you would go to heaven, you’d think twice before picking the former.
So, um, you think that the life of the chronically malnourished consists of nothing but suffering comparable to that of someone dying from acute starvation??
It’s not a repugnant conclusion to decide that going around killing the chronically malnourished is a good thing—are you quite sure?
Not my area of expertise, but for the argument to work they only need to be within maybe an order of magnitude or so. Does that seem plausible?
It certainly sounds repugnant, but I don’t think it’s equivalent to the Repugnant Conclusion, which is what I was referring to. In any case, you are correct that that would be the logical conclusion to draw from what I said, which is concerning me. Population ethics has always confused me—does anyone have any idea how this one might be resolved?
I think the root issue is that you consider chronically malnourished lives to be not worth living. Is that so?
Well, if they have positive value on the margin, then that means it would be an increase in global utility if a bunch of children were born who were doomed to lives of permanent malnutrition. In fact, it would imply that a morally defensible solution to a Malthusian overpopulation problem would be to let the population explode in third world countries, and then just not let any resources be diverted to them. Heck, a sufficiently underserved African country, for example, could turn into a practically unstopppable utility factory—and quite cheaply!
In all seriousness, I think one of the issues here is that we’re conflating “has positive marginal utility in our utility function” with “considers their own life to be worth living (i.e., doesn’t kill themselves)”, when there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason those should always line up (especially if we’re not preference utilitarians).
Edit: This is a better summary of my line of thinking about this.
In which case it’s a good, moral, virtuous thing to go kill all those miserable wretches who are so misguided as to consider their own life to be worth living.
But you know what, maybe some good can be extracted out of them. I’ve got a Modest Proposal you might consider....
You may have noticed that I spent the entire first paragraph of my comment making that exact point. Again, I think that gjm summarized my line of thinking about this much better upthread, including laying out the more subtle points that I didn’t make in the parent. I think it should be clear by this point that we’re stuck in a false dilemma, since the two positions we’re considering both lead to highly unpalatable conclusions.