Unless I’m missing something, using different scales doesn’t actually preclude utilitarian calculations.
There’s no obvious natural conversion between fun and pain (hence the question), but any monotonic conversion function that we choose to adopt will give us well-defined values of X and N. We can construct a utilitarianism around any of these possibilities: if X or N are very large or infinite, that just means that we’re approaching pure negative utilitarianism, defining utility in terms of minimizing suffering without taking fun into account. Deontological considerations need not apply.
Indeed, of the major utility functions that I’m aware of, this problem only seems to arise within pleasure/pain utilitarianism; as stated, negative utilitarianism doesn’t admit to the existence of a finite exchange rate for torture (which seems rather shaky in light of preferences like those expressed in other comments), while preference utilitarianism’s results are going to vary by individual and case but are always individually well-defined.
(This comment was originally buried more deeply, but on reflection it seems to have more to do with the OP than with the comment I was replying to.)
Unless I’m missing something, using different scales doesn’t actually preclude utilitarian calculations.
There’s no obvious natural conversion between fun and pain (hence the question), but any monotonic conversion function that we choose to adopt will give us well-defined values of X and N. We can construct a utilitarianism around any of these possibilities: if X or N are very large or infinite, that just means that we’re approaching pure negative utilitarianism, defining utility in terms of minimizing suffering without taking fun into account. Deontological considerations need not apply.
Indeed, of the major utility functions that I’m aware of, this problem only seems to arise within pleasure/pain utilitarianism; as stated, negative utilitarianism doesn’t admit to the existence of a finite exchange rate for torture (which seems rather shaky in light of preferences like those expressed in other comments), while preference utilitarianism’s results are going to vary by individual and case but are always individually well-defined.
(This comment was originally buried more deeply, but on reflection it seems to have more to do with the OP than with the comment I was replying to.)