which principles of social justice agrees with (i) adding bad live is bad, but disagrees with (ii) adding good lives is good?
total utilitarianism agrees with both (i) and (ii).
average utilitarianism can agree with any of the combination: both (i) and (ii); neither (i) nor (ii); only (i) and not (ii). the combination depends on the existing average utility, because average utilitarianism obliges creating lives above the existing average and forbids creating lives below the existing average.
Rawls’ difference principle (maximise minimum utility) can agree with any of the combination: neither (i) nor (ii); only (i) and not (ii). this is because adding lives is never good (bc it could never increase minimum utility), and adding bad lives is bad iff those lives are below-minimum.
so you’re right that utilitarianism doesn’t match those intuitions. none of the three principles discussed reliably endorse (i) and reject (ii).
now consider aggregativism. you’ll get asymmetry between (i) and (ii) depending on then social zeta function mapping social outcomes to personal outcomes, and on the model of self-interested human behaviour.
let‘s examine LELO (i.e. the social zeta function maps a social outcome to the concatenation of all individuals’ lives) and our model of self-interested human behaviour is Alice (described below).
suppose Alice expects 80 year lives of comfortable fulfilling life.
would she pay to live 85 years instead, with 5 of those years in ecstatic joy? probably.
would she pay to avoid living 85 years instead, with 5 of those years in horrendous torture? probably.
there’s probably some asymmetry in Alice’s willingness of pay. i think humans are somewhat more misery-averse than joy-seeking. it’s not a 50-50 symmetry, nor a 0-100 asymmetry, maybe a 30-70 asymmetry? idk, this is an empirical psychological fact.
anyway, the aggregative principle (generated by LELO+Alice) says that the social planner should have the same attitudes towards social outcomes that Alice has towards the concatenation of lives in those social outcomes. so the social planner would pay to add joyful lives, and pay to avoid adding miserable lives, and there should be exactly as much willingness-to-pay asymmetry as Alice (our self-interested human) exhibits.
which principles of social justice agrees with (i) adding bad live is bad, but disagrees with (ii) adding good lives is good?
total utilitarianism agrees with both (i) and (ii).
average utilitarianism can agree with any of the combination: both (i) and (ii); neither (i) nor (ii); only (i) and not (ii). the combination depends on the existing average utility, because average utilitarianism obliges creating lives above the existing average and forbids creating lives below the existing average.
Rawls’ difference principle (maximise minimum utility) can agree with any of the combination: neither (i) nor (ii); only (i) and not (ii). this is because adding lives is never good (bc it could never increase minimum utility), and adding bad lives is bad iff those lives are below-minimum.
so you’re right that utilitarianism doesn’t match those intuitions. none of the three principles discussed reliably endorse (i) and reject (ii).
now consider aggregativism. you’ll get asymmetry between (i) and (ii) depending on then social zeta function mapping social outcomes to personal outcomes, and on the model of self-interested human behaviour.
let‘s examine LELO (i.e. the social zeta function maps a social outcome to the concatenation of all individuals’ lives) and our model of self-interested human behaviour is Alice (described below).
suppose Alice expects 80 year lives of comfortable fulfilling life.
would she pay to live 85 years instead, with 5 of those years in ecstatic joy? probably.
would she pay to avoid living 85 years instead, with 5 of those years in horrendous torture? probably.
there’s probably some asymmetry in Alice’s willingness of pay. i think humans are somewhat more misery-averse than joy-seeking. it’s not a 50-50 symmetry, nor a 0-100 asymmetry, maybe a 30-70 asymmetry? idk, this is an empirical psychological fact.
anyway, the aggregative principle (generated by LELO+Alice) says that the social planner should have the same attitudes towards social outcomes that Alice has towards the concatenation of lives in those social outcomes. so the social planner would pay to add joyful lives, and pay to avoid adding miserable lives, and there should be exactly as much willingness-to-pay asymmetry as Alice (our self-interested human) exhibits.