If we accept the premises of this blog post, this intuition simply cannot be correct. If the inequitable society has greater total utility, it must be at least as good as the equitable one.
Not sure if that’s an application as much as a tautology. Valuing equality means that you reject the assumption of “we require that the ranking remain consistent when we add people to the population”, so of course accepting that assumption is incompatible with valuing equality.
At least, that’s assuming that you value equality as an intrinsic good. As James Miller pointed out, one can also oppose inequality on the ground that it ends up making people’s lives worse off, which is an empirical claim separate from utilitarianism.
Not sure if that’s an application as much as a tautology
It’s a proof, so sure it’s a tautology.
Here’s a better way of masking it though: suppose we believe:
We should be non-sadistic: X < 0 ==> X+Y < Y
Accepting of dominance: X > 0 ==> X+Y > Y
This is exactly what it means to be order preserving, but maybe when phrased this way the result seems more surprising (in the sense that those axioms are harder to refute)?
Not sure if that’s an application as much as a tautology. Valuing equality means that you reject the assumption of “we require that the ranking remain consistent when we add people to the population”, so of course accepting that assumption is incompatible with valuing equality.
At least, that’s assuming that you value equality as an intrinsic good. As James Miller pointed out, one can also oppose inequality on the ground that it ends up making people’s lives worse off, which is an empirical claim separate from utilitarianism.
It’s a proof, so sure it’s a tautology.
Here’s a better way of masking it though: suppose we believe:
We should be non-sadistic: X < 0 ==> X+Y < Y
Accepting of dominance: X > 0 ==> X+Y > Y
This is exactly what it means to be order preserving, but maybe when phrased this way the result seems more surprising (in the sense that those axioms are harder to refute)?