Then your utility function can no longer say 25 years of torture is preferable to 50 years. This difficulty is surmountable—I believe the original post had some discussion on hyperreal utilities and the like—but the scheme looks a little contrived to me.
To me, a utility function is a contrivance. So it’s OK if it’s contrived. It’s a map, not the territory, as illustrated above.
I take someone’s answer to this question at their word. When they say that no number of dust specks equals torture, I accept that as a datum for their utility function. The task is then to contrive a function which is consistent with that.
Then your utility function can no longer say 25 years of torture is preferable to 50 years. This difficulty is surmountable—I believe the original post had some discussion on hyperreal utilities and the like—but the scheme looks a little contrived to me.
To me, a utility function is a contrivance. So it’s OK if it’s contrived. It’s a map, not the territory, as illustrated above.
I take someone’s answer to this question at their word. When they say that no number of dust specks equals torture, I accept that as a datum for their utility function. The task is then to contrive a function which is consistent with that.