I’m not entirely convinced by the rest of your argument, but
The idea that multiplying suffering by the number of sufferers yields a correct and valid total-suffering value is not fundamental truth, it is just a naive extrapolation of our intuitions that should help guide our decisions.
Is, far and away, the most intelligent thing I have ever seen anyone write on this damn paradox.
Come on, people. The fact that naive preference utilitarianism gives us torture rather than dust specks is not some result we have to live with, it’s an indication that the decision theory is horribly, horribly wrong,
It is beyond me how people can look at dust specks and torture and draw the conclusion they do. In my mind, the most obvious, immediate objection is that utility does not aggregate additively across people in any reasonable ethical system. This is true no matter how big the numbers are. Instead it aggregates by minimum, or maybe multiplicatively (especially if we normalize everyone’s utility function to [0,1]).
Sorry for all the emphasis, but I am sick and tired of supposed rationalists using math to reach the reprehensible conclusion and then claiming it must be right because math. It’s the epitome of Spock “rationality”.
The idea that multiplying suffering by the number of sufferers yields a correct and valid total-suffering value is not fundamental truth, it is just a naive extrapolation of our intuitions that should help guide our decisions.
I would say, instead, that it gives a valid total-suffering value but that said value is not necessarily what is important. It is not how I extrapolate my intuitive aversion to suffering, for example.
Sorry for all the emphasis, but I am sick and tired of supposed rationalists using math to reach the reprehensible conclusion and then claiming it must be right because math. It’s the epitome of Spock “rationality”.
I would say the same but substitute ‘torture’ for ‘reprehensible’. Using math in that way is essentially begging the question—the important decision is in which math to choose as a guess at our utility function after all. But at the same time I don’t consider choosing torture to be reprehensible. Because the fact that there are 3^^3 dust specks really does matter.
I’m not entirely convinced by the rest of your argument, but
The idea that multiplying suffering by the number of sufferers yields a correct and valid total-suffering value is not fundamental truth, it is just a naive extrapolation of our intuitions that should help guide our decisions.
Is, far and away, the most intelligent thing I have ever seen anyone write on this damn paradox.
Come on, people. The fact that naive preference utilitarianism gives us torture rather than dust specks is not some result we have to live with, it’s an indication that the decision theory is horribly, horribly wrong,
It is beyond me how people can look at dust specks and torture and draw the conclusion they do. In my mind, the most obvious, immediate objection is that utility does not aggregate additively across people in any reasonable ethical system. This is true no matter how big the numbers are. Instead it aggregates by minimum, or maybe multiplicatively (especially if we normalize everyone’s utility function to [0,1]).
Sorry for all the emphasis, but I am sick and tired of supposed rationalists using math to reach the reprehensible conclusion and then claiming it must be right because math. It’s the epitome of Spock “rationality”.
I would say, instead, that it gives a valid total-suffering value but that said value is not necessarily what is important. It is not how I extrapolate my intuitive aversion to suffering, for example.
I would say the same but substitute ‘torture’ for ‘reprehensible’. Using math in that way is essentially begging the question—the important decision is in which math to choose as a guess at our utility function after all. But at the same time I don’t consider choosing torture to be reprehensible. Because the fact that there are 3^^3 dust specks really does matter.