But then there would still be a very high value that could make you change idea.
RST
Karma: 9
Some mind experiments
The limit of the logarithm of x when x approaches infinity is infinity, so: if someone wants to live forever, and doesn’t care about a minimum amount of safety, he should accept the deal.
I think that I found a better way to express myself.
Level 1: torture, agony. Depending on the type of torture, I could stand this level only for some second/minutes/hours.
Level 2: pain, depression, very low life quality. I could stand this level for some days/months/years.
Level 3: annoyance. I can stand this level. (especially if the annoyance is not constant.)
Level 4: Eudaimonia. I want to be in this level.
I think that to ignore human pain tolerance only to simplify our ethical system is wrong, for instance this means that I won’t tolerate years of torture to avoid annoyances, only to avoid greater/longer torture. So I think that I have different utility functions that I apply in a hierarchical order.
Then I use empathy and I don’t do to others what I won’t do to myself. Surely if someone has a different pain tolerance I will consider it. However I don’t think that someone would tolerate 50 years of torture.
https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Lifespan_dilemma
As is written in the page: Rejecting the Lifespan Dilemma seems to require either rejecting expected utility maximization, or using a bounded utility function.
Then we agree. I too have limits that are defined by my physiology. This is why I think that I couldn’t stand 50 years of torture but I could stand 3^^^3 dust speck diluted among 3^^^3 lives.
I only want to add that switching from one level to another has the highest value. So saving people who are fine is still important, because dying would make them fall from a level X to 0.
As I tried to express in my post, I think that here are different “levels of life quality”. For me, people in the lower levels, have the priority. I adopt utilitarianism only when I have to choose what is better in the same level.
The post’s purpose wasn’t to convince someone that my values are right. I only want to show throught some examples that, even though some limits are nebulous, we can agree that things that are very distant from the edge can be associated to two different layer.
If I have understood correctly, your utility function is asymptotic. I wonder if an asymptote in an utility function can be consider as a sort of arbitrary limit.
Anyway, I agree with you, an asymptotic utility function can work and maintain consistency.
Good points I admit to have not considered. I live in a country where health care and instruction can be afforded by middle class families and as I have already written I assumed that their economical situation was stable. If we consider this factors then my answer will change.
This is my reasoning: if we assume that the middle class families have a stable economic situation, and if we assume that they have enough money to obtain food, heath care, a good home, instruction for their children etc. while the poor family’s members don’t have this comforts and are suffering hunger and diseases for that, then the poor family has the priority in my system of values: I could easily stand the lack of a villa with swimming pool for 10,000 lives if this would make me avoid a miserable life. (I think that we can simplify my ethic as a Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.) Of course if the middle class families would donate lots of money to poor families, my answer would change.
Ok let’s try. From the most desirable to the least desirable: 4,3,2,1,8,6,7.
Both 4 and 3 will help 100 poor families so have the priority. 2 and 1 will help one poor family so have the priority compared to the last three options. 8 and 6 will help more people compared to 7. The rest is only a quantity difference.
I think that I am consistent: as you said I disagree with the above, however my disagreement in this case is slightly minor (compared to the 3^^^3$ to 3^^^3 middle class families option) because the level of life quality improvement is starting to become more relevant. Nevertheless the desire to help people that are suffering for economical reason will remain greater than the desire to add happiness in the life of people who are already serene.
Thank you, for the opportunity of reflection.
Thank you very much!
Thanks for the encouragement.
I cannot agree with 2) because I think that a dust speck, or a stubbed toe have a disutility which is not ignorable. After all I still would prefer to avoid them.
The solution number 1) is more interesting, but I prefer to say that dust specks are irrelevant compared to torture because they are a different kind of pain (bearable rather than unbearable). The biggest advantage is that rather than use a different formula I just include a physiological limit (pain tolerance).
The bigger problem is: where does this limit exactly lays?
The post’s aim is to bring some examples of limits which are nebulous but still evident.