Iâm concerned that this comment has received so many upvotes. I just want to flag two major concerns I have with it:
(1)
if I knew for a fact that my life were overall (hopelessly) increasing suffering or dukkha, then this would seem to me like a strong reason not to live it, regardless of what I get to experience. So Iâm curious how the author has come to believe that we should absolutely reject this view
This is extremely misleading. You make it sound like the author favours causing a net increase in suffering for his own personal gain. But of course that is not remotely fair or accurate. What he absolutely rejects is the idea that there are no positive goods (i.e., positive welfare has no moral value). The alternative, âPositive Goodsâ view implies that it can be permissible to do things that include some additional suffering, so long as there are sufficient offsetting gains (possibly to those same individualsâthe author didnât take any stand on the further issue of interpersonal tradeoffs).
For example, suppose you had the option of bringing into existence a (causally isolated) blissful world, with the only exception being that one person will at one point stub their toes (a brief moment of suffering in their otherwise blissful life). Still, every single person on this world would be extremely happy to be alive (for objective list theorists: feel free to add in other positive goods, e.g. knowledge, accomplishment, friendship, etc.). The âNo Positive Goodsâ view implies that it would be wrong to allow such a blissful world to exist. The authorâalong with pretty much every expert in moral philosophyâabsolutely rejects this view.
Again, I want to emphasize how misleading I find it to characterize this as endorsing âincreasing sufferingâ, since in ordinary use we only describe lives as âsufferingâ when they have overall negative welfare, and we typically use âincreasing sufferingâ to mean increasing suffering on net, i.e. more than one increases positive well-being. To give someone a blissful life + a stubbed toe is not, as most people use the term, to âincrease sufferingâ. I would urge you in future to be clearer about how you are using this phrase in an unusually literal way (and also please avoid making it sound like your interlocutors have selfish motivations [as in: âregardless of what I get to experienceâ] when there is no basis for such an incendiary charge).
(2)
More substantively, Iâd dispute the suggestion that thereâs any sort of parity between the Postive Goods and No Positive Goods views when it comes to âhorrific implicationsâ.
I donât want to get into a back-and-forth about this, but Iâll just report my editorial view that there is something distinctively problematic about propounding a view that implies that destroying the world is literally the best possible outcome.
Speaking as a moral philosopher, my professional opinion is that the No Positive Goods view lacks basic justification in a way that differs markedly from Positive Goods views (even ones, like Totalism, with some troubling implications). And speaking as an editor of a public-facing website, Iâm much more concerned that some crazy person might act on the No Positive Goods view in horrific ways than I am that anyone would (or could) do likewise with Positive Goods views like Totalism (for the obvious reason that itâs easier to commit mass-murder than to create the positive replacement conditions that would be required for Totalism to permit such an act).
So thatâs why I whole-heartedly endorse (as both theoretically and practically warranted) our guest authorâs strong rejection of No Positive Goods views. I donât expect proponents of the view to agree, and I donât wish to be drawn into further discussion of the matter. This explanation is more for third parties who might otherwise be confused or misled by the above comment.
I am keen to read critiques of Teoâs claims but I downvoted this comment for a couple of reasons:
1) Aggressive languageâI felt that Teoâs comment was written in good faith and I was surprised that you dismissed it in such strong words: âextremely misleadingâ, ânot remotely fair or accurateâ, âan incendiary chargeâ.
2) Appeals to authorityâIt doesnât matter to me that âpretty much every expert in moral philosophyâ disagrees. I want to know why they disagree and be referred to relevant authors or papers that make these arguments.
Thanks for explaining your perspective. I hope most people will instead vote based on whether they think the comment will add to or detract from the understanding of most readers. To briefly explain why I donât think the two factors you point to are indicative of a low-quality comment:
(1) A comment may be âwritten in good faithâ and yet have the effect of being misleading, unfair, or otherwise harmful. If a comment does have these effects, and especially if it is being highly upvoted (suggesting that many readers are being taken in by it), then I think it is important to be clear about this. (Note that I made no claims about Teoâs motivations, nor did I cast any personal attacks. I simply criticized the content of what was written, in a clear and direct way.)
So I would instead ask readers to assess whether my objections were merited. Is it true that Teoâs comment â[made] it sound like the author favours causing a net increase in suffering for his own personal gainâ? If so, that would in fact be extremely misleading, not remotely fair or accurate, etc. So I think itâs worth being clear on this.
Of course, if you think Iâm being idiosyncratic and no casual reader would come away with the impression Iâm worried about here, then by all means downvote my comment for simple inaccuracy.
(2) Certainly, you donât have to defer to the opinion of moral philosophers if you donât trust that weâre well-placed to judge the matter in question. Still, the info may be helpful for many, so (imo) sharing info about an expert consensus should not be viewed negatively.
I kindly ask third parties to be mindful of the following points concerning the above reply.
(1)
It calls a part of my comment extremely misleading based on an incomplete quote whose omitted context provides a better sense of what I am talking about. Specifically, the omitted beginning clarifies that I am discussing âstrong pessimism [i.e. the view that there are no independent goods]â, and noting how I personally find it a perfectly valid view to equate my positive value with whether my life has overall positive roles under that view. And the omitted ending clarifies that I am therefore curious about the authorâs reasons to âabsolutely rejectâ impartial, minimalist consequentialism âin favor of, presumably, offsetting viewsâ (â such as âclassical utilitarianism as well as âweak negativeâ or ânegative-leaningâ viewsâ), all of which are impartial views. (My use of âthis viewâ was ambiguous, but the reading of it felt uncharitable given the above.)
At any rate, I have no reason to question the impartiality of the authorâs preferred views. I hope it is clear that what my comment is questioning is the relative plausibility of the assumptions and implications of impartial offsetting views (over those of impartial minimalist views).
It claims that my use of the phrase of âincreasing sufferingâ is misleading on the grounds that my use differs from the (allegedly common) assumption that to bring about an outcome with âoutweighedâ suffering does not entail increasing suffering. Yet I would think that the literal use (i.e. counting suffering only) makes more common sense than does the alternative use that is based on the offsetting assumption. After all, such an assumption would imply that (e.g.) the offsetting choice of âIntense Bliss with Hellish Cessationâ (see the diagram) does not entail increasing suffering, even though it brings about arbitrarily large amounts of torture-level suffering (as do the othertwo supposedly outweighed hells) in place of an alternative world that would contain only untroubled experiences.
(1) + (2)
It argues (from authority) that minimalist views lack basic justification, without engaging with any of the direct arguments in their favor (cf. here). In particular, it does not address the intuition that âtorture-level suffering cannot be counterbalancedâ. Rather, it seems to imply that the outweighability of torture follows from the supposedly obvious outweighability of mild suffering (such as a stubbed toe).
Indeed, proponents of offsetting views do not seem to find, by direct introspection, that a moment of happiness would seem to be outweighing a certain fraction of a torture-moment; instead, they appear to infer this from other assumptions (such as from the additive aggregation of experiences that are represented with positive and negative real numbers). To quote another commenter:
âA lot of disagreements about axiology and population ethics have this same dynamic. You infer from your intuition that [mild suffering] to please the blissful is acceptable that we can scale this up to torture to (more intensely) please many more blissful people. I infer from the intuitive absurdity of the latter that maybe we shouldnât think itâs so obvious that [mild suffering] to please the blissful is good.â
It also claims that the theoretical implications of minimalist consequentialism are absolutely rejected by âpretty much every expert in moral philosophyâ. Yet it does not account for the extent to which these rejections may be highly confounded by 1) our practicalintuitions, by 2) the status quo bias and/âor omission bias, and 3) by the fact that we ourselves are currently living in this world whose hypothetically instant and painless cessation (i.e. non-creation, cf. the diagram) we are supposed to be impartially evaluating in this thought experiment.
It also hints that the torture-for-greater-joy implications of offsetting views fare much better in terms of acceptance, yet does not provide support for whether this is the case.
To be clear, it does present a thought experiment about the creation of a causally isolated world, which is a step in the right direction to account for these confounders. Yet even there, the discussion is eventually framed in terms of whether we would âallow such a blissful world to existâ, which potentially brings in the confounders by making it sound like the option of non-creation entails interfering with a status quo where some blissful beings already exist, whereas the minimalist intuition is precisely that the non-creation of (causally isolated) beings with even perfectly fulfilled needs is, other things being equal, morally unproblematic (âno need, no problemâ).
The latter view (i.e. âthe Asymmetryâ) has many defenders (some of whom are cited here). And if we acknowledge the consequentialist equivalence of cessation and non-creation, then this view also implies a theoretical endorsement of the (un-confounded) hypothetical cessation implication in the case of purely experientialist and consequentialist minimalism.
(To the extent that one feels like denying the equivalence, perhaps oneâs intuitions are not captured by purely experientialist consequentialism.)
(2)
By italicizing âdestroying the worldâ, the reply again forcefully brings in the aforementioned confounders, and omits to mention the theoretical equivalence with non-creation. Theoretically, offsetting versions of utilitarianism likewise imply that an ideal outcome is to unleash a utilitronium shockwave (âconverting all matter and energy into pure utilitroniumâ), which is presumably no less âdestructiveâ according to most peopleâs practical intuitions.
Some minimalist/ââstrong pessimistâ views would also not consider cessation an ideal option, though these were beyond the scope of my post on the topic (cf. footnote 1).
It shares a worry (which I also have) that a naive reading of these views might lead someone to act in horrific ways. Yet it provides little justification for why this would make the rejection of minimalist views more âpractically warrantedâ relative to the rejection of offsetting views. After all, the latter could also lead to violence based on naive ideas about how happiness may be increased, such as by targeting those who are perceived to have bad values (e.g. people with certain political or religious views). (Relatedly, Karl Popper argued that offsetting views were likely to lead to atrocities if they were accepted at an institutional level.) In any case, it seems to me that all consequentialist views imply a large gap between theory and practice, and my response to potentially naive minimalists (and other consequentialists) would be to always mind the gap.
Iâm concerned that this comment has received so many upvotes. I just want to flag two major concerns I have with it:
(1)
This is extremely misleading. You make it sound like the author favours causing a net increase in suffering for his own personal gain. But of course that is not remotely fair or accurate. What he absolutely rejects is the idea that there are no positive goods (i.e., positive welfare has no moral value). The alternative, âPositive Goodsâ view implies that it can be permissible to do things that include some additional suffering, so long as there are sufficient offsetting gains (possibly to those same individualsâthe author didnât take any stand on the further issue of interpersonal tradeoffs).
For example, suppose you had the option of bringing into existence a (causally isolated) blissful world, with the only exception being that one person will at one point stub their toes (a brief moment of suffering in their otherwise blissful life). Still, every single person on this world would be extremely happy to be alive (for objective list theorists: feel free to add in other positive goods, e.g. knowledge, accomplishment, friendship, etc.). The âNo Positive Goodsâ view implies that it would be wrong to allow such a blissful world to exist. The authorâalong with pretty much every expert in moral philosophyâabsolutely rejects this view.
Again, I want to emphasize how misleading I find it to characterize this as endorsing âincreasing sufferingâ, since in ordinary use we only describe lives as âsufferingâ when they have overall negative welfare, and we typically use âincreasing sufferingâ to mean increasing suffering on net, i.e. more than one increases positive well-being. To give someone a blissful life + a stubbed toe is not, as most people use the term, to âincrease sufferingâ. I would urge you in future to be clearer about how you are using this phrase in an unusually literal way (and also please avoid making it sound like your interlocutors have selfish motivations [as in: âregardless of what I get to experienceâ] when there is no basis for such an incendiary charge).
(2)
More substantively, Iâd dispute the suggestion that thereâs any sort of parity between the Postive Goods and No Positive Goods views when it comes to âhorrific implicationsâ.
I donât want to get into a back-and-forth about this, but Iâll just report my editorial view that there is something distinctively problematic about propounding a view that implies that destroying the world is literally the best possible outcome.
Speaking as a moral philosopher, my professional opinion is that the No Positive Goods view lacks basic justification in a way that differs markedly from Positive Goods views (even ones, like Totalism, with some troubling implications). And speaking as an editor of a public-facing website, Iâm much more concerned that some crazy person might act on the No Positive Goods view in horrific ways than I am that anyone would (or could) do likewise with Positive Goods views like Totalism (for the obvious reason that itâs easier to commit mass-murder than to create the positive replacement conditions that would be required for Totalism to permit such an act).
So thatâs why I whole-heartedly endorse (as both theoretically and practically warranted) our guest authorâs strong rejection of No Positive Goods views. I donât expect proponents of the view to agree, and I donât wish to be drawn into further discussion of the matter. This explanation is more for third parties who might otherwise be confused or misled by the above comment.
I am keen to read critiques of Teoâs claims but I downvoted this comment for a couple of reasons:
1) Aggressive languageâI felt that Teoâs comment was written in good faith and I was surprised that you dismissed it in such strong words: âextremely misleadingâ, ânot remotely fair or accurateâ, âan incendiary chargeâ.
2) Appeals to authorityâIt doesnât matter to me that âpretty much every expert in moral philosophyâ disagrees. I want to know why they disagree and be referred to relevant authors or papers that make these arguments.
Thanks for explaining your perspective. I hope most people will instead vote based on whether they think the comment will add to or detract from the understanding of most readers. To briefly explain why I donât think the two factors you point to are indicative of a low-quality comment:
(1) A comment may be âwritten in good faithâ and yet have the effect of being misleading, unfair, or otherwise harmful. If a comment does have these effects, and especially if it is being highly upvoted (suggesting that many readers are being taken in by it), then I think it is important to be clear about this. (Note that I made no claims about Teoâs motivations, nor did I cast any personal attacks. I simply criticized the content of what was written, in a clear and direct way.)
So I would instead ask readers to assess whether my objections were merited. Is it true that Teoâs comment â[made] it sound like the author favours causing a net increase in suffering for his own personal gainâ? If so, that would in fact be extremely misleading, not remotely fair or accurate, etc. So I think itâs worth being clear on this.
Of course, if you think Iâm being idiosyncratic and no casual reader would come away with the impression Iâm worried about here, then by all means downvote my comment for simple inaccuracy.
(2) Certainly, you donât have to defer to the opinion of moral philosophers if you donât trust that weâre well-placed to judge the matter in question. Still, the info may be helpful for many, so (imo) sharing info about an expert consensus should not be viewed negatively.
I kindly ask third parties to be mindful of the following points concerning the above reply.
(1)
It calls a part of my comment extremely misleading based on an incomplete quote whose omitted context provides a better sense of what I am talking about. Specifically, the omitted beginning clarifies that I am discussing âstrong pessimism [i.e. the view that there are no independent goods]â, and noting how I personally find it a perfectly valid view to equate my positive value with whether my life has overall positive roles under that view. And the omitted ending clarifies that I am therefore curious about the authorâs reasons to âabsolutely rejectâ impartial, minimalist consequentialism âin favor of, presumably, offsetting viewsâ (â such as âclassical utilitarianism as well as âweak negativeâ or ânegative-leaningâ viewsâ), all of which are impartial views. (My use of âthis viewâ was ambiguous, but the reading of it felt uncharitable given the above.)
At any rate, I have no reason to question the impartiality of the authorâs preferred views. I hope it is clear that what my comment is questioning is the relative plausibility of the assumptions and implications of impartial offsetting views (over those of impartial minimalist views).
It claims that my use of the phrase of âincreasing sufferingâ is misleading on the grounds that my use differs from the (allegedly common) assumption that to bring about an outcome with âoutweighedâ suffering does not entail increasing suffering. Yet I would think that the literal use (i.e. counting suffering only) makes more common sense than does the alternative use that is based on the offsetting assumption. After all, such an assumption would imply that (e.g.) the offsetting choice of âIntense Bliss with Hellish Cessationâ (see the diagram) does not entail increasing suffering, even though it brings about arbitrarily large amounts of torture-level suffering (as do the other two supposedly outweighed hells) in place of an alternative world that would contain only untroubled experiences.
(1) + (2)
It argues (from authority) that minimalist views lack basic justification, without engaging with any of the direct arguments in their favor (cf. here). In particular, it does not address the intuition that âtorture-level suffering cannot be counterbalancedâ. Rather, it seems to imply that the outweighability of torture follows from the supposedly obvious outweighability of mild suffering (such as a stubbed toe).
Indeed, proponents of offsetting views do not seem to find, by direct introspection, that a moment of happiness would seem to be outweighing a certain fraction of a torture-moment; instead, they appear to infer this from other assumptions (such as from the additive aggregation of experiences that are represented with positive and negative real numbers). To quote another commenter:
âA lot of disagreements about axiology and population ethics have this same dynamic. You infer from your intuition that [mild suffering] to please the blissful is acceptable that we can scale this up to torture to (more intensely) please many more blissful people. I infer from the intuitive absurdity of the latter that maybe we shouldnât think itâs so obvious that [mild suffering] to please the blissful is good.â
It also claims that the theoretical implications of minimalist consequentialism are absolutely rejected by âpretty much every expert in moral philosophyâ. Yet it does not account for the extent to which these rejections may be highly confounded by 1) our practical intuitions, by 2) the status quo bias and/âor omission bias, and 3) by the fact that we ourselves are currently living in this world whose hypothetically instant and painless cessation (i.e. non-creation, cf. the diagram) we are supposed to be impartially evaluating in this thought experiment.
It also hints that the torture-for-greater-joy implications of offsetting views fare much better in terms of acceptance, yet does not provide support for whether this is the case.
To be clear, it does present a thought experiment about the creation of a causally isolated world, which is a step in the right direction to account for these confounders. Yet even there, the discussion is eventually framed in terms of whether we would âallow such a blissful world to existâ, which potentially brings in the confounders by making it sound like the option of non-creation entails interfering with a status quo where some blissful beings already exist, whereas the minimalist intuition is precisely that the non-creation of (causally isolated) beings with even perfectly fulfilled needs is, other things being equal, morally unproblematic (âno need, no problemâ).
The latter view (i.e. âthe Asymmetryâ) has many defenders (some of whom are cited here). And if we acknowledge the consequentialist equivalence of cessation and non-creation, then this view also implies a theoretical endorsement of the (un-confounded) hypothetical cessation implication in the case of purely experientialist and consequentialist minimalism.
(To the extent that one feels like denying the equivalence, perhaps oneâs intuitions are not captured by purely experientialist consequentialism.)
(2)
By italicizing âdestroying the worldâ, the reply again forcefully brings in the aforementioned confounders, and omits to mention the theoretical equivalence with non-creation. Theoretically, offsetting versions of utilitarianism likewise imply that an ideal outcome is to unleash a utilitronium shockwave (âconverting all matter and energy into pure utilitroniumâ), which is presumably no less âdestructiveâ according to most peopleâs practical intuitions.
Some minimalist/ââstrong pessimistâ views would also not consider cessation an ideal option, though these were beyond the scope of my post on the topic (cf. footnote 1).
It shares a worry (which I also have) that a naive reading of these views might lead someone to act in horrific ways. Yet it provides little justification for why this would make the rejection of minimalist views more âpractically warrantedâ relative to the rejection of offsetting views. After all, the latter could also lead to violence based on naive ideas about how happiness may be increased, such as by targeting those who are perceived to have bad values (e.g. people with certain political or religious views). (Relatedly, Karl Popper argued that offsetting views were likely to lead to atrocities if they were accepted at an institutional level.) In any case, it seems to me that all consequentialist views imply a large gap between theory and practice, and my response to potentially naive minimalists (and other consequentialists) would be to always mind the gap.