This objection to fixed critical level utilitarianism can be easily avoided with variable critical level utilitarianism. Suppose there is someone with a positive utility (a very happy person), who sets his critical level so high that a situation should be chosen where he does not exist, and where extra people with negative utilities exist. Why would he set such a high critical level? He cannot want that. This is even more counter-intuitive than the repugnant sadistic conclusion. With fixed critical level utilitarianism, such counter-intuitive conclusion can occur because everyone would have to accept the high critical level. But variable critical level utilitarianism can easily avoid it by taking lower critical levels.
Such situations exist for any critical level above zero, since any critical level above zero means treating people with positive welfare as a bad thing, to be avoided even at the expense of some amount of negative welfare.
If you think the idea of people with negative utility being created to prevent your happy existence is even more counterintuitive than people having negative welfare to produce your happy existence, it would seem your view would demand that you set a critical value of 0 for yourself.
For example: I have a happy life with a positive utility. But if one could choose another situation where I did not exist and everyone else was maximally happy and satisfied, I would prefer (if that would still be an option) that second situation, even if I don’t exist in that situation.
A situation where you don’t exist but uncounted trillions of others are made maximally happy is going to be better in utilitarian terms (normal, critical-level, variable, whatever), regardless of your critical level (or theirs, for that matter). A change in your personal critical level only changes the actions recommended by your variable CLU when it changes the rankings of actions in terms of relative utilities, such that the actions were close to within a distance on the scale of one life.
In other words, that’s a result of the summing up of (relative) welfare, not a reason to misstate your valuation of your own existence.
“If you think the idea of people with negative utility being created to prevent your happy existence is even more counterintuitive than people having negative welfare to produce your happy existence, it would seem your view would demand that you set a critical value of 0 for yourself.” No, my view demands that we should not set the critical level too high. A strictly positive critical level that is low enough such that it would not result in the choice for that counter-intuitive situation, is still posiible.
“A situation where you don’t exist but uncounted trillions of others are made maximally happy is going to be better in utilitarian terms (normal, critical-level, variable, whatever), regardless of your critical level (or theirs, for that matter).” That can be true, but still I prefer my non-existence in that case, so something must be negative. I call that thing relative utility. My relative utility is not about overall betterness, but about my own preference. A can be better than B in utilitarian terms, but still I could prefer B over A.
A strictly positive critical level that is low enough such that it would not result in the choice for that counter-intuitive situation, is still posiible.
As a matter of mathematics this appears impossible. For any critical level c that you pick where c>0, there is some level of positive welfare w where c>w>0, with relative utility u, 0>u, u=c-w.
There will then be some quantity of expected negative utility and relative utility people with relative utility between 0 and u that variable CLU would prefer to the existence of you with c and w. You can use gambles (with arbitrarily divisible probabilities) or aggregation across similar people to get arbitrarily close to zero. So either c<=0 or CLU will recommend creation of negative utility and relative utility people to prevent your existence for some positive welfare levels.
but the critical level c is variable, and can depend on the choice set. So suppose the choice set consists of two situations. In the first, I exist and I have a positive welfare (or utility) w>0. In the second case, I don’t exist and there is another person with a negative utility u<0. His relative utility will also be u’<0. For any positive welfare I can pick a critical level c>0, but c<w-u’, such that my relative utility w-c>u’, which means it would be better if I exist. So you turned it around: instead of saying “for any critical level c there is a welfare w...”, we should say: “for any welfare w there is a critical level c...”
Such situations exist for any critical level above zero, since any critical level above zero means treating people with positive welfare as a bad thing, to be avoided even at the expense of some amount of negative welfare.
If you think the idea of people with negative utility being created to prevent your happy existence is even more counterintuitive than people having negative welfare to produce your happy existence, it would seem your view would demand that you set a critical value of 0 for yourself.
A situation where you don’t exist but uncounted trillions of others are made maximally happy is going to be better in utilitarian terms (normal, critical-level, variable, whatever), regardless of your critical level (or theirs, for that matter). A change in your personal critical level only changes the actions recommended by your variable CLU when it changes the rankings of actions in terms of relative utilities, such that the actions were close to within a distance on the scale of one life.
In other words, that’s a result of the summing up of (relative) welfare, not a reason to misstate your valuation of your own existence.
“If you think the idea of people with negative utility being created to prevent your happy existence is even more counterintuitive than people having negative welfare to produce your happy existence, it would seem your view would demand that you set a critical value of 0 for yourself.” No, my view demands that we should not set the critical level too high. A strictly positive critical level that is low enough such that it would not result in the choice for that counter-intuitive situation, is still posiible.
“A situation where you don’t exist but uncounted trillions of others are made maximally happy is going to be better in utilitarian terms (normal, critical-level, variable, whatever), regardless of your critical level (or theirs, for that matter).” That can be true, but still I prefer my non-existence in that case, so something must be negative. I call that thing relative utility. My relative utility is not about overall betterness, but about my own preference. A can be better than B in utilitarian terms, but still I could prefer B over A.
As a matter of mathematics this appears impossible. For any critical level c that you pick where c>0, there is some level of positive welfare w where c>w>0, with relative utility u, 0>u, u=c-w.
There will then be some quantity of expected negative utility and relative utility people with relative utility between 0 and u that variable CLU would prefer to the existence of you with c and w. You can use gambles (with arbitrarily divisible probabilities) or aggregation across similar people to get arbitrarily close to zero. So either c<=0 or CLU will recommend creation of negative utility and relative utility people to prevent your existence for some positive welfare levels.
but the critical level c is variable, and can depend on the choice set. So suppose the choice set consists of two situations. In the first, I exist and I have a positive welfare (or utility) w>0. In the second case, I don’t exist and there is another person with a negative utility u<0. His relative utility will also be u’<0. For any positive welfare I can pick a critical level c>0, but c<w-u’, such that my relative utility w-c>u’, which means it would be better if I exist. So you turned it around: instead of saying “for any critical level c there is a welfare w...”, we should say: “for any welfare w there is a critical level c...”