I’ll give you one example where it makes a difference. Take for example factory farming—if we care about average utility, then it is clearly bad as the conditions are massively pulling down the average. If we care about total utility, then it is possible that the animals may have a small, but positive utility, and that less animals would exist if not for factory farming, so it’s existence might work out as a positive.
Re: other questions. I’ll probably rewrite and repost a more refined version of my argument at some point, but that is work for another day.
Perhaps I have not been clear enough. I am not disputing that average and total utilitarianism can lead to radically different practical conclusions. What I am saying is that the assumptions which underlie the two are far closer together than the gap between that common framework and much of the history of moral and political thought. From the point of view of the Spinozian, Wittgensteinian, Foucauldian, Weberian, Rawlsian, Williamsian, Augustinian, Hobbesian, the two are of the same kind and equally alien for being so. You are able to have this discussion exactly because you accept the project of ‘utilitarianism’. Most people do not.
This is only obviously true if you evaluate average/total at a given time. Population ethicists tend to consider the population in a whole universe history. And in a big enough world, if you can only make changes at the margin then average utilitarianism is the same as critical-level total utilitarianism (where the critical level is set by the average of the population). Then it’s again possible that the animals have a positive contribution.
I’ll give you one example where it makes a difference. Take for example factory farming—if we care about average utility, then it is clearly bad as the conditions are massively pulling down the average. If we care about total utility, then it is possible that the animals may have a small, but positive utility, and that less animals would exist if not for factory farming, so it’s existence might work out as a positive.
Re: other questions. I’ll probably rewrite and repost a more refined version of my argument at some point, but that is work for another day.
Perhaps I have not been clear enough. I am not disputing that average and total utilitarianism can lead to radically different practical conclusions. What I am saying is that the assumptions which underlie the two are far closer together than the gap between that common framework and much of the history of moral and political thought. From the point of view of the Spinozian, Wittgensteinian, Foucauldian, Weberian, Rawlsian, Williamsian, Augustinian, Hobbesian, the two are of the same kind and equally alien for being so. You are able to have this discussion exactly because you accept the project of ‘utilitarianism’. Most people do not.
This is only obviously true if you evaluate average/total at a given time. Population ethicists tend to consider the population in a whole universe history. And in a big enough world, if you can only make changes at the margin then average utilitarianism is the same as critical-level total utilitarianism (where the critical level is set by the average of the population). Then it’s again possible that the animals have a positive contribution.
That’s interesting, I’ve never really thought about temporality, but I don’t see any reason why a future person would be valued less.
That said, I see critical level utilitarianism flawed for very similar reasons. I’ll probably write about it some time.