That’s a clever response! But I don’t think it works. It does prove that we shouldn’t be indifferent between w1 and w2, but both are infinite in expectation. So if your utility function is unbounded, then you will still prefer any non-zero probability of w1 or w2 to certainty of any finite payoff. (And if it’s bounded then infinite stuff doesn’t matter anyway.)
Going to type and think at the same time – lets see where this goes (sorry if it ends up with a long reply).
Well firstly, as long as you still have a non zero chance of the universe not being infinite, then I think you will avoid most of the paradoxes mentioned above (zones of happiness and suffering, locating value and rankings of individuals, etc), But it sounds like you are claiming you still get the “infinite fanatics” problems.
I am not sure how true this is. I find it hard to think through what you are saying without a concrete moral dilemma in my head. I don’t on a daily basis face situations where I get to create universes with different types of physics. Here are some (not very original) stories that might capture what you are suggestion could happen.
1. Lets imagine a pascals mugging situation
A stranger stops you in the street and says give me a $5 or I will create a universe of infinite sadness.
2. A rats on heroin type situation. Imagine we are in a world where:
Scientists believe with very high certainty that the universe will eventually undergo heat death and utility will stop.
You have a device that will tile the entire universe with rats on heroin (or something else that maximises utility, until the heat death of the universe (and people agree that is a good thing). But this would stop scientific research.
An infinite fanatic might say: don’t use the device, it sounds good but if we keep doing science then there is an extremely small chance we can prove our current scientific view of the universe to be wrong and find a way to create infinite joy which is bigger than an entire universe of joy.
Feel free to suggest a better story if you have one.
These do look like problems for utilitarianism that involve infinites.
But I am not convinced that they are problems to do with infinite ethics. They both seem to still arise if you replace the “infinite” with “Graham’s number” or “10^100” etc.
But I already think that standard total utilitarianism breaks down quite often, especially in situations of uncertainty or hard to quantify credences. Utilitarian philosophers don’t even agree on if preventing extinction risks should be a priority (for, against), even using finite numbers.
Now I might be wrong, I am not a professional philosopher with a degree in making interesting thought experiments, but I guess I would say that all of the problems in the post above EITHER make no more sense than saying, oh look utiltarinaism doesn’t work if you add in time travel paradoxes, or something like that OR are reduceable to problems with large finites or high uncertainties. So considering “infinitities” does not itself break utilitarianism (which is already broken).
That’s a clever response! But I don’t think it works. It does prove that we shouldn’t be indifferent between w1 and w2, but both are infinite in expectation. So if your utility function is unbounded, then you will still prefer any non-zero probability of w1 or w2 to certainty of any finite payoff. (And if it’s bounded then infinite stuff doesn’t matter anyway.)
Going to type and think at the same time – lets see where this goes (sorry if it ends up with a long reply).
Well firstly, as long as you still have a non zero chance of the universe not being infinite, then I think you will avoid most of the paradoxes mentioned above (zones of happiness and suffering, locating value and rankings of individuals, etc), But it sounds like you are claiming you still get the “infinite fanatics” problems.
I am not sure how true this is. I find it hard to think through what you are saying without a concrete moral dilemma in my head. I don’t on a daily basis face situations where I get to create universes with different types of physics. Here are some (not very original) stories that might capture what you are suggestion could happen.
1. Lets imagine a pascals mugging situation
A stranger stops you in the street and says give me a $5 or I will create a universe of infinite sadness.
2. A rats on heroin type situation. Imagine we are in a world where:
Scientists believe with very high certainty that the universe will eventually undergo heat death and utility will stop.
You have a device that will tile the entire universe with rats on heroin (or something else that maximises utility, until the heat death of the universe (and people agree that is a good thing). But this would stop scientific research.
An infinite fanatic might say: don’t use the device, it sounds good but if we keep doing science then there is an extremely small chance we can prove our current scientific view of the universe to be wrong and find a way to create infinite joy which is bigger than an entire universe of joy.
Feel free to suggest a better story if you have one.
These do look like problems for utilitarianism that involve infinites.
But I am not convinced that they are problems to do with infinite ethics. They both seem to still arise if you replace the “infinite” with “Graham’s number” or “10^100” etc.
But I already think that standard total utilitarianism breaks down quite often, especially in situations of uncertainty or hard to quantify credences. Utilitarian philosophers don’t even agree on if preventing extinction risks should be a priority (for, against), even using finite numbers.
Now I might be wrong, I am not a professional philosopher with a degree in making interesting thought experiments, but I guess I would say that all of the problems in the post above EITHER make no more sense than saying, oh look utiltarinaism doesn’t work if you add in time travel paradoxes, or something like that OR are reduceable to problems with large finites or high uncertainties. So considering “infinitities” does not itself break utilitarianism (which is already broken).