Just here to say that this bit is simultaneously wonderfully hilarious and extraordinarily astute:
The first is that I think infinite ethics punctures a certain type of utilitarian dream. It’s a dream I associate with the utilitarian friend quoted above (though over time he’s become much more of a nihilist), and with various others. In my head (content warning: caricature), it’s the dream of hitching yourself to some simple ideas – e.g., expected utility theory, totalism in population ethics, maybe hedonism about well-being — and riding them wherever they lead, no matter the costs. Yes, you push fat men and harvest organs; yes, you destroy Utopias for tiny chances of creating zillions of evil, slightly-happy rats (plus some torture farms on the side). But you always “know what you’re getting” – e.g., more expected net pleasure. And because you “know what you’re getting,” you can say things like “I bite all the bullets,” confident that you’ll always get at least this one thing, whatever else must go.
Plus, other people have problems you don’t. They end up talking about vague and metaphysically suspicious things like “people,” whereas you only talk about “valenced experiences” which are definitely metaphysically fine and sharp and joint-carving. They end up writing papers entirely devoted to addressing a single category of counter-example – even while you can almost feel the presence of tons of others, just offscreen. And more generally, their theories are often “janky,” complicated, ad hoc, intransitive, or incomplete. Indeed, various theorems prove that non-you people will have problems like this (or so you’re told; did you actually read the theorems in question?). You, unlike others, have the courage to just do what the theorems say, ‘intuitions’ be damned. In this sense, you are hardcore. You are rigorous. You are on solid ground.
Just here to say that this bit is simultaneously wonderfully hilarious and extraordinarily astute: