Have you heard the 80000 Hours podcast episode with Will MacAskill? The first hour has a decent exploration of asymmetries and similar deontological concerns, and MascAskill’s paralysis argument is a fairly good argument against them.
I notice that I meant to link to this different episode on the non-identity problem but found it didn’t really fit and rationalized that away, so my comment may not be relevant.
Asymmetries need not be deontological; they could be axiological. A pure consequentialist could maintain that negative experiences are lexically worse than absence of good experiences, all else equal (in particular, controlling for the effects of good experiences on the prevalence of negative experiences). This is controversial, to be sure, but not inconsistent with consequentialism and hence not vulnerable to Will’s argument.
Have you heard the 80000 Hours podcast episode with Will MacAskill? The first hour has a decent exploration of asymmetries and similar deontological concerns, and MascAskill’s paralysis argument is a fairly good argument against them.
I notice that I meant to link to this different episode on the non-identity problem but found it didn’t really fit and rationalized that away, so my comment may not be relevant.
Asymmetries need not be deontological; they could be axiological. A pure consequentialist could maintain that negative experiences are lexically worse than absence of good experiences, all else equal (in particular, controlling for the effects of good experiences on the prevalence of negative experiences). This is controversial, to be sure, but not inconsistent with consequentialism and hence not vulnerable to Will’s argument.