I think EAs are drawn to CU not because it has no counterintuitive or implausible implications, but simply because most of the alternatives (including NU) seem even worse in this regard (and often worse in other ways, too).
It seems that pluralistic views that give some weight to lots of different values would perhaps have the least implausible implications. These would probably be somewhat suffering-focused, but not strongly so.
As I say in the text, I understand the appeal of CU. But I’d be puzzled if we accept CU without modifications (I give some in the text, like Mendola’s “ordinal modification” and Wolf’s “Impure Consequentialist Theory of Obligation” as well as implying a CU based on an arguably more sophisticated model of suffering and happiness than the one-dimensional linear model).
Worse than being counterintuitive, IMO, is giving a false representation of the reality: e.g. talking about “great” aggregate happiness or suffering where no one experiences anything of significance or holding the notion of “canceling out” suffering with happiness elsewhere. (I concur with arguably many EAs in the respect that a kind of sentiocentric consequentialism could be the most plausible ethics.)
BTW some prominent defenders of suffering-focused ethics—such as Mayerfeld and Wolf mentioned in the text—hold a pluralistic account of ethics (Vinding, 2020, 8.1), where things besides suffering and happiness have an intrinsic value. (I personally still fail to understand in what sense such intrinsic values that are not reducible to suffering or happiness can obtain.)
I think EAs are drawn to CU not because it has no counterintuitive or implausible implications, but simply because most of the alternatives (including NU) seem even worse in this regard (and often worse in other ways, too).
It seems that pluralistic views that give some weight to lots of different values would perhaps have the least implausible implications. These would probably be somewhat suffering-focused, but not strongly so.
As I say in the text, I understand the appeal of CU. But I’d be puzzled if we accept CU without modifications (I give some in the text, like Mendola’s “ordinal modification” and Wolf’s “Impure Consequentialist Theory of Obligation” as well as implying a CU based on an arguably more sophisticated model of suffering and happiness than the one-dimensional linear model).
Worse than being counterintuitive, IMO, is giving a false representation of the reality: e.g. talking about “great” aggregate happiness or suffering where no one experiences anything of significance or holding the notion of “canceling out” suffering with happiness elsewhere. (I concur with arguably many EAs in the respect that a kind of sentiocentric consequentialism could be the most plausible ethics.)
BTW some prominent defenders of suffering-focused ethics—such as Mayerfeld and Wolf mentioned in the text—hold a pluralistic account of ethics (Vinding, 2020, 8.1), where things besides suffering and happiness have an intrinsic value. (I personally still fail to understand in what sense such intrinsic values that are not reducible to suffering or happiness can obtain.)