I agree with the critiques in the sections including and after âImplicit Commensurability of (Extreme) Suffering,â and would encourage defenders of CU to apply as much scrutiny to its counterintuitive conclusions as they do to NU, among other alternatives. Iâd also add the Very Repugnant Conclusion as a case for which I havenât heard a satisfying CU defense. Edit: The utility monster as well seems asymmetric in how repugnant it is when you formulate it in terms of happiness versus suffering. It does seem abhorrent to accept the increased suffering of many for the supererogatory happiness of the one, but if the disutility monster would suffer far more from not getting a given resource than many others would put together, helping the disutility monster seems perfectly reasonable to me.
But I think objecting to aggregation of experience per se, as in the first few sections, is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Even if you just consider suffering as the morally relevant object, itâs quite hard to reject the idea that between (a) 1 million people experiencing a form of pain just slightly weaker than the threshold of âextremeâ suffering, and (b) 1 person experiencing pain just slightly stronger than that threshold, (b) is the lesser evil.
Perhaps all the alternatives are even worse, and I have some sympathies for lexical threshold NU, including that the form of arguments against it like the one I just proposed could just as easily lead to conclusions of fanaticism, which many near-classical utilitarians reject. And intuitively it does seem thereâs some qualitative difference between the moral seriousness of torture versus a large number of dust specks. But in general I think aggregation in axiology is much more defensible than classical utilitarianism wholesale.
nil already kind of addressed this in their reply, but it seems important to keep in mind the distinction between the intensity of a stimulus and the moral value of the experience caused by the stimulus. Statements like âexperiencing pain just slightly stronger than that thresholdâ risk conflating the two. And, indeed, if by âpainâ you mean âmoral disvalueâ then to discuss pain as a scalar quantity begs the question against lexical views.
Sorry if this is pedantic, but in my experience this conflation often muddles discussions about lexical views.
Good point. I would say I meant intensity of the experience, which is distinct both from intensity of the stimulus and moral (dis)value. And I also dislike seeing conflation of intensity with moral value when it comes to evaluating happiness relative to suffering.
Iâd also add the Very Repugnant Conclusion as a case for which I havenât heard a satisfying CU defense.
A defense of accepting or rejecting the Very Repugnant Conclusion (VRC) [for those who donât know, hereâs a full text (PDF) which defines both Conclusions in the introduction]? Accepting VRC would be required by CU, in this hypothetical. So, assuming CU, rejecting VRC would need justification.
itâs quite hard to reject the idea that between (a) 1 million people experiencing a form of pain just slightly weaker than the threshold of âextremeâ suffering, and (b) 1 person experiencing pain just slightly stronger than that threshold, (b) is the lesser evil.
Perhaps so. On the other hand, as Vinding also writes (ibid, 5.6; 8.10), the qualitative difference between extreme suffering and suffering that could be extreme if we push a bit further may be still be huge. So, âslightly weakerâ would not apply to the severity of suffering.
Also, irrespective of whether the above point is true, one (as Taurek did as I mention in the text) argue that (a) is still less bad than (b), for no one in (a) suffers a much as the one in (b).
⌠in general I think aggregation in axiology is much more defensible than classical utilitarianism wholesale.
Here we might at least agree that some forms of aggregating are more plausible than others, at least in practice: e.g. intrapersonal vs interpersonal aggregating.
The utility monster as well seems asymmetric in how repugnant it is when you formulate it in terms of happiness versus suffering.
⌠the converse scenario in which we have a _dis_utility monster whose suffering increases as more pleasure is experienced by beings who are already well-off, it seems quite plausible to say that the disutility monster, and others, are justified in preventing these well-off beings from having such non-essential, suffering-producing pleasures. In other words, while it does not seem permissible to impose suffering on others (against their will) to create happiness, it does seem justified to prevent beings who are well-off from experiencing pleasure (even against their will) if their pleasure causes suffering.
Accepting VRC would be required by CU, in this hypothetical. So, assuming CU, rejecting VRC would need justification.
Yep, this is what I was getting at, sorry that I wasnât clear. I meant âdefense of CU against this case.â
On the other hand, as Vinding also writes (ibid, 5.6; 8.10), the qualitative difference between extreme suffering and suffering that could be extreme if we push a bit further may be still be huge.
Yeah, I donât object to the possibility of this in principle, just noting that itâs not without its counterintuitive consequences. Neither is pure NU, or any sensible moral theory in my opinion.
I agree with the critiques in the sections including and after âImplicit Commensurability of (Extreme) Suffering,â and would encourage defenders of CU to apply as much scrutiny to its counterintuitive conclusions as they do to NU, among other alternatives. Iâd also add the Very Repugnant Conclusion as a case for which I havenât heard a satisfying CU defense. Edit: The utility monster as well seems asymmetric in how repugnant it is when you formulate it in terms of happiness versus suffering. It does seem abhorrent to accept the increased suffering of many for the supererogatory happiness of the one, but if the disutility monster would suffer far more from not getting a given resource than many others would put together, helping the disutility monster seems perfectly reasonable to me.
But I think objecting to aggregation of experience per se, as in the first few sections, is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Even if you just consider suffering as the morally relevant object, itâs quite hard to reject the idea that between (a) 1 million people experiencing a form of pain just slightly weaker than the threshold of âextremeâ suffering, and (b) 1 person experiencing pain just slightly stronger than that threshold, (b) is the lesser evil.
Perhaps all the alternatives are even worse, and I have some sympathies for lexical threshold NU, including that the form of arguments against it like the one I just proposed could just as easily lead to conclusions of fanaticism, which many near-classical utilitarians reject. And intuitively it does seem thereâs some qualitative difference between the moral seriousness of torture versus a large number of dust specks. But in general I think aggregation in axiology is much more defensible than classical utilitarianism wholesale.
nil already kind of addressed this in their reply, but it seems important to keep in mind the distinction between the intensity of a stimulus and the moral value of the experience caused by the stimulus. Statements like âexperiencing pain just slightly stronger than that thresholdâ risk conflating the two. And, indeed, if by âpainâ you mean âmoral disvalueâ then to discuss pain as a scalar quantity begs the question against lexical views.
Sorry if this is pedantic, but in my experience this conflation often muddles discussions about lexical views.
Good point. I would say I meant intensity of the experience, which is distinct both from intensity of the stimulus and moral (dis)value. And I also dislike seeing conflation of intensity with moral value when it comes to evaluating happiness relative to suffering.
A defense of accepting or rejecting the Very Repugnant Conclusion (VRC) [for those who donât know, hereâs a full text (PDF) which defines both Conclusions in the introduction]? Accepting VRC would be required by CU, in this hypothetical. So, assuming CU, rejecting VRC would need justification.
Perhaps so. On the other hand, as Vinding also writes (ibid, 5.6; 8.10), the qualitative difference between extreme suffering and suffering that could be extreme if we push a bit further may be still be huge. So, âslightly weakerâ would not apply to the severity of suffering.
Also, irrespective of whether the above point is true, one (as Taurek did as I mention in the text) argue that (a) is still less bad than (b), for no one in (a) suffers a much as the one in (b).
Here we might at least agree that some forms of aggregating are more plausible than others, at least in practice: e.g. intrapersonal vs interpersonal aggregating.
Vinding too brings up such a disutility monster in Suffering-Focused Ethics: Defense and Implications, 3.1, BTW:
Yep, this is what I was getting at, sorry that I wasnât clear. I meant âdefense of CU against this case.â
Yeah, I donât object to the possibility of this in principle, just noting that itâs not without its counterintuitive consequences. Neither is pure NU, or any sensible moral theory in my opinion.