I’m curious whether you think your arguments apply to negative preference utilitarianism (NPU): the view that we ought to minimize aggregate preference frustration. It shares many features with ordinary negative hedonistic utilitarianism (NHU), such as,
It recognizes the urgent priority of reducing s-risks.
But NPU also has several desirable properties that are not shared with NHU:
Utopia, rather than world-destruction, is the globally optimal solution that maximizes utility.
It’s compatible with the thesis that value is highly complex. More specifically, the complexity of value under NPU is a consequence of the complexity of individual preferences. People generally prefer to live in a diverse, fun, interesting, and free world, than a homogenous world filled with hedonium.
Moreover,
As Brian Tomasik argued, preference utilitarianism can be seen as a generalization of the golden rule.
Preference utilitarianism puts primacy on consent, mostly because actions are wrong insofar as they violate someone’s consent. This puts it on a firm foundation as an ethical theory of freedom and autonomy.
I’m not sure I quite understand the theory. Wouldn’t global destruction be better than utopia if it were painless because there are no unmet preferences. I also laid out some problems with preference utilitarianism in my other post arguing for utilitarianism.
World destruction would violate a ton of people’s preferences. Many people who live in the world want it to keep existing. Minimizing preference frustration would presumably give people what they want, rather than killing them (something they don’t want).
Moving from our current world to utopia + pinprick would be a strong moral improvement under NPU. But you’re right that if the universe was devoid of all preference-having beings, then creating a utopia with a pinprick would not be recommended.
That seems deeply unintuitive. Another strange implication is that enough worlds of utopia plus pinprick would be worse than a world of pure torture. A final implication is that for a world of Budhist monks who have rid themselves completely of desires and merely take in the joys of life without having any firm desires for future states of the world, it would be morally neutral to bring their well-being to zero.
The second fact doesn’t seem counterintuitive to me, personally. When I try to visualize why other people find it counterintuitive, I end up imagining that it would be sad/shameful/disappointing if we never created a utopia. But under negative preference utilitarianism, existing preferences to create and live in a utopia are already taken into account. So, it’s not optimal to ignore these people’s wishes.
On the other hand, I find it unintuitive that we should build preferenceonium (homogeneous matter optimized to have very strong preferences that are immediately satisfied). So, this objection doesn’t move me by much.
A final implication is that for a world of Budhist monks who have rid themselves completely of desires and merely take in the joys of life without having any firm desires for future states of the world, it would be morally neutral to bring their well-being to zero.
I think if someone genuinely removed themselves of all desire then, yes, I think it would be acceptable to lower their well-being to zero (note that we should also take into account their preferences not to be exploited in such a manner). But this thought experiment seems hollow to me, because of the well-known difficulty of detaching oneself completely from material wants, or empathizing with those who have truly done so.
The force of the thought experiment seems to rest almost entirely on the intuition that the monks have not actually succeeded—as you say, they “merely take in the joys of life without having desires”. But if they really have no desires, then why are they taking joy in life? Indeed, why would they take any action whatsoever?
I’m curious whether you think your arguments apply to negative preference utilitarianism (NPU): the view that we ought to minimize aggregate preference frustration. It shares many features with ordinary negative hedonistic utilitarianism (NHU), such as,
It recognizes the urgent priority of reducing s-risks.
It recommends against the repugnant conclusion.
But NPU also has several desirable properties that are not shared with NHU:
Utopia, rather than world-destruction, is the globally optimal solution that maximizes utility.
It’s compatible with the thesis that value is highly complex. More specifically, the complexity of value under NPU is a consequence of the complexity of individual preferences. People generally prefer to live in a diverse, fun, interesting, and free world, than a homogenous world filled with hedonium.
Moreover,
As Brian Tomasik argued, preference utilitarianism can be seen as a generalization of the golden rule.
Preference utilitarianism puts primacy on consent, mostly because actions are wrong insofar as they violate someone’s consent. This puts it on a firm foundation as an ethical theory of freedom and autonomy.
That said, there are a number of problems with the theory, including the problem of how to define preference frustration, identify agents across time and space, perform interpersonal utility comparisons, idealize individual preferences, and cope with infinite preferences.
I’m not sure I quite understand the theory. Wouldn’t global destruction be better than utopia if it were painless because there are no unmet preferences. I also laid out some problems with preference utilitarianism in my other post arguing for utilitarianism.
World destruction would violate a ton of people’s preferences. Many people who live in the world want it to keep existing. Minimizing preference frustration would presumably give people what they want, rather than killing them (something they don’t want).
Sure, but it would say that creating utopia with a pinprick would be morally bad.
Moving from our current world to utopia + pinprick would be a strong moral improvement under NPU. But you’re right that if the universe was devoid of all preference-having beings, then creating a utopia with a pinprick would not be recommended.
That seems deeply unintuitive. Another strange implication is that enough worlds of utopia plus pinprick would be worse than a world of pure torture. A final implication is that for a world of Budhist monks who have rid themselves completely of desires and merely take in the joys of life without having any firm desires for future states of the world, it would be morally neutral to bring their well-being to zero.
I view this implication as merely the consequence of two facts, (1) utilitarians generally endorse torture in the torture vs. dust specks thought experiment, (2) negative preference utilitarians don’t find value in creating new beings just to satisfy their preferences.
The first fact is shared by all non-lexical varieties of consequentialism, so it doesn’t appear to be a unique critique of negative preference utilitarianism.
The second fact doesn’t seem counterintuitive to me, personally. When I try to visualize why other people find it counterintuitive, I end up imagining that it would be sad/shameful/disappointing if we never created a utopia. But under negative preference utilitarianism, existing preferences to create and live in a utopia are already taken into account. So, it’s not optimal to ignore these people’s wishes.
On the other hand, I find it unintuitive that we should build preferenceonium (homogeneous matter optimized to have very strong preferences that are immediately satisfied). So, this objection doesn’t move me by much.
I think if someone genuinely removed themselves of all desire then, yes, I think it would be acceptable to lower their well-being to zero (note that we should also take into account their preferences not to be exploited in such a manner). But this thought experiment seems hollow to me, because of the well-known difficulty of detaching oneself completely from material wants, or empathizing with those who have truly done so.
The force of the thought experiment seems to rest almost entirely on the intuition that the monks have not actually succeeded—as you say, they “merely take in the joys of life without having desires”. But if they really have no desires, then why are they taking joy in life? Indeed, why would they take any action whatsoever?