Inevitably, utilitarians would bite the bullet here, since ex hypothesi, there is more utility in the world in which all beings are replaced with beings with higher utility.
I think the question is whether this implication renders utilitarianism implausible. I have several observations.
(1) The assumption here of the thought experiment is that the correct way to assess moral theories is to test them against intuitions about lots of particular cases. And utilitarianism has plenty of counterintuive implications about particular cases: eg the one in the main post, the repugnant conclusion, counting sadistic pleasure, and so on ad infinitum. The problem is that I don’t think this is the correct way to assess moral theories.
Many of the moral intuitions people have are best explained by the fact that those intuitions would be useful to have in the ancestral environment, rather than that they apprehend moral reality. eg incest taboos are strong across all cultures, as are beliefs that wrongdoers simply deserve punishment regardless of the benefits of punishment. These would be evolutionarily useful, which makes it hard for us to shake these beliefs. I don’t think the belief that subjective wellbeing is intrinsically good is debunkable in the same way, though discussing that is beyond the scope of this post.
Analogy: the current state of moral philosophy is similar to maths if mathematicians judged mathematical proofs and theories on the basis of how intuitive they are. Thus, people’s intuition against the Monty Hall Problem was thought to be a good reason to try to build an alternative theory of probability. This form of maths wouldn’t get very far. By the same token, moral philosophy doesn’t get far in producing agreement because it uses a predictably bad moral epistemology that overwhelmingly focuses on intuitions about particular cases.
(2) Rough outline argument:
a. Subjective experience is all that matters about the world. (Imagine a world without subjective experience—why would it matter? Imagine a world in which people complete their plans but feel nothing—why would it be good?)
b. Personal identity doesn’t matter. (See Parfit. or Imagine if you were vaporised in your sleep and then a perfect clone appeared a millisecond afterwards. Why would this be bad?)
From a and b, with some plausible additional premises, you eventually end up with utilitarianism. This means you have to bite the bullet mentioned in the text, and you also find the bullet plausible because you accept a and b and the other premises.
Related to (1), I think a response to utilitarianism that started in the right way would attack these basic premises a and b, along with the other premises. eg It would try and show that something aside from subjective experience matters fundamentally.
Inevitably, utilitarians would bite the bullet here, since ex hypothesi, there is more utility in the world in which all beings are replaced with beings with higher utility.
I think the question is whether this implication renders utilitarianism implausible. I have several observations.
(1) The assumption here of the thought experiment is that the correct way to assess moral theories is to test them against intuitions about lots of particular cases. And utilitarianism has plenty of counterintuive implications about particular cases: eg the one in the main post, the repugnant conclusion, counting sadistic pleasure, and so on ad infinitum. The problem is that I don’t think this is the correct way to assess moral theories.
Many of the moral intuitions people have are best explained by the fact that those intuitions would be useful to have in the ancestral environment, rather than that they apprehend moral reality. eg incest taboos are strong across all cultures, as are beliefs that wrongdoers simply deserve punishment regardless of the benefits of punishment. These would be evolutionarily useful, which makes it hard for us to shake these beliefs. I don’t think the belief that subjective wellbeing is intrinsically good is debunkable in the same way, though discussing that is beyond the scope of this post.
Analogy: the current state of moral philosophy is similar to maths if mathematicians judged mathematical proofs and theories on the basis of how intuitive they are. Thus, people’s intuition against the Monty Hall Problem was thought to be a good reason to try to build an alternative theory of probability. This form of maths wouldn’t get very far. By the same token, moral philosophy doesn’t get far in producing agreement because it uses a predictably bad moral epistemology that overwhelmingly focuses on intuitions about particular cases.
(2) Rough outline argument:
a. Subjective experience is all that matters about the world. (Imagine a world without subjective experience—why would it matter? Imagine a world in which people complete their plans but feel nothing—why would it be good?)
b. Personal identity doesn’t matter. (See Parfit. or Imagine if you were vaporised in your sleep and then a perfect clone appeared a millisecond afterwards. Why would this be bad?)
From a and b, with some plausible additional premises, you eventually end up with utilitarianism. This means you have to bite the bullet mentioned in the text, and you also find the bullet plausible because you accept a and b and the other premises.
Related to (1), I think a response to utilitarianism that started in the right way would attack these basic premises a and b, along with the other premises. eg It would try and show that something aside from subjective experience matters fundamentally.