Thank you for engaging. Respectfully, however, I’m not compelled by your response.
Prematurely abandoning utilitarianism because of infinites is a bit like [...].
I’m not saying that we should prematurely abandon utilitarianism (though perhaps I did not make this clear in my above comment). I’m saying that we do not have an “ultimate argument” for utilitarianism at present, and that there’s a good chance that further reflection on known unknowns such as infinite ethics will reveal that our current conception of utilitarianism—in so far as we’re putting it forward as a “correct moral theory” candidate—is non-trivially flawed.
Secondly, we should act as if we are in a finite world [...] This is sensible and prudent.
I disagree. I think we should act to do the most good, and this may involve, for example, evidentially cooperating with other civilizations across the potentially infinite universe/multiverse. Your sentence “it would be seen as terribly callous of someone not to have relieved the suffering of others if it turned out we were in a finite universe all along” seems to me to be claiming that we should abandon expected value calculus (or that we should set our credence on the universe/multiverse being infinite to zero, notwithstanding the possibility that we could reduce suffering by a greater amount by having and acting on a best guess credence), which I view as incorrect.
Thirdly, [...] Infinities don’t change the fact that I can reduce the suffering of the person in front of me, or the sentient being on the other side of the world
I believe this claim falls foul of the Pareto improvement plus agent-neutrality impossibility result in infinite ethics, once you try to decide on whose suffering to reduce. (Another objection some—e.g., Bostrom—might make is that if there is infinite total suffering, then reducing suffering by a finite amount does nothing to reduce total suffering. But I’m personally less convinced by this flavor of objection.)
Thanks for your response. It seems we disagree on much less than I had initially assumed. My response was mostly intended for someone who has prematurely become a nihilist (as apparently happened to one of Carlsmith’s friends), whereas you remain committed to doing the most good. And I was mainly addressing the last flavour of objection you mention.
Thank you for engaging. Respectfully, however, I’m not compelled by your response.
I’m not saying that we should prematurely abandon utilitarianism (though perhaps I did not make this clear in my above comment). I’m saying that we do not have an “ultimate argument” for utilitarianism at present, and that there’s a good chance that further reflection on known unknowns such as infinite ethics will reveal that our current conception of utilitarianism—in so far as we’re putting it forward as a “correct moral theory” candidate—is non-trivially flawed.
I disagree. I think we should act to do the most good, and this may involve, for example, evidentially cooperating with other civilizations across the potentially infinite universe/multiverse. Your sentence “it would be seen as terribly callous of someone not to have relieved the suffering of others if it turned out we were in a finite universe all along” seems to me to be claiming that we should abandon expected value calculus (or that we should set our credence on the universe/multiverse being infinite to zero, notwithstanding the possibility that we could reduce suffering by a greater amount by having and acting on a best guess credence), which I view as incorrect.
I believe this claim falls foul of the Pareto improvement plus agent-neutrality impossibility result in infinite ethics, once you try to decide on whose suffering to reduce. (Another objection some—e.g., Bostrom—might make is that if there is infinite total suffering, then reducing suffering by a finite amount does nothing to reduce total suffering. But I’m personally less convinced by this flavor of objection.)
Thanks for your response. It seems we disagree on much less than I had initially assumed. My response was mostly intended for someone who has prematurely become a nihilist (as apparently happened to one of Carlsmith’s friends), whereas you remain committed to doing the most good. And I was mainly addressing the last flavour of objection you mention.