To be clear, “preferential gap” in the linked article just means incomplete preferences. The property in question is insensitivity to mild sweetening.
If one was exactly indifferent between 2 outcomes, I believe any improvement/worsening of one of them must make one prefer one of the outcomes over the other
But that’s exactly the point — incompleteness is not equivalent to indifference, because when you have an incomplete preference between 2 outcomes it’s not the case that a mild improvement/worsening makes you have a strict preference. I don’t understand what you think doesn’t “make sense in principle” about insensitivity to mild sweetening.
I fully endorse expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism (ETHU) in principle
As in you’re 100% certain, and wouldn’t put weight on other considerations even as a tiebreaker? That seems extreme. (If, say, you became convinced all your options were incomparable from an ETHU perspective because of cluelessness, you would presumably still all-things-considered-prefer not to do something that injures yourself for no reason.)
As in you’re 100% certain, and wouldn’t put weight on other considerations even as a tiebreaker?
Yes.
(If, say, you became convinced all your options were incomparable from an ETHU perspective because of cluelessness, you would presumably still all-things-considered-prefer not to do something that injures yourself for no reason.)
Injuring myself can very easily be assessed under ETHU. It directly affects my mental states, and those of others via decreasing my productivity.
To be clear, “preferential gap” in the linked article just means incomplete preferences. The property in question is insensitivity to mild sweetening.
But that’s exactly the point — incompleteness is not equivalent to indifference, because when you have an incomplete preference between 2 outcomes it’s not the case that a mild improvement/worsening makes you have a strict preference. I don’t understand what you think doesn’t “make sense in principle” about insensitivity to mild sweetening.
As in you’re 100% certain, and wouldn’t put weight on other considerations even as a tiebreaker? That seems extreme. (If, say, you became convinced all your options were incomparable from an ETHU perspective because of cluelessness, you would presumably still all-things-considered-prefer not to do something that injures yourself for no reason.)
Yes.
Injuring myself can very easily be assessed under ETHU. It directly affects my mental states, and those of others via decreasing my productivity.