Hi James, thanks for elaborating, that’s really useful! We’ll reply to your points in separate comments.
Your statement, 1. I don’t think a neutral point higher than 2 is defensible
Reply: I don’t think we have enough evidence or theory to be confident about where to put the neutral point.
Your response about where to put the neutral point involves taking answers to survey questions where people are asked something like “where on a 0-10 scale would you choose not to keep living?” and assuming we should take those answers at face value for where to locate the neutral point. However, this conclusion strikes me as too fast; I don’t think we have enough theory or evidence on this issue. Are we definitely asking the right questions? Do we understand people’s responses? Should we agree with them even if we understand them?
I’m not sure if I told you about this, but we’re working on a pilot survey for this and other wellbeing measuring issues. The relevant sections for neutrality are 1.3 and 6. I’ll try to put the main bits here, to make life easier (link to initial part of report on EA forum; link to full report):
The neutral point refers to the level on a SWB scale at which existence has a neutral value, compared to non-existence for that person (assuming this state is perpetual and considering only the effects on that person). Above this point life is ‘better than death’; below it life is ‘worse than death’. This is conceptually distinct, but possibly closely related, to what we call the zero point: the level on a SWB scale at which that type of SWB is overall neither positive nor negative (e.g., someone is neither overall satisfied or dissatisfied). A natural thought is that the zero point and the neutral point coincide: if life is good(/bad) for us when it has positive(/negative) wellbeing, so a life has neutral value if it has zero wellbeing.
As we say in footnote 5, this aligned is straightforwardly entailed by the standard formulation of utilitarianism.
That’s why,
[In our pilot survey, w]e test whether respondents put the neutral point and zero point for life satisfaction in the same place, and whether respondents interpret the zero point for life satisfaction as somewhere between 0 and 5. If respondents do both, that would provide an explanation of previous works’ findings. However, there are several reasons why respondents might not believe that the neutral point and the zero point coincide. Some of these issues are discussed in Section 6.2.
Unfortunately, we find that, on a life satisfaction scale, participants put the zero point at 5⁄10, and the neutral point at 1.3/10. We’re not really sure what to make of this. Here’s what we say in section 6.2 in full.
Survey questions about the neutral point cannot settle the debate about when a life is not worth living on their own. At most, we can elicit respondents’ beliefs and preferences about their own lives, which, at least on some moral theories, will be an important determinant of the neutral point.
As noted in Section 1.3, an intuitive thought about the value of extending lives is that living longer is good for you if you would have positive wellbeing, and bad for you if you would have negative wellbeing. Yet, the above result seems in tension with this. We might expect someone who is overall dissatisfied with their life would say that they have negative wellbeing. However, if you have negative wellbeing, shouldn’t you also believe that living longer would be bad for you? Note that we have specifically asked respondents to disregard the effects of their existence on others. This should rule out participants thinking their life is “worth living” merely because their existence is good for other people (e.g., their family). In light of these arguments, how might we explain the divergences between the reported neutral point and the reported zero point?
One reason participants might not align the neutral point with the zero point on a life satisfaction scale is that participants are not endorsing a life satisfaction theory of wellbeing. That is, respondents do not believe that their wellbeing is wholly represented by their overall satisfaction with life. If, for instance, participants ultimately valued their happiness, and they expect that they would be happy even if they were very dissatisfied, then they would justifiably conclude that even if they were dissatisfied with their life, it would be worth it, for them, to keep living.
A distinct possibility is that there are special theoretical considerations connected to the life satisfaction theory of wellbeing. Part of the motivation for such a theory is that individuals get to choose what makes their lives go well (Sumner 1999, Plant 2020). Hence, perhaps individuals could coherently distinguish between the level of satisfaction at which they would rather stop existing (the neutral point) and the level at which they are neither overall satisfied or dissatisfied (the zero point).13
What the previous two comments reveal is that investigations into the neutral point may substantially turn on philosophical assumptions. We may need a ‘theory-led’ approach, where we decide what theory of wellbeing we think is correct, and then consider how, given a particular theory of wellbeing, the location of the neutral point would be determined. This would contrast with a ‘data-led’ approach where we strive to be theory agnostic.
Another concern is that our survey questions are too cognitively demanding for participants. Perhaps respondents do not, in fact, account for the stipulation that they should discount the effects on others. Alternatively, respondents might answer our questions on the assumption that their life would only temporarily, rather than permanently, be at that level of life satisfaction. In future iterations of our survey, we may try to get a better understanding of this possibility.
Finally, there may be experimenter demand effects. Respondents may think it is important to express the value of human life, and therefore it is wrong to say a life is ‘not worth living’ unless a life is truly miserable.
For these reasons, we remain unsure whether a level of 1.3/10, which is the sample mean on our neutrality question, indeed gives a valid estimate of the ‘true’ neutral point.
We plan to think about this more and test our hypotheses in the full version of the survey. If you have ideas for what we should test, now would be a great time to share them!
Given the methodological challenges in measuring the neutral point, I would have some hesitation to credit any conclusions that diverged too much from what revealed preferences imply. A high neutral point implies that many people in developing countries believe their lives are not worth living. So I’d look for evidence of behavior (either in respondents or in the population more generally) that corroborated whether people acted in a way that was consistent with the candidate neutral point.
For instance, although money, family, and other considerations doubtless affect it, studying individuals who are faced with serious and permanent (or terminal) medical conditions might be helpful. At what expected life satisfaction score do they decline treatment? If the neutral point is relatively close to the median point in a country, one would expect to see a lot of people decide to not obtain curative treatment if the results would leave them 1-2 points less satisfied than their baseline.
You might be able to approximate that by asking hypothetical questions about specific situations that you believe respondents would assess as reducing life satisfaction by a specified amount (disability, imprisonment, social stigma, etc.), and then ask whether the respondent believes they would find life still worth living if that happened. I don’t think that approach works to establish a neutral point, but I think having something more concrete would be an important cross-check on what may otherwise come across as an academic, conjectural exercise to many respondents.
A high neutral point implies that many people in developing countries believe their lives are not worth living.
This isn’t necessarily the case. I assume that if people described their lives as having negative wellbeing, this wouldn’t imply they thought their life was not worth continuing.
People can have negative wellbeing and still want to live for the sake of others or causes greater than themselves.
Life satisfaction appears to be increasing over time in low income countries. I think this progress is such that many people who may have negative wellbeing at present, will not have negative wellbeing their whole lives.
Edit: To expand a little, for these reasons, as well as the very reasonable drive to survive (regardless of wellbeing), I find it difficult to interpret revealed preferences and it’s unclear they’re a bastion of clarity in this confusing debate.
Anectdotally, I’ve clearly had periods of negative wellbeing before (sometimes starkly), but never wanted to die during those periods. If I knew that such periods were permanent, I’d probably think it was good for me to not-exist, but I’d still hesitate to say I’d prefer to not-exist, because I don’t just care about my wellbeing. As Tyrion said “Death is so final, and life is so full of possibilities.”
I think these difficulties should highlight that the difficulties here aren’t just localized to this area of the topic.
Thanks for these points! The idea that people care about more than their wellbeing may be critical here. I’m thinking of a simplified model with the following assumptions: a mean lifetime wellbeing of 5, SD 2, normal distribution, wellbeing is constant through the lifespan, with a neutral point of 4 (which is shared by everyone).
Under these assumptions, AMF gets no “credit” (except for grief avoidance) for saving the life of a hypothetical person with wellbeing of 4. I’m really hesitant to say that saving that person’s life doesn’t morally “count” as a good because they are at the neutral point. On the one hand, the model tells me that saving this person’s life doesn’t improve total wellbeing. On the other hand, suppose I (figuratively) asked the person whose life was saved, and he said that he preferred his existence to non-existence and appreciated AMF saving his life.
At that point, I think the WELLBY-based model might not be incorporating some important data—the person telling us that he prefers his existence to non-existence would strongly suggest that saving his life had moral value that should indeed “count” as a moral good in the AMF column. His answers may not be fully consistent, but it’s not obvious to me why I should fully credit his self-reported wellbeing but give zero credence to his view on the desirability of his continued existence. I guess he could be wrong to prefer his continued existence, but he is uniquely qualified to answer that question and so I think I should be really hesitant to completely discount what he says. And a full 30% of the population would have wellbeing of 4 or less under the assumptions.
Even more concerning, AMF gets significantly “penalized” for saving the life of a hypothetical person with wellbeing of 3 who also prefers existence to non-existence. And almost 16% of the population would score at least that low.
Of course, the real world is messier than a quick model. But if you have a population where the neutral point is close enough to the population average, but almost everyone prefers continued existence, it seems that you are going to have a meaningful number of cases where AMF gets very little / no / negative moral “credit” for saving the lives of people who want (or would want) their lives saved. That seems like a weakness, not a feature, of the WELLBY-based model to me.
Hi James, thanks for elaborating, that’s really useful! We’ll reply to your points in separate comments.
Your statement, 1. I don’t think a neutral point higher than 2 is defensible
Reply: I don’t think we have enough evidence or theory to be confident about where to put the neutral point.
Your response about where to put the neutral point involves taking answers to survey questions where people are asked something like “where on a 0-10 scale would you choose not to keep living?” and assuming we should take those answers at face value for where to locate the neutral point. However, this conclusion strikes me as too fast; I don’t think we have enough theory or evidence on this issue. Are we definitely asking the right questions? Do we understand people’s responses? Should we agree with them even if we understand them?
I’m not sure if I told you about this, but we’re working on a pilot survey for this and other wellbeing measuring issues. The relevant sections for neutrality are 1.3 and 6. I’ll try to put the main bits here, to make life easier (link to initial part of report on EA forum; link to full report):
As we say in footnote 5, this aligned is straightforwardly entailed by the standard formulation of utilitarianism.
That’s why,
Unfortunately, we find that, on a life satisfaction scale, participants put the zero point at 5⁄10, and the neutral point at 1.3/10. We’re not really sure what to make of this. Here’s what we say in section 6.2 in full.
We plan to think about this more and test our hypotheses in the full version of the survey. If you have ideas for what we should test, now would be a great time to share them!
Given the methodological challenges in measuring the neutral point, I would have some hesitation to credit any conclusions that diverged too much from what revealed preferences imply. A high neutral point implies that many people in developing countries believe their lives are not worth living. So I’d look for evidence of behavior (either in respondents or in the population more generally) that corroborated whether people acted in a way that was consistent with the candidate neutral point.
For instance, although money, family, and other considerations doubtless affect it, studying individuals who are faced with serious and permanent (or terminal) medical conditions might be helpful. At what expected life satisfaction score do they decline treatment? If the neutral point is relatively close to the median point in a country, one would expect to see a lot of people decide to not obtain curative treatment if the results would leave them 1-2 points less satisfied than their baseline.
You might be able to approximate that by asking hypothetical questions about specific situations that you believe respondents would assess as reducing life satisfaction by a specified amount (disability, imprisonment, social stigma, etc.), and then ask whether the respondent believes they would find life still worth living if that happened. I don’t think that approach works to establish a neutral point, but I think having something more concrete would be an important cross-check on what may otherwise come across as an academic, conjectural exercise to many respondents.
This isn’t necessarily the case. I assume that if people described their lives as having negative wellbeing, this wouldn’t imply they thought their life was not worth continuing.
People can have negative wellbeing and still want to live for the sake of others or causes greater than themselves.
Life satisfaction appears to be increasing over time in low income countries. I think this progress is such that many people who may have negative wellbeing at present, will not have negative wellbeing their whole lives.
Edit: To expand a little, for these reasons, as well as the very reasonable drive to survive (regardless of wellbeing), I find it difficult to interpret revealed preferences and it’s unclear they’re a bastion of clarity in this confusing debate.
Anectdotally, I’ve clearly had periods of negative wellbeing before (sometimes starkly), but never wanted to die during those periods. If I knew that such periods were permanent, I’d probably think it was good for me to not-exist, but I’d still hesitate to say I’d prefer to not-exist, because I don’t just care about my wellbeing. As Tyrion said “Death is so final, and life is so full of possibilities.”
I think these difficulties should highlight that the difficulties here aren’t just localized to this area of the topic.
Thanks for these points! The idea that people care about more than their wellbeing may be critical here. I’m thinking of a simplified model with the following assumptions: a mean lifetime wellbeing of 5, SD 2, normal distribution, wellbeing is constant through the lifespan, with a neutral point of 4 (which is shared by everyone).
Under these assumptions, AMF gets no “credit” (except for grief avoidance) for saving the life of a hypothetical person with wellbeing of 4. I’m really hesitant to say that saving that person’s life doesn’t morally “count” as a good because they are at the neutral point. On the one hand, the model tells me that saving this person’s life doesn’t improve total wellbeing. On the other hand, suppose I (figuratively) asked the person whose life was saved, and he said that he preferred his existence to non-existence and appreciated AMF saving his life.
At that point, I think the WELLBY-based model might not be incorporating some important data—the person telling us that he prefers his existence to non-existence would strongly suggest that saving his life had moral value that should indeed “count” as a moral good in the AMF column. His answers may not be fully consistent, but it’s not obvious to me why I should fully credit his self-reported wellbeing but give zero credence to his view on the desirability of his continued existence. I guess he could be wrong to prefer his continued existence, but he is uniquely qualified to answer that question and so I think I should be really hesitant to completely discount what he says. And a full 30% of the population would have wellbeing of 4 or less under the assumptions.
Even more concerning, AMF gets significantly “penalized” for saving the life of a hypothetical person with wellbeing of 3 who also prefers existence to non-existence. And almost 16% of the population would score at least that low.
Of course, the real world is messier than a quick model. But if you have a population where the neutral point is close enough to the population average, but almost everyone prefers continued existence, it seems that you are going to have a meaningful number of cases where AMF gets very little / no / negative moral “credit” for saving the lives of people who want (or would want) their lives saved. That seems like a weakness, not a feature, of the WELLBY-based model to me.