I think if you grant something like âsuffering is badâ you get (some form of) ethics, and this seems like a pretty minimal assumption. (Though I agree you can have an internally consistent view that suffering as good just as you can have an internally consistent view that you are a Boltzmann brain.)
Iâd argue that you also need some assumptions around is-ought, whether to be a consequentialist or not, what else (if at all) you value and how this trades off against suffering, etc. And you also need to decide on some boundaries for which entities are capable of suffering in a meaningful way, which thereâs wide spread disagreement on (in a way that imo goes beyond being empirical)
Itâs enough to get you something like âif suffering can be averted costlessly then this is a good thingâ but thatâs pretty rarely practically relevant. Everything has a cost
I think if you grant something like âsuffering is badâ you get (some form of) ethics, and this seems like a pretty minimal assumption. (Though I agree you can have an internally consistent view that suffering as good just as you can have an internally consistent view that you are a Boltzmann brain.)
Iâd argue that you also need some assumptions around is-ought, whether to be a consequentialist or not, what else (if at all) you value and how this trades off against suffering, etc. And you also need to decide on some boundaries for which entities are capable of suffering in a meaningful way, which thereâs wide spread disagreement on (in a way that imo goes beyond being empirical)
Itâs enough to get you something like âif suffering can be averted costlessly then this is a good thingâ but thatâs pretty rarely practically relevant. Everything has a cost