Just wanted to point out that the distinction between total and average utilitarianism predates Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons, with Henry Sidgwick discussing it in the Methods of Ethics from 1874, and John Harsanyi advocates for a form of average utilitarianism in Morality and the Theory of Rational Behaviour from 1977.
Other than that, great post! I feel for your moral uncertainty and anxiety. It reminds me of the discussions we used to have on the old Felicifia forums back when they were still around. A lot of negative leaning utilitarians on Felicifia actually talked about hypothetically ending the universe to end suffering and such, and the hedonium shockwave thing was also discussed a fair bit, as well as the neuron count as sentience metric proxy thing.
A number of Felicifia alumni later became somewhat prominent EAs like Brian Tomasik and Peter Wildeford (back then he was still Peter Hurford).
Just wanted to point out that the distinction between total and average utilitarianism predates Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons, with Henry Sidgwick discussing it in the Methods of Ethics from 1874, and John Harsanyi advocates for a form of average utilitarianism in Morality and the Theory of Rational Behaviour from 1977.
Other than that, great post! I feel for your moral uncertainty and anxiety. It reminds me of the discussions we used to have on the old Felicifia forums back when they were still around. A lot of negative leaning utilitarians on Felicifia actually talked about hypothetically ending the universe to end suffering and such, and the hedonium shockwave thing was also discussed a fair bit, as well as the neuron count as sentience metric proxy thing.
A number of Felicifia alumni later became somewhat prominent EAs like Brian Tomasik and Peter Wildeford (back then he was still Peter Hurford).