I agree with Ben Auerâs excellent replies in this thread. One minor point Iâd add is that insofar as youâre focusing on the axiological question of whether some state of affairs is good, many non-utilitarian views will yield all the same verdicts as utilitarianism. That is, many forms of deontology agree with utilitarians about what outcomes are âgoodâ or âbadâ, but just disagree about the deontic question of which actions are ârightâ or âwrongâ.
Now, Iâd argue that (once higher-order evidence is taken into account) expectational utilitarianism further reduces the scope of disagreement with âcommonsenseâ deontological views in practice. We can come up with crazy hypothetical examples where the views diverge, but itâs going to be pretty rare in practice. (The main practical difference, I think, is just that deontology is more lax, in allowing you to do no good at all in your life, as long as you do no harm, whereas utilitarians are obviously more committed to the general EA/âbeneficentrist project of positively doing good when you easily can.)
As to whether we should subsequently be glad that someone acted wrongly or recklessly in that rare situation that it turned out for the best, itâs true that utilitarianism answers âyesâ. We should hope for good results, and be glad/ârelieved if they eventuate. A significant portion of deontologists (about half, in my experience) agree with consequentialists on this point. We can all still agree that the agent is blameworthy, however, so itâs important not to imagine that this implies no condemnation of the agentâs action in this situation!
Nitpick: If you believe infinite expected utility is a thing then every action has infinite expected utility. I assume you both just mean âextremely large expected utility.â
I donât believe it is infinitely valuable, but freedomandutility did mention it literally, so Iâm applying a simplicity prior and thinking he did mean that literally.
I agree with Ben Auerâs excellent replies in this thread. One minor point Iâd add is that insofar as youâre focusing on the axiological question of whether some state of affairs is good, many non-utilitarian views will yield all the same verdicts as utilitarianism. That is, many forms of deontology agree with utilitarians about what outcomes are âgoodâ or âbadâ, but just disagree about the deontic question of which actions are ârightâ or âwrongâ.
Now, Iâd argue that (once higher-order evidence is taken into account) expectational utilitarianism further reduces the scope of disagreement with âcommonsenseâ deontological views in practice. We can come up with crazy hypothetical examples where the views diverge, but itâs going to be pretty rare in practice. (The main practical difference, I think, is just that deontology is more lax, in allowing you to do no good at all in your life, as long as you do no harm, whereas utilitarians are obviously more committed to the general EA/âbeneficentrist project of positively doing good when you easily can.)
As to whether we should subsequently be glad that someone acted wrongly or recklessly in that rare situation that it turned out for the best, itâs true that utilitarianism answers âyesâ. We should hope for good results, and be glad/ârelieved if they eventuate. A significant portion of deontologists (about half, in my experience) agree with consequentialists on this point. We can all still agree that the agent is blameworthy, however, so itâs important not to imagine that this implies no condemnation of the agentâs action in this situation!
Freedomandutility stated one example: making AGI safe has infinite expected utility under a techno-utopian view, which may not be a hypothetical.
Nitpick: If you believe infinite expected utility is a thing then every action has infinite expected utility. I assume you both just mean âextremely large expected utility.â
I donât believe it is infinitely valuable, but freedomandutility did mention it literally, so Iâm applying a simplicity prior and thinking he did mean that literally.
As I replied in that thread, raising the stakes just makes it all the more important to be actually prudent!