I disagree with the intuition that diversity is intrinsically valuable (Variety > Homogeneity). I think this intuition is merely a psychological illusion driven by a failure to truly accept the definitions of the thought experiment.
When we imagine living in a homogeneous world, we intuit that we would enjoy it less (due to boredom, lack of novelty, etc.)—meaning our individual well-being would suffer. But that just means diversity is a preference within our individual utility functions, not an intrinsic part of the axiology.
The thought experiment tricks us because we fail to truly hold “all other things being equal.” If we are explicitly told that the welfare levels in Homogeneity are greater than or equal to those in Variety, then those welfare figures already account for any negative effect caused by a lack of diversity. Once you strictly hold welfare constant, the intuition that Variety > Homogeneity evaporates. Diversity is likely just an instrumental good for the welfare of individuals, not an intrinsic axiological metric.
Our intuition tricks us into double-counting diversity: we treat it as an intrinsic axiological value when it is actually just an instrumental preference within an individual’s utility function. If the individuals in a “monoculture” are perfectly content with that homogeneity, there is no real contradiction in concluding that Homogeneity > Variety.
Suppose that you could live for an extraordinary amount of time, and could choose any sort of life you wanted. Would you choose to relive, endlessly, the same maximally-good experience over and over again? Or would you instead choose to live through a wide variety of extremely-wonderful experiences?
I think most of us would clearly prefer the latter, and not merely because we would worry we’d get bored otherwise — we could stipulate that the maximally-good experience is one where one never feels bored. Rather, we have an intrinsic preference for variety.
Again, the problem is that it’s almost impossible to genuinely hold that stipulation in our heads. We just can’t psychologically comprehend the part “is one where one never feels bored”, because nothing in human experience mirrors that.
When a thought experiment explicitly stipulates that boredom is locked at zero, we can’t let our real-world psychology smuggle it back in under the guise of an “intrinsic preference.” If we truly accept the premise as stated—that the experience remains maximally good indefinitely without decay—then rejecting it based on “variety” seems just a psychological trap.
Quick take:
I disagree with the intuition that diversity is intrinsically valuable (Variety > Homogeneity). I think this intuition is merely a psychological illusion driven by a failure to truly accept the definitions of the thought experiment.
When we imagine living in a homogeneous world, we intuit that we would enjoy it less (due to boredom, lack of novelty, etc.)—meaning our individual well-being would suffer. But that just means diversity is a preference within our individual utility functions, not an intrinsic part of the axiology.
The thought experiment tricks us because we fail to truly hold “all other things being equal.” If we are explicitly told that the welfare levels in Homogeneity are greater than or equal to those in Variety, then those welfare figures already account for any negative effect caused by a lack of diversity. Once you strictly hold welfare constant, the intuition that Variety > Homogeneity evaporates. Diversity is likely just an instrumental good for the welfare of individuals, not an intrinsic axiological metric.
Our intuition tricks us into double-counting diversity: we treat it as an intrinsic axiological value when it is actually just an instrumental preference within an individual’s utility function. If the individuals in a “monoculture” are perfectly content with that homogeneity, there is no real contradiction in concluding that Homogeneity > Variety.
Again, the problem is that it’s almost impossible to genuinely hold that stipulation in our heads. We just can’t psychologically comprehend the part “is one where one never feels bored”, because nothing in human experience mirrors that.
When a thought experiment explicitly stipulates that boredom is locked at zero, we can’t let our real-world psychology smuggle it back in under the guise of an “intrinsic preference.” If we truly accept the premise as stated—that the experience remains maximally good indefinitely without decay—then rejecting it based on “variety” seems just a psychological trap.