Re. “Few of us would unhesitatingly accept the repugnant conclusion”: I unhesitatingly accept the repugnant conclusion. We all do, except for people who say that it’s repugnant to place the welfare of a human above that of a thousand bacteria. (I think Jainists say something like that.)
Arriving at the repugnant conclusion presumes you have an objective way of comparing the utility of two beings. I can’t just say “My utility function equals your utility function times two”. You have to have some operationalized, common definition of utility, in which values presumably cache out in organismal conscious phenomenal experience, that allows you to compare utilities across beings.
It’s easy to believe that such an objective measure would calculate the utility of pleasure to a human as being more than a thousand times as great as the utility of whatever is pleasurable to a bacterium (probably something like a positive glucose gradient). Every time we try to kill the bacteria in our refrigerator, we’re endorsing the repugnant conclusion.
Ummm, I think for me it is believing that for any fixed number of people with really good lives, there is some sufficiently large number of people with lives that are barely worth living that is preferable.
Re. “Few of us would unhesitatingly accept the repugnant conclusion”: I unhesitatingly accept the repugnant conclusion. We all do, except for people who say that it’s repugnant to place the welfare of a human above that of a thousand bacteria. (I think Jainists say something like that.)
Arriving at the repugnant conclusion presumes you have an objective way of comparing the utility of two beings. I can’t just say “My utility function equals your utility function times two”. You have to have some operationalized, common definition of utility, in which values presumably cache out in organismal conscious phenomenal experience, that allows you to compare utilities across beings.
It’s easy to believe that such an objective measure would calculate the utility of pleasure to a human as being more than a thousand times as great as the utility of whatever is pleasurable to a bacterium (probably something like a positive glucose gradient). Every time we try to kill the bacteria in our refrigerator, we’re endorsing the repugnant conclusion.
Can you briefly explain, in your own words, what “accepting the repugnant conclusion” means?
Ummm, I think for me it is believing that for any fixed number of people with really good lives, there is some sufficiently large number of people with lives that are barely worth living that is preferable.
The question was not addressed to you. :)