My response is that my own SFE intuitions don’t rely on comparing the worst things people can practically experience with the best things we can practically experience. I see an asymmetry even when comparing roughly equal intensities, difficult though it is to define that, or when the intensity of suffering seems smaller than the happiness. To me it really does seem morally far worse to give someone a headache for a day than to temporarily turn them into a P-zombie on their wedding day. “Far worse” doesn’t quite express it—I think the difference is qualitative, i.e. it doesn’t appear to be a problem for a person not to be experiencing more intensely happy versions of suffering-free states.
I think Shulman’s argument does give a prima facie cause for suspicion of suffering-focused intuitions, and it’s a reason for some optimism about the empirical distribution of happiness and suffering. (Whether that’s really comforting depends on your thoughts on complexity of value.) But it’s not overwhelming as a normative argument, and I think the “asymmetry is a priori weird” argument only works against forms of “weak NU” (all suffering is commensurate with happiness, just not at a 1:1 ratio).
Basically the same thing other people mean when they use that term in discussions about the ethics of happiness and suffering. I introspect that different valenced experiences have different subjective strengths; without any (moral) value judgments, it seems not very controversial to say the experience of a stubbed toe is less intense than that of depressive episode, and that of a tasty snack is less intense than that of a party with close friends. It seems intuitive to compare the intensities of happy and suffering experiences, at least approximately.
The details of these comparisons are controversial, to be sure. But I don’t think it’s a confused concept, and if we didn’t have a notion of equal intensities, non-SFE views wouldn’t have recourse to the criticism that SFE involves a strange asymmetry.
I feel like my question wasn’t answered. For instance, Carl suggests using units such that when a painful experience and pleasurable experience are said to be of “equal intensity” then you are morally indifferent between the two experiences. This seems like a super useful way to define the units (the units can then be directly used in decision calculus). Using this kind of definition, you can then try to answer for yourself things like “do I think a day-long headache is more units of pain than a wedding day is units of pleasure?” or “do I think in the technological limit, creating 1 unit of pain will be easier than creating 1 unit of pleasure?”
What I meant by my original question was: do you have an alternative definition of what it means for pain/pleasure experiences to be of “equal intensity” that is analogous to this one?
Carl suggests using units such that when a painful experience and pleasurable experience are said to be of “equal intensity” then you are morally indifferent between the two experiences
I think that’s confusing and non-standard. If your definition of intensities is itself a normative judgment, how do you even define classical utilitarianism versus suffering-focused versions? (Edit: after re-reading Carl’s post I see he proposes a way to define this in terms of energy. But my impression is still that the way I’m using “intensity,” as non-normative, is pretty common and useful.)
What I meant by my original question was: do you have an alternative definition of what it means for pain/pleasure experiences to be of “equal intensity” that is analogous to this one?
Analogous in what way? The point of my alternative definition is to provide a non-normative currency so that we can meaningfully ask what the normative ratios are (what David Althaus calls N-ratios here). So I guess I just reject the premise that an analogous definition would be useful.
ETA: If it helps to interpret my original response, I think you can substitute (up to some unit conversion) energy for intensity. In other words, my SFE intuitions aren’t derived from a comparison of suffering experiences that require a lot of energy with happy experiences that don’t require much energy. I see an asymmetry even when the experiences seem to be energetically equivalent. I don’t know enough neuroscience to say if my intuitions about energetic equivalence are accurate, but it seems to beg the question against SFE to assume that even the highest-energy happy experiences that humans currently experience involve less energy than a headache. (Not saying you’re necessarily assuming that, but I don’t see how Carl’s argument would go through without something like that.)
I think I meant analogous in the sense that I can then see how statements involving the defined word clearly translate to statements about how to make decisions. [ETA: I agree that this was underspecified and perhaps non-sensical]
My response is that my own SFE intuitions don’t rely on comparing the worst things people can practically experience with the best things we can practically experience. I see an asymmetry even when comparing roughly equal intensities, difficult though it is to define that, or when the intensity of suffering seems smaller than the happiness. To me it really does seem morally far worse to give someone a headache for a day than to temporarily turn them into a P-zombie on their wedding day. “Far worse” doesn’t quite express it—I think the difference is qualitative, i.e. it doesn’t appear to be a problem for a person not to be experiencing more intensely happy versions of suffering-free states.
I think Shulman’s argument does give a prima facie cause for suspicion of suffering-focused intuitions, and it’s a reason for some optimism about the empirical distribution of happiness and suffering. (Whether that’s really comforting depends on your thoughts on complexity of value.) But it’s not overwhelming as a normative argument, and I think the “asymmetry is a priori weird” argument only works against forms of “weak NU” (all suffering is commensurate with happiness, just not at a 1:1 ratio).
Could you try to expand upon what you mean by “equal intensities”?
Basically the same thing other people mean when they use that term in discussions about the ethics of happiness and suffering. I introspect that different valenced experiences have different subjective strengths; without any (moral) value judgments, it seems not very controversial to say the experience of a stubbed toe is less intense than that of depressive episode, and that of a tasty snack is less intense than that of a party with close friends. It seems intuitive to compare the intensities of happy and suffering experiences, at least approximately.
The details of these comparisons are controversial, to be sure. But I don’t think it’s a confused concept, and if we didn’t have a notion of equal intensities, non-SFE views wouldn’t have recourse to the criticism that SFE involves a strange asymmetry.
I feel like my question wasn’t answered. For instance, Carl suggests using units such that when a painful experience and pleasurable experience are said to be of “equal intensity” then you are morally indifferent between the two experiences. This seems like a super useful way to define the units (the units can then be directly used in decision calculus). Using this kind of definition, you can then try to answer for yourself things like “do I think a day-long headache is more units of pain than a wedding day is units of pleasure?” or “do I think in the technological limit, creating 1 unit of pain will be easier than creating 1 unit of pleasure?”
What I meant by my original question was: do you have an alternative definition of what it means for pain/pleasure experiences to be of “equal intensity” that is analogous to this one?
I think that’s confusing and non-standard. If your definition of intensities is itself a normative judgment, how do you even define classical utilitarianism versus suffering-focused versions? (Edit: after re-reading Carl’s post I see he proposes a way to define this in terms of energy. But my impression is still that the way I’m using “intensity,” as non-normative, is pretty common and useful.)
Analogous in what way? The point of my alternative definition is to provide a non-normative currency so that we can meaningfully ask what the normative ratios are (what David Althaus calls N-ratios here). So I guess I just reject the premise that an analogous definition would be useful.
ETA: If it helps to interpret my original response, I think you can substitute (up to some unit conversion) energy for intensity. In other words, my SFE intuitions aren’t derived from a comparison of suffering experiences that require a lot of energy with happy experiences that don’t require much energy. I see an asymmetry even when the experiences seem to be energetically equivalent. I don’t know enough neuroscience to say if my intuitions about energetic equivalence are accurate, but it seems to beg the question against SFE to assume that even the highest-energy happy experiences that humans currently experience involve less energy than a headache. (Not saying you’re necessarily assuming that, but I don’t see how Carl’s argument would go through without something like that.)
I think I meant analogous in the sense that I can then see how statements involving the defined word clearly translate to statements about how to make decisions. [ETA: I agree that this was underspecified and perhaps non-sensical]