Of the experience-based asymmetric views discussed in the OP, my posts on tranquilism and suffering-focused ethics mention value pluralism and the idea that things other than experiences (i.e., preferences mostly) could also be valuable. Given these explicit mentions it seems false to claim that “these views don’t easily fit into a preference-focused framework.” [...] I’m not sure why you think [a certain] argument would have to be translated into a preference-focused framework.
I think this misunderstands the point I was making. I meant to highlight how, if you’re adopting a pluralistic view, then to defend a strong population asymmetry (the view emphasized in the post’s title), you need reasons why none of the components of your pluralistic view value making happy people.* This gets harder the more pluralistic you are, especially if you can’t easily generalize hedonic arguments to other values. As you suggest, you can get the needed reasons by introducing additional assumptions/frameworks, like rejecting the principle that it’s better for there to be more good things. But I wouldn’t call that an “easy fit”; that’s substantial additional argument, sometimes involving arguing against views that many readers of this forum find axiomatically appealing (like that it’s better for there to be more good things).
(* Technically you don’t need reasons why none of the views consider the making of happy people valuable, just reasons why overall they don’t. Still, I’d guess those two claims are roughly equivalent, since I’m not aware of any prominent views which hold the creation of purely happy people to be actively bad.)
Besides that, I think at this point we’re largely in agreement on the main points we’ve been discussing?
I’ve mainly meant to argue that some of the ethical frameworks that the original post draws on and emphasizes, in arguing for a population asymmetry, have implications that many find very counterintuitive. You seem to agree.
If I’ve understood, you’ve mainly been arguing that there are many other views (including some that the original post draws on) which support a population asymmetry while avoiding certain counterintuitive implications. I agree.
Your most recent comment seems to frame several arguments for this point as arguments against the first bullet point above, but I don’t think they’re actually arguments against the above, since the views you’re defending aren’t the ones my most-discussed criticism applies to (though that does limit the applicability of the criticism).
I think this misunderstands the point I was making. I meant to highlight how, if you’re adopting a pluralistic view, then to defend a strong population asymmetry (the view emphasized in the post’s title), you need reasons why none of the components of your pluralistic view value making happy people.
Thanks for elaborating! I agree I misunderstood your point here.
(I think preference-based views fit neatly into the asymmetry. For instance, Peter Singer initially weakly defended an asymmetric view in Practical Ethics, as arguably the most popular exponent of preference utilitarianism at the time. He only changed his view on population ethics once he became a hedonist. I don’t think I’m even aware of a text that explicitly defends preference-based totalism. By contrast, there are several texts defending asymmetric preference-based views: Benatar, Fehige, Frick, younger version of Singer.)
as you suggest, you can get the needed reasons by introducing additional assumptions/frameworks, like rejecting the principle that it’s better for there to be more good things.
Or that “(intrinsically) good things” don’t have to be a fixed component in our “ontology” (in how we conceptualize the philosophical option space). Or, relatedly, that the formula “maximize goods minus bads” isn’t the only way to approach (population) ethics. Not because it’s conceptually obvious that specific states of the world aren’t worthy of taking serious effort (and even risks, if necessary) to bring about. Instead, because it’s questionable to assume that “good states” are intrinsically good, that we should bring them about regardless of circumstances, independently of people’s interests/goals.
Besides that, I think at this point we’re largely in agreement on the main points we’ve been discussing?
I agree that we’re mainly in agreement. To summarize the thread, I think we’ve kept discussing because we both felt like the other party was presenting a slightly unfair summary of how many views a specific criticism applies or doesn’t apply to (or applies “easily” vs. “applies only with some additional, non-obvious assumptions”).
I still feel a bit like that now, so I want to flag that out of all the citations from the OP, the NU FAQ is really the only one where it’s straightforward to say that one of the two views within the text – NHU but not NIPU – implies that it would (on some level, before other caveats) be good to kill people against their will (as you claimed in your original comment).
From further discussion, I then gathered that you probably meant that specific arguments from the OP could straightforwardly imply that it’s good to kill people. I see the connection there. Still, two points I tried to make that speak against this interpretation:
(1) People who buy into these arguments mostly don’t think their views imply killing people.
(2) To judge what an argument “in isolation” implies, we need some framework for (population) ethics. The framework that totalists in EA rely on is question begging and often not shared by proponents of the asymmetry.
I think preference-based views fit neatly into the asymmetry.
Here I’m moving on from the original topic, but if you’re interested in following this tangent—I’m not quite getting how preference-based views (specifically, person-affecting preference utilitarianism) maintain the asymmetry while avoiding (a slightly/somewhat weaker version of) “killing happy people is good.”
Under “pure” person-affecting preference utilitarianism (ignoring broader pluralistic views of which this view is just one component, and also ignoring instrumental justifications), clearly one reason why it’s bad to kill people is that this would frustrate some of their preferences. Under this view, is another (pro tanto) reason why it’s bad to kill (not-entirely-satisfied) people that their satisfaction/fulfillment is worth preserving (i.e. is good in a way that outweighs associated frustration)?
My intuition is that one answer to the above question breaks the asymmetry, while the other revives some very counterintuitive implications.
If we answer “Yes,” then, through that answer, we’ve accepted a concept of “actively good things” into our ethics, rejecting the view that ethics is just about fixing states of affairs that are actively problematic. Now we’re back in (or much closer to?) a framework of “maximize goods minus bads” / “there are intrinsically good things,” which seems to (severely) undermines the asymmetry.
If we answer “No,” on the grounds that fulfillment can’t outweigh frustration, this would seem to imply that one should kill people, whenever their being killed would frustrate them less than their continued living. Problematically, that seems like it would probably apply to many people, including many pretty happy people.
After all, suppose someone is fairly happy (though not entirely, constantly fulfilled), is quite myopic, and only has a moderate intrinsic preference against being killed. Then, the preference utilitarianism we’re considering seems to endorse killing them (since killing them would “only” frustrate their preferences for a short while, while continued living would leave them with decades of frustration, amid their general happiness).
There seem to be additional bizarre implications, like “if someone suddenly gets an unrealizable preference, even if they mistakenly think it’s being satisfied and are happy about that, this gives one stronger reasons to kill them.” (Since killing them means the preference won’t go unsatisfied as long.)
(I’m assuming that frustration matters (roughly) in proportion to its duration, since e.g. long-lasting suffering seems especially bad.)
(Of course, hedonic utilitarianism also endorses some non-instrumental killing, but only under what seem to be much more restrictive conditions—never killing happy people.)
Under this view, is another (pro tanto) reason why it’s bad to kill (not-entirely-satisfied) people that their satisfaction/fulfillment is worth preserving (i.e. is good in a way that outweighs associated frustration)?
I would answer “No.”
If we answer “No,” on the grounds that fulfillment can’t outweigh frustration, this would seem to imply that one should kill people, whenever their being killed would frustrate them less than their continued living. Problematically, that seems like it would probably apply to many people, including many pretty happy people.
The preference against being killed is as strong as the happy person wants it to be. If they have a strong preference against being killed then the preference frustration from being killed would be lot worse than the preference frustration from an unhappy decade or two – it depends how the person herself would want to make these choices.
(The post I linked to primarily focuses on cases where people have well-specified preferences/goals. Many people will have under-defined preferences and preference utilitarians would also want to have a way to deal with these cases. One way to deal with under-defined preferences could be “fill in the gaps with what’s good on our experience-focused account of what matters.”)
I think this misunderstands the point I was making. I meant to highlight how, if you’re adopting a pluralistic view, then to defend a strong population asymmetry (the view emphasized in the post’s title), you need reasons why none of the components of your pluralistic view value making happy people.* This gets harder the more pluralistic you are, especially if you can’t easily generalize hedonic arguments to other values. As you suggest, you can get the needed reasons by introducing additional assumptions/frameworks, like rejecting the principle that it’s better for there to be more good things. But I wouldn’t call that an “easy fit”; that’s substantial additional argument, sometimes involving arguing against views that many readers of this forum find axiomatically appealing (like that it’s better for there to be more good things).
(* Technically you don’t need reasons why none of the views consider the making of happy people valuable, just reasons why overall they don’t. Still, I’d guess those two claims are roughly equivalent, since I’m not aware of any prominent views which hold the creation of purely happy people to be actively bad.)
Besides that, I think at this point we’re largely in agreement on the main points we’ve been discussing?
I’ve mainly meant to argue that some of the ethical frameworks that the original post draws on and emphasizes, in arguing for a population asymmetry, have implications that many find very counterintuitive. You seem to agree.
If I’ve understood, you’ve mainly been arguing that there are many other views (including some that the original post draws on) which support a population asymmetry while avoiding certain counterintuitive implications. I agree.
Your most recent comment seems to frame several arguments for this point as arguments against the first bullet point above, but I don’t think they’re actually arguments against the above, since the views you’re defending aren’t the ones my most-discussed criticism applies to (though that does limit the applicability of the criticism).
Thanks for elaborating! I agree I misunderstood your point here.
(I think preference-based views fit neatly into the asymmetry. For instance, Peter Singer initially weakly defended an asymmetric view in Practical Ethics, as arguably the most popular exponent of preference utilitarianism at the time. He only changed his view on population ethics once he became a hedonist. I don’t think I’m even aware of a text that explicitly defends preference-based totalism. By contrast, there are several texts defending asymmetric preference-based views: Benatar, Fehige, Frick, younger version of Singer.)
Or that “(intrinsically) good things” don’t have to be a fixed component in our “ontology” (in how we conceptualize the philosophical option space). Or, relatedly, that the formula “maximize goods minus bads” isn’t the only way to approach (population) ethics. Not because it’s conceptually obvious that specific states of the world aren’t worthy of taking serious effort (and even risks, if necessary) to bring about. Instead, because it’s questionable to assume that “good states” are intrinsically good, that we should bring them about regardless of circumstances, independently of people’s interests/goals.
I agree that we’re mainly in agreement. To summarize the thread, I think we’ve kept discussing because we both felt like the other party was presenting a slightly unfair summary of how many views a specific criticism applies or doesn’t apply to (or applies “easily” vs. “applies only with some additional, non-obvious assumptions”).
I still feel a bit like that now, so I want to flag that out of all the citations from the OP, the NU FAQ is really the only one where it’s straightforward to say that one of the two views within the text – NHU but not NIPU – implies that it would (on some level, before other caveats) be good to kill people against their will (as you claimed in your original comment).
From further discussion, I then gathered that you probably meant that specific arguments from the OP could straightforwardly imply that it’s good to kill people. I see the connection there. Still, two points I tried to make that speak against this interpretation:
(1) People who buy into these arguments mostly don’t think their views imply killing people. (2) To judge what an argument “in isolation” implies, we need some framework for (population) ethics. The framework that totalists in EA rely on is question begging and often not shared by proponents of the asymmetry.
Fair points!
Here I’m moving on from the original topic, but if you’re interested in following this tangent—I’m not quite getting how preference-based views (specifically, person-affecting preference utilitarianism) maintain the asymmetry while avoiding (a slightly/somewhat weaker version of) “killing happy people is good.”
Under “pure” person-affecting preference utilitarianism (ignoring broader pluralistic views of which this view is just one component, and also ignoring instrumental justifications), clearly one reason why it’s bad to kill people is that this would frustrate some of their preferences. Under this view, is another (pro tanto) reason why it’s bad to kill (not-entirely-satisfied) people that their satisfaction/fulfillment is worth preserving (i.e. is good in a way that outweighs associated frustration)?
My intuition is that one answer to the above question breaks the asymmetry, while the other revives some very counterintuitive implications.
If we answer “Yes,” then, through that answer, we’ve accepted a concept of “actively good things” into our ethics, rejecting the view that ethics is just about fixing states of affairs that are actively problematic. Now we’re back in (or much closer to?) a framework of “maximize goods minus bads” / “there are intrinsically good things,” which seems to (severely) undermines the asymmetry.
If we answer “No,” on the grounds that fulfillment can’t outweigh frustration, this would seem to imply that one should kill people, whenever their being killed would frustrate them less than their continued living. Problematically, that seems like it would probably apply to many people, including many pretty happy people.
After all, suppose someone is fairly happy (though not entirely, constantly fulfilled), is quite myopic, and only has a moderate intrinsic preference against being killed. Then, the preference utilitarianism we’re considering seems to endorse killing them (since killing them would “only” frustrate their preferences for a short while, while continued living would leave them with decades of frustration, amid their general happiness).
There seem to be additional bizarre implications, like “if someone suddenly gets an unrealizable preference, even if they mistakenly think it’s being satisfied and are happy about that, this gives one stronger reasons to kill them.” (Since killing them means the preference won’t go unsatisfied as long.)
(I’m assuming that frustration matters (roughly) in proportion to its duration, since e.g. long-lasting suffering seems especially bad.)
(Of course, hedonic utilitarianism also endorses some non-instrumental killing, but only under what seem to be much more restrictive conditions—never killing happy people.)
I would answer “No.”
The preference against being killed is as strong as the happy person wants it to be. If they have a strong preference against being killed then the preference frustration from being killed would be lot worse than the preference frustration from an unhappy decade or two – it depends how the person herself would want to make these choices.
I haven’t worked this out as a formal theory but here are some thoughts on how I’d think about “preferences.”
(The post I linked to primarily focuses on cases where people have well-specified preferences/goals. Many people will have under-defined preferences and preference utilitarians would also want to have a way to deal with these cases. One way to deal with under-defined preferences could be “fill in the gaps with what’s good on our experience-focused account of what matters.”)