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lukeprog comments on Against Utilitarianism: Sobel's attack on judging lives' goodness - Less Wrong
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Comments (16)
Good overview! "Against utilitarianism" is a bit misleading, though.
(Note to others: this research was paid for by The Singularity Institute due to its relevance to CEV.)
IMO, it's accurate. Sobel says (pg3) of the "standard consequentialist position" that it takes two steps: you need to judge a life, and then aggregate all the judgments in a morally acceptable manner. He says that he's puzzled that the second part receives "the lion's share" (pg4) of criticism of the standard consequentialist position, when he regards the first step equally or more dubious ("But no comparable group of debates which challenge the adequacy of the first step in the SCP exists...I believe that the first step...is itself quite problematic").
If you can't even judge lives, then that takes out the average utilitarianisms (what are you averaging?), negative utilitarianisms, welfarist utilitarianisms... basically everything but the hedonism theories, and even that is questionable (can one be unable to judge one's own life and pleasures? If so, then hedonism too fails).
Alice and Bob live for a day. Alice spends the day reading a good book, Bob spends the day being beaten up by angry baboons. I judge Alice's life to be better than Bob's. If Omega asks me, "hey Steven, should I make an Alice or a Bob", I will choose Alice. It seems to me that I just did judge lives, so Sobel can't have proved that I can't judge lives. If I can't judge lives, what does it mean I should tell Omega? Surely it doesn't mean I should tell Omega to make Bob. Am I being unfairly simplistic here? I don't see how.
I examine 2 Turing machines, one of which reads 'halt' and the other reads 'for all integers, check whether Goldbach's conjecture holds and halt when it doesn't'. If Omega asks me which one halts, I will choose the first one. It seems to me that I did just solve the Halting theorem, so Turing can't have proven it. If I can't solve the Halting problem, what does it mean I should tell Omega? That #2 halts? Am I being unfairly simplistic here? I don't see how.
If it's claimed that "you can't judge lives", it doesn't seem like the most natural reading is "there exists at least one theoretically possible comparison of lives that you can't judge, though you can judge some such comparisons and you may be able to judge all comparisons that actually turn up".
I think I object to your comment for more reasons than that but would need to think about how exactly to phrase them.
I am merely repeating what I pointed out in my essay.
I feel like you're reading my comments uncharitably, and would like to bow out of the discussion.
I see. I don't think of utilitarianism this way, but it might be common enough to call it the "standard consequentialist position." I'm not sure.
I agree. From my experience, utilitarianism typically sets the unit of measurement for utility at pleasure, preference, or happiness and not anything to do with life per se. I don't see how any of those measures require judging a life.