APMason comments on A (small) critique of total utilitarianism - Less Wrong

36 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 26 June 2012 12:36PM

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Comment author: Lukas_Gloor 27 June 2012 11:57:18AM *  -1 points [-]

I should qualify my statement. I was talking only about the common varieties of utilitarianism and I may well have omitted consistent variants that are unpopular or weird (e.g. something like negative average preference-utilitarianism). Basically my point was that "hybrid-views" like prior-existence (or "critical level" negative utiltiarianism) run into contradictions. Most forms of average utilitarianism aren't contradictory, but they imply an obvious absurdity: A world with one being in maximum suffering would be [edit:] worse than a world with a billion beings in suffering that's just slightly less awful.

Comment author: APMason 27 June 2012 01:07:58PM 1 point [-]

That last sentence didn't make sense to me when I first looked at this. Think you must mean "worse", not "better".

Comment author: Lukas_Gloor 27 June 2012 02:11:47PM -1 points [-]

Indeed, thanks.