= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
TheOtherDave comments on A (small) critique of total utilitarianism - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (237)
Can anyone explain what goes wrong if you say something like, "The marginal utility of my terminal values increases asymtotically, and u(Torture) approaches a much higher asymptote than u(Dust speck)" (or indeed whether it goes wrong at all)?
Depends on what I'm trying to do.
If I make that assumption, then it follows that given enough Torture to approach its limit, I choose any number of Dust Specks rather than that amount of Torture.
If my goal is to come up with an algorithm that leads to that choice, then I've succeeded.
(I think talking about Torture and Dust Specks as terminal values is silly, but it isn't necessary for what I think you're trying to get at.)