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Lukas_Gloor comments on A (small) critique of total utilitarianism - Less Wrong
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But suffering is bad no matter your basic preference architecture. It takes the arbitrariness of out ethics when it's applicable to all that. Suffering is bad (for the first person point of view experiencing it) in all hypothetical universes. Well, by definition. Culture isn't. Biological complexity isn't. Biodiversity isn't.
Even if it's not all that matters, it's a good place to start. And a good way to see whether something else really matters too is to look whether you'd be willing to trade a huge amount of suffering for whatever else you consider to matter, all else being equal (as I did in the example about the planet full of artifacts).
Yes, basically everyone agrees that suffering is bad, and reducing suffering is valuable. Agreed.
And as you say, for most people there are things that they'd accept an increase in suffering for, which suggests that there are also other valuable things in the world.
The idea of using suffering-reduction as a commensurable common currency for all other values is an intriguing one, though.