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Pablo_Stafforini comments on CEV: a utilitarian critique - Less Wrong
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This is a question about utilitarianism, not AI, but can anyone explain (or provide a link to an explanation) of why reducing the total suffering in the world is considered so important? I thought that we pretty much agreed that morality is based on moral intuitions and it seems pretty counterintuitive to value the states of mind of people too numerous to sympathize with as highly as people here do.
It seems to me that reducing suffering in a numbers game is the kind of thing you would say is your goal because it makes you sound like a good person, rather than something your conscience actually motivates you to do, but people here are usually pretty averse to conscious signaling, so I'm not sure that works as an explanation. I'm certain this has been covered elsewhere, but I haven't seen it.
When I become directly acquainted with an episode of intense suffering, I come to see that this is a state of affairs that ought not to exist. My empathy may be limited, but I don't need to empathize with others to recognize that, when they suffer, their suffering ought to be relieved too.
I don't pretend to speak on behalf of all other hedonistic utilitarians, however. Brian himself would probably disagree with my answer. He would instead reply that he "just cares" about other people's suffering, and that's that.
Knowing that you've abandoned moral realism, how would you respond to someone making an analogous argument about preferences or duties? For instance, "When a preference of mine is frustrated, I come to see this as a state of affairs that ought not to exist," or "When someone violates a duty, I come to see this as a state of affairs that ought not to exist." Granted, the acquaintance may not be as direct as in the case of intense suffering. But is that enough to single out pleasure and suffering?
Preventing suffering is what I care about, and I'm going to try to convince other people to care about it. One way to do that is to invent plausible thought experiments / intuition pumps for why it matters so much. If I do, that might help with evangelism, but it's not the (original) reason why I care about it. I care about it because of experience with suffering in my own life, feeling strong empathy when seeing it in others, and feeling that preventing suffering is overridingly important due to various other factors in my development.
Thanks, Brian. I know this is your position, I'm wondering if it's benthamite's as well.