SaidAchmiz comments on 2014 Survey of Effective Altruists - Less Wrong

27 Post author: tog 05 May 2014 02:32AM

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Comment author: SaidAchmiz 05 May 2014 06:15:08PM 1 point [-]

I was originally only objecting to the argument that aggregating utility between individuals would be impossible or incoherent

Er, hang on. If this is your objection, I'm not sure that you've actually said what's wrong with said argument. Or do you mean that you were objecting to the applicability of said argument to hedonistic utilitarianism, which is how I read your comments?

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 06 May 2014 05:29:27AM 1 point [-]

To add to my "yes": I agree with the claim that aggregating utility between individuals seems to be possibly incoherent in the context of preference utilitarianism. Indeed, if we define utility in terms of preferences, I'm even somewhat skeptical of the feasibility of optimizing the utility of a single individual over their lifetime: see this comment.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 05 May 2014 06:23:24PM 0 points [-]

Or do you mean that you were objecting to the applicability of said argument to hedonistic utilitarianism

Yes.