"Following your heart and not your head - refusing to multiply - has also wrought plenty of havoc on the world, historically speaking. It's a questionable assertion (to say the least) that condoning irrationality has less damaging side effects than condoning torture."

I'm not really convinced that multiplication of the dust-speck effect is relevant. Subjective experience is restricted to individuals, not collectives. To me, this specific exercise reduces to a simpler question: Would it be better (more ethical) to torture individual A for 50 years, or inflict a dust speck on individual B?

If the goal is to be a utilitarian ethicist with the well-being of humanity as your highest priority; then something *may* be wrong with your model when the vast majority of humans would choose the option that you wouldn't. (As I suspect they would). Utility isn't all that matters to most people. Is utilitarianism the only "real" ethics?

My criticisms can sometimes come across the wrong way. (And I know that you actually *do* care about humanity, Eli.) I don't mean to judge here, just strongly disagree. Not that I retract what I wrote; I don't.