Richard_Hollerith comments on The "Intuitions" Behind "Utilitarianism" - Less Wrong

29 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 28 January 2008 04:29PM

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Comment author: Richard_Hollerith 29 January 2008 09:46:00PM 3 points [-]

Doug, I do not agree because my utility function depends on the identity of the people involved, not simply on N. Specifically, it might be possible for an agent to become confident that Bob is much more useful to whatever is the real meaning of life than Charlie is, in which case a harm to Bob has greater disutility in my system than a harm to Charlie. In other words, I do not consider egalitarianism to be a moral principle that applies to every situation without exception. So, for me U is not a function of (N,I,T)