Open thread, Sept. 1-7, 2014

polymathwannabe

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one.

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

It is if we define a utility function with a strict failure mode for TotalSuffering > 0.

Yeah, but... we don't.

(Below I'm going to address that case specifically. However, more generally, defining utility functions which assign zero utility to a broad class of possible worlds is a problem, because then you're indifferent between all of them. Does running around stabbing children seem like a morally neutral act to you, in light of the fact that doing it or not doing it will not have an effect on total utility (because total suffering will remain positive)? If no, that's not the utility function you want to talk about.)

Anyway, as far as I can tell, you've either discovered or reinvented negative utilitarianism. Pretty much no one around here accepts negative utilitarianism, mostly on the grounds of it disagreeing very strongly with moral intuition. (For example, most people would not regard it as a moral act to instantly obliterate Earth and everyone on it.) For me, at least, my objection is that I prefer to live with some suffering than not to live at all - and this would be true even if I was perfectly selfish and didn't care what effects my death would have on anyone else. So before we can talk usefully about this, I have to ask: leaving aside concerns about the effects of your death on others, would you prefer to die than to live with any amount of suffering?

Thanks for the reply. Yes I found out the term is "negative utilitarianism". I suppose I can search and find rebuttals of that concept. I didn't mean that the function was "if suffering > 0 then 0", just that suffering should be a massively dominating term, so that no possible worlds with real suffering outrank worlds with less suffering.

As to your question about my personal preference on life, it really depends on the level of suffering. At the moment, no, things are alright. But it has not always been that way, and it's not hard t... (read more)