Hide table of contents

This paper was originally published as a working paper in May 2022 and is forthcoming in The Journal of Philosophy.

Abstract

How should we weigh suffering against happiness? This paper highlights the existence of an argument from intuitively plausible axiological principles to the striking conclusion that in comparing different populations, there exists some depth of suffering that cannot be compensated for by any measure of well-being. In addition to a number of structural principles, the argument relies on two key premises. The first is the contrary of the so-called Reverse Repugnant Conclusion. The second is a principle according to which the addition of any population of lives with positive welfare levels makes the outcome worse if accompanied by sufficiently many lives that are not worth living. I consider whether we should accept the conclusion of the argument and what we may end up committed to if we do not, illustrating the implications of the conclusions for the question of whether suffering in aggregate outweighs happiness among human and non-human animals, now and in future.

Introduction 

There is both great happiness and great suffering in this world. Which has the upper hand? Does the good experienced by human and non-human animals in aggregate counterbalance all the harms they suffer, so that the world is morally good on balance? Or is the moral weight of suffering greater? 

To answer this question, we need to know how to weigh happiness against suffering from the moral point of view. In this paper, I present an argument from intuitively plausible axiological principles to the conclusion that in comparing different populations, there exists some depth of lifetime suffering that cannot be counterbalanced by any amount of well-being experienced by others. Following Ord (2013), I call this view lexical threshold negative utilitarianism (LTNU). I don’t claim that we should accept LTNU. My aim is to explore different ways of responding to the argument. As we’ll see, the positions at which we may arrive in rejecting its premises can be nearly as interesting and as striking as the conclusion.

In section 2, I define LTNU more rigorously and set out the argument. It relies on a number of structural principles governing the betterness relation on populations, together with two key premises. The first is the contrary of what Carlson (1998) and Mulgan (2002) call the Reverse Repugnant Conclusion (RRC). The second says, roughly, that the addition of lives with positive welfare levels makes the outcome worse if accompanied by sufficiently many lives that are not worth living. In section 3, I consider whether we should be willing to accept the argument’s conclusion, especially given that LTNU has been thought to entail the desirability of human extinction or the extinction of all sentient life (Crisp 2021). In section 4, I discuss our options forrejecting the argument’s structural principles. I argue that our options for avoiding the disturbing implications of LTNU discussed in section 3 are limited if we are restricted to rejecting one or more of these principles. In section 5, I consider the possibility of rejecting the first of the key non-structural premises. I focus on the possibility of rejecting the contrary of RRC without accepting RRC. This, I claim, is also not promising, considered as a way of avoiding the disturbing implications of LTNU discussed in section 3. I will have nothing original to say about RRC per se, except that the overarching argument of this paper may be taken as a reason to accept it. In section 6, I consider the possibility of rejecting the last remaining premise. Specifically, I consider the possibility that there are some lives so good that their addition to the population can justify the addition of any number of lives that are only barely not worth living, and the independent interest of this hypothesis to the project of reckoning the overall goodness of the world.

Read the rest of the paper

Comments1


Sorted by Click to highlight new comments since:

Related:

  • Reply by Vinding (2022)

Perhaps see also:

Curated and popular this week
 ·  · 25m read
 · 
Epistemic status: This post — the result of a loosely timeboxed ~2-day sprint[1] — is more like “research notes with rough takes” than “report with solid answers.” You should interpret the things we say as best guesses, and not give them much more weight than that. Summary There’s been some discussion of what “transformative AI may arrive soon” might mean for animal advocates. After a very shallow review, we’ve tentatively concluded that radical changes to the animal welfare (AW) field are not yet warranted. In particular: * Some ideas in this space seem fairly promising, but in the “maybe a researcher should look into this” stage, rather than “shovel-ready” * We’re skeptical of the case for most speculative “TAI<>AW” projects * We think the most common version of this argument underrates how radically weird post-“transformative”-AI worlds would be, and how much this harms our ability to predict the longer-run effects of interventions available to us today. Without specific reasons to believe that an intervention is especially robust,[2] we think it’s best to discount its expected value to ~zero. Here’s a brief overview of our (tentative!) actionable takes on this question[3]: ✅ Some things we recommend❌ Some things we don’t recommend * Dedicating some amount of (ongoing) attention to the possibility of “AW lock ins”[4]  * Pursuing other exploratory research on what transformative AI might mean for animals & how to help (we’re unconvinced by most existing proposals, but many of these ideas have received <1 month of research effort from everyone in the space combined — it would be unsurprising if even just a few months of effort turned up better ideas) * Investing in highly “flexible” capacity for advancing animal interests in AI-transformed worlds * Trying to use AI for near-term animal welfare work, and fundraising from donors who have invested in AI * Heavily discounting “normal” interventions that take 10+ years to help animals * “Rowing” on na
 ·  · 3m read
 · 
About the program Hi! We’re Chana and Aric, from the new 80,000 Hours video program. For over a decade, 80,000 Hours has been talking about the world’s most pressing problems in newsletters, articles and many extremely lengthy podcasts. But today’s world calls for video, so we’ve started a video program[1], and we’re so excited to tell you about it! 80,000 Hours is launching AI in Context, a new YouTube channel hosted by Aric Floyd. Together with associated Instagram and TikTok accounts, the channel will aim to inform, entertain, and energize with a mix of long and shortform videos about the risks of transformative AI, and what people can do about them. [Chana has also been experimenting with making shortform videos, which you can check out here; we’re still deciding on what form her content creation will take] We hope to bring our own personalities and perspectives on these issues, alongside humor, earnestness, and nuance. We want to help people make sense of the world we're in and think about what role they might play in the upcoming years of potentially rapid change. Our first long-form video For our first long-form video, we decided to explore AI Futures Project’s AI 2027 scenario (which has been widely discussed on the Forum). It combines quantitative forecasting and storytelling to depict a possible future that might include human extinction, or in a better outcome, “merely” an unprecedented concentration of power. Why? We wanted to start our new channel with a compelling story that viewers can sink their teeth into, and that a wide audience would have reason to watch, even if they don’t yet know who we are or trust our viewpoints yet. (We think a video about “Why AI might pose an existential risk”, for example, might depend more on pre-existing trust to succeed.) We also saw this as an opportunity to tell the world about the ideas and people that have for years been anticipating the progress and dangers of AI (that’s many of you!), and invite the br
 ·  · 12m read
 · 
I donated my left kidney to a stranger on April 9, 2024, inspired by my dear friend @Quinn Dougherty (who was inspired by @Scott Alexander, who was inspired by @Dylan Matthews). By the time I woke up after surgery, it was on its way to San Francisco. When my recipient woke up later that same day, they felt better than when they went under. I'm going to talk about one complication and one consequence of my donation, but I want to be clear from the get: I would do it again in a heartbeat. Correction: Quinn actually donated in April 2023, before Scott’s donation. He wasn’t aware that Scott was planning to donate at the time. The original seed came from Dylan's Vox article, then conversations in the EA Corner Discord, and it's Josh Morrison who gets credit for ultimately helping him decide to donate. Thanks Quinn! I met Quinn at an EA picnic in Brooklyn and he was wearing a shirt that I remembered as saying "I donated my kidney to a stranger and I didn't even get this t-shirt." It actually said "and all I got was this t-shirt," which isn't as funny. I went home and immediately submitted a form on the National Kidney Registry website. The worst that could happen is I'd get some blood tests and find out I have elevated risk of kidney disease, for free.[1] I got through the blood tests and started actually thinking about whether to do this. I read a lot of arguments, against as well as for. The biggest risk factor for me seemed like the heightened risk of pre-eclampsia[2], but since I live in a developed country, this is not a huge deal. I am planning to have children. We'll just keep an eye on my blood pressure and medicate if necessary. The arguments against kidney donation seemed to center around this idea of preserving the sanctity or integrity of the human body: If you're going to pierce the sacred periderm of the skin, you should only do it to fix something in you. (That's a pretty good heuristic most of the time, but we make exceptions to give blood and get pier