Popular views of population ethics imply a priority on preventing worst-case outcomes

11.12.2022Magnus Vinding

A wide variety of views can support a focus on preventing worst-case outcomes. More than that, it appears that the views of population ethics held by the general population also, on average, imply a priority on preventing futures with large numbers of miserable beings. My aim in this post is to elaborate on this point and to briefly explore its relevance.

Asymmetric scope sensitivity

A recent study set out to investigate people’s intuitions on population ethics, exploring how people judge the value of different populations of happy and unhappy individuals (Caviola et al., 2022a). The study included a number of sub-studies, which generally found that people endorse a weak asymmetry in population ethics. That is, people tend to believe that miserable lives and suffering weigh somewhat stronger than do happy lives and happiness, even when the misery and happiness in question are claimed to be equally intense (Caviola et al., 2022a, p. 8). [...]

Reply to the “evolutionary asymmetry objection” against suffering-focused ethics

23.09.2022Magnus Vinding

Posted in Suffering-Focused Ethics.

An objection that is sometimes raised against suffering-focused ethics is that our intuitions about the relative value of suffering and happiness are skewed toward the negative for evolutionary reasons, and hence we cannot trust our intuition that says that the reduction of suffering is more valuable and more morally important than the creation of happiness. My aim in this post is to reply to this objection.

Stating the “evolutionary asymmetry objection” in brief

The argument I will respond to goes roughly as follows: For biologically evolved creatures such as humans, the reproductive costs of losses (e.g. deadly injury) are typically greater than the reproductive gains of successes (e.g. sex). This asymmetry is plausibly reflected in our experiences such that we tend to feel and value suffering (as an intrinsic negative) more strongly than we feel and value pleasure (as an intrinsic positive). Yet we should not expect such an asymmetry to be found at the level of possible states of suffering and pleasure. Instead, we should expect the best possible pleasure and the worst possible suffering to be equally intense, and we should therefore expect there to be an axiological and moral symmetry between them. Or at least we should expect our better informed selves to endorse such an axiological and moral symmetry (e.g. if we were fully acquainted with the utmost extremes of pleasure and suffering). [...]

Comments on Mogensen’s “The weight of suffering”

23.07.2022Magnus Vinding

Posted in Suffering-Focused Ethics, Value lexicality.

Andreas Mogensen’s paper “The weight of suffering” presents an interesting argument in favor of the axiological position that “there exists some depth of suffering that cannot be compensated for by any measure of well-being” — a position he calls “LTNU” (Mogensen, 2022, abstract). Mogensen then proceeds to explore how one might respond to that argument and thereby reject LTNU.

My aim in this post is to raise some critical points in response to this paper. As a preliminary note, I should say that I commend Mogensen for taking up this crucial issue regarding the weight of suffering, and for exploring it in an open-ended manner. [...]

Reply to Chappell’s “Rethinking the Asymmetry”

13.06.2022Magnus Vinding

Posted in Suffering-Focused Ethics, The Asymmetry.

My aim in this post is to respond to the arguments presented in Richard Yetter Chappell’s “Rethinking the Asymmetry”. Chappell argues against the Asymmetry in population ethics, which roughly holds that the addition of bad lives makes the world worse, whereas the addition of good lives does not make the world better (other things being equal).

“Awesome Lives”

To refute the Asymmetry, Chappell relies on the following claim as a core premise: [...]

Reply to Gustafsson’s “Against Negative Utilitarianism”

07.06.2022Magnus Vinding

Posted in Negative Utilitarianism, Suffering-Focused Ethics.

This post is a reply to Johan Gustafsson’s draft paper “Against Negative Utilitarianism”. Gustafsson acknowledges that for many common objections raised against negative utilitarianism (NU), there are corresponding objections that can be raised against classical utilitarianism (CU) (see e.g. Knutsson, 2021a). Hence, as he writes, “these objections have little force when we assess the relative merits of Classical and Negative Utilitarianism” (Gustafsson, 2022, p. 1).

The aim of Gustafsson’s paper is to present novel counterexamples against NU that have no analogues in the case of CU. My aim in this post is to show that CU does face such analogous counterexamples, and that these counterexamples are worse than those facing NU. I also argue that views that give overriding importance to the reduction of extreme suffering seem uniquely plausible in light of the counterexamples reviewed here. [...]

Point-by-point critique of Ord’s “Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian”

30.05.2022Magnus Vinding

Posted in Negative Utilitarianism, Suffering-Focused Ethics.

The following is a reply to Toby Ord’s “Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian” (2013). Ord’s essay seems to have been quite influential, and is often cited as an essay that makes strong points against negative utilitarianism.

While a number of critical replies have already been written, I still think there are many problematic things in Ord’s essay that have not yet been properly criticized. For example, the essay does not only make misleading and problematic claims about negative utilitarianism, but also about the moral and political views of Karl Popper. Thus, I feel a thorough point-by-point reply is called for. Quotes from Ord’s essay are written in a blue font. [...]

Comparing repugnant conclusions: Response to the “near-perfect paradise vs. small hell” objection

30.11.2021Magnus Vinding

Posted in Suffering-Focused Ethics. Tagged Axiology, negative utilitarianism, value theory.

Minimalist views of value hold that “the less of a given bad, the better”, and further hold that the only form of positive value that exists is the reduction of bads (e.g. unmet needs). Negative utilitarianism is an example of a minimalist view, which specifically says “the less suffering, the better”.

An objection sometimes raised against negative utilitarianism and similar minimalist views is that they would (supposedly) imply the wrong choice between the following populations: [...]

S-risk impact distribution is double-tailed

19.02.2021Magnus Vinding & Tobias Baumann

Posted in Cause prioritisation, Cooperation, s-risks. Tagged space colonization.

Summary

Discussions about s-risks often rest on a single-tailed picture, focused on how much suffering human civilization could risk causing. But when we consider the bigger picture, including s-risks from alien civilizations, we see that human civilization’s expected impact on s-risks is in fact double-tailed. This likely has significant implications. For instance, it might mean that we should try to pursue interventions that are robust across both tails, and it tentatively suggests that, for a wide range of impartial value systems, it is safest to focus mostly on improving the quality of our future.

Introduction

What is the distribution of future expected suffering caused by human civilization? [...]

On fat-tailed distributions and s-risks

25.11.2020Magnus Vinding

Posted in Cause prioritisation, s-risks.

Summary

It is sometimes suggested that since the severity of many kinds of moral catastrophes (e.g. wars and natural disasters) fall along a power-law distribution, efforts to reduce suffering should focus on “a few rare scenarios where things go very wrong”. While this argument appears quite plausible on its face, it is in fact a lot less obvious than it seems at first sight. Specifically, a fat-tailed distribution need not imply that a single or even a few sources of suffering account for most future suffering in expectation, let alone that we should mostly prioritize a single or a few sources of suffering.

Introduction

In his post Is most expected suffering due to worst-case outcomes?, Tobias Baumann explores how skewed the distribution of future sources of suffering might be. His conclusion, in short, is that worst-case outcomes may well dominate, but that it is unclear to what degree we should expect future suffering to be concentrated in worst-case outcomes. [...]

Note on Pummer’s “Worseness of nonexistence”

25.09.2020Magnus Vinding

Posted in Suffering-Focused Ethics. Tagged Axiology, moral asymmetry, value theory.

Summary

In “The Worseness of Nonexistence”, Theron Pummer makes an interesting argument that suggests that a failure to create new people can be as bad as cutting an existing person’s life short. I here briefly sketch out a reply to Pummer that can be made, in some version, from a variety of different views.

Outline of Pummer’s argument

The primary aim of Pummer’s essay is to defend comparativism, the view that things can be better or worse for merely possible persons. I agree with Pummer that we should accept some version of comparativism — for example, it seems obvious to me that a state of affairs in which a single person is brought into existence only to be tortured for their entire life is worse than a state of affairs in which no individual is brought into existence (non-comparativists cannot say this, as they hold that the two states of affairs are not comparable). [...]