Suffering-Focused Ethics Archives - Center for Reducing Suffering Our mission is to reduce severe suffering, taking all sentient beings into account Tue, 17 Sep 2024 06:16:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cfrs-logo-square-150x150.png Suffering-Focused Ethics Archives - Center for Reducing Suffering 32 32 194688957 Tobias Baumann Discusses S-Risks & Avoiding the Worst on FLI Podcast https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/tobias-baumann-discusses-s-risks-avoiding-the-worst-on-fli-podcast/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tobias-baumann-discusses-s-risks-avoiding-the-worst-on-fli-podcast Wed, 15 Mar 2023 18:12:42 +0000 https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/?p=2613 Center for Reducing Suffering Researcher and Co-Founder Tobias Baumann has appeared on the Future of Life Institute podcast to discuss S-Risks (risks of astronomical future suffering), suffering-focused ethics, and his book Avoiding the Worst: How to Prevent a Moral Catastrophe. In the first part of a wide-ranging conversation with the podcast’s host Gus Docker, Tobias […]

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]]> 2613 Reply to the “evolutionary asymmetry objection” against suffering-focused ethics https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/reply-to-the-evolutionary-asymmetry-objection/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=reply-to-the-evolutionary-asymmetry-objection Fri, 23 Sep 2022 15:45:27 +0000 https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/?p=2110 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. […]

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]]> 2110 Comments on Mogensen’s “The weight of suffering” https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/comments-on-the-weight-of-suffering/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=comments-on-the-weight-of-suffering Sat, 23 Jul 2022 09:17:03 +0000 https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/?p=1996 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 […]

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]]> 1996 Reply to Chappell’s “Rethinking the Asymmetry” https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/reply-to-chappells-rethinking-the-asymmetry/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=reply-to-chappells-rethinking-the-asymmetry Mon, 13 Jun 2022 17:09:22 +0000 https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/?p=1943 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 […]

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]]> 1943 Reply to Gustafsson’s “Against Negative Utilitarianism” https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/reply-to-gustafsson/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=reply-to-gustafsson Tue, 07 Jun 2022 17:57:22 +0000 https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/?p=1881 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 […]

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]]> 1881 Point-by-point critique of Ord’s “Why I’m Not a Negative Utilitarian” https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/point-by-point-critique-of-why-im-not-a-negative-utilitarian/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=point-by-point-critique-of-why-im-not-a-negative-utilitarian Mon, 30 May 2022 19:46:11 +0000 https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/?p=1829 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 […]

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]]> 1829 Comparing repugnant conclusions: Response to the “near-perfect paradise vs. small hell” objection https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/comparing-repugnant-conclusions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=comparing-repugnant-conclusions Tue, 30 Nov 2021 22:36:47 +0000 https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/?p=1479 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 […]

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]]> 1479 Note on Pummer’s “Worseness of nonexistence” https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/note-on-pummers-worseness-of-nonexistence/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=note-on-pummers-worseness-of-nonexistence Fri, 25 Sep 2020 10:38:08 +0000 https://centerforreducingsuffering.org/?p=832 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 […]

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