I feel like you're missing something here, or maybe I am.
It's true that the dust in the eye of multiple people doesn't add up to more suffering. But society is a series of such dilemmas, and the outcomes of those separate dilemma *do* add up within individuals.
For example, let's say you had a policy that took away 1 billion people's next meal in order to save one particular human from a painful death. Of course we should all give up lunch to save the life right? But if you have to repeat that same decision 100 times today, you actually can't save the 100 lives, because then 1 billion people will starve to death.
Trying to quantify the total positive or negative utility across the entire population is a way to try to make a series of decisions that lead to the best overall outcome.
I don’t actually see a calculation of an abstract “total” anything being used in that example?
In fact, the conclusion that we should all give up lunch to save one life is the opposite of the “reduce total suffering” philosophy, because in that view, us all giving up lunch would technically outweigh the pain of one guy dying. The second part of your hypothetical doesn’t even really concern calculations of total suffering.
The point is that using some abstract calculation of a total of subjective experiences is nonsensical because no one actually subjectively experiences that total. So trying to minimize the total experience that no one actually experiences is nonsensical if it leads you to maximise negative sensations that real subjects do actually experience.
The value should be placed on a combination of individuals’ subjective experience and a valuing of life as good in itself. So that tradeoffs aren’t made in favour of reducing an abstract total (which can lead you to killing actual people) but tradeoffs are made based our valuing of actual human life and experience (so in your second example, a billion people dying is worse that 100 people dying, because we value lives, not because it reduces some unreal total of suffering).
"The addition of a million fellow-sufferers adds no more pain" seems like at least as radical and paradoxical of a stance as utilitarianism. Are we really willing to claim that the magnitude of the tragedy of WWII is only measured in the misery of the most wretched individual sufferer, and not in the fact that the misery was shared by millions?
Goodness, I feel like I've been reading the late Owen Barfield. Well done; great piece.
And no, it's not a waste of time, in my opinion. These messages must be continuously refreshed and contextualized - for each generation. The issues you're addressing here have been used to justify socialism and communism for several generations.
I feel like you're missing something here, or maybe I am.
It's true that the dust in the eye of multiple people doesn't add up to more suffering. But society is a series of such dilemmas, and the outcomes of those separate dilemma *do* add up within individuals.
For example, let's say you had a policy that took away 1 billion people's next meal in order to save one particular human from a painful death. Of course we should all give up lunch to save the life right? But if you have to repeat that same decision 100 times today, you actually can't save the 100 lives, because then 1 billion people will starve to death.
Trying to quantify the total positive or negative utility across the entire population is a way to try to make a series of decisions that lead to the best overall outcome.
I don’t actually see a calculation of an abstract “total” anything being used in that example?
In fact, the conclusion that we should all give up lunch to save one life is the opposite of the “reduce total suffering” philosophy, because in that view, us all giving up lunch would technically outweigh the pain of one guy dying. The second part of your hypothetical doesn’t even really concern calculations of total suffering.
The point is that using some abstract calculation of a total of subjective experiences is nonsensical because no one actually subjectively experiences that total. So trying to minimize the total experience that no one actually experiences is nonsensical if it leads you to maximise negative sensations that real subjects do actually experience.
The value should be placed on a combination of individuals’ subjective experience and a valuing of life as good in itself. So that tradeoffs aren’t made in favour of reducing an abstract total (which can lead you to killing actual people) but tradeoffs are made based our valuing of actual human life and experience (so in your second example, a billion people dying is worse that 100 people dying, because we value lives, not because it reduces some unreal total of suffering).
"The addition of a million fellow-sufferers adds no more pain" seems like at least as radical and paradoxical of a stance as utilitarianism. Are we really willing to claim that the magnitude of the tragedy of WWII is only measured in the misery of the most wretched individual sufferer, and not in the fact that the misery was shared by millions?
Goodness, I feel like I've been reading the late Owen Barfield. Well done; great piece.
And no, it's not a waste of time, in my opinion. These messages must be continuously refreshed and contextualized - for each generation. The issues you're addressing here have been used to justify socialism and communism for several generations.