Transcending the infinite utility debate

Australasian Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 80, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 164-177

  Mulgan, Tim ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND   (New Zealand)

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EID: 10844294416     PISSN: 00048402     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/ajp/80.2.164     Document Type: Review

References (16)

1. P. Vallentyne and S. Kagan, 'Infinite Value and Finitely Additive Value Theory', Journal of Philosophy, 94 (1997), pp. 5-26, See also M. Nelson, 'Utilitarian Eschatology', American Philosophical Quarterly, 27 (1991), pp. 339-17; and P. Vallentyne, 'Utilitarianism and Infinite Utility', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 71 (1993), pp. 212-7.
2. Vallentyne and Kagan, 'Infinite Value and Finitely Additive Value Theory', p. 10. Vallentyne and Kagan reject this particular formulation, in favour of a more complicated principle designed to accommodate 'one sort of technical case where [its] directives are incorrect'. ('Infinite Value and Finitely Additive Value Theory', p. 10.) The technicality in question does not affect any of the discussion in this paper.
3. This example is borrowed from J. D. Hamkins and B. Montero, 'With infinite utility, more needn't be better', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 78 (2000), pp. 231-40. See also J. D. Hamkins and B. Montero, 'Utilitarianism in infinite worlds', Utilitas, 12 (2000), pp. 91-6.
4. Vallentyne and Kagan, 'Infinite Value and Finitely Additive Value Theory', p. 20.
5. In personal correspondence, Peter Vallentyne has endorsed this response to Hamkins and Montero's objection.
6. D. Parfit, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), p. 356. A Same People Choice occurs whenever our actions affect what will happen to people in the future, but not which people will come to exist. If our actions do affect who will get to exist in the future, then we are making a Different People Choice.
7. To further complicate matters, we could distinguish between theories whose ultimate locations are whole human lives, and those taking persons as ultimate locations without emphasizing the holistic evaluation of lives. (I owe this point to an anonymous referee.)
8. Many utilitarian theories seek a compromise between total and average utilitarianism. These theories also correspond to view (c), as they all accord some moral significance to number and no significance to identity.
9. Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p. 367.
10. L. Temkin, Inequality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 248.
11. Similarly, within Different People Choices, STU and SAU necessarily coincide in Same Number Choices, where our decision has no effect on how many people will exist. They come apart only in Different Number Choices, when we decide how many people will exist.
12. Even when locations have no natural order, we are often interested in issues of distribution beyond those of identity and number. We could introduce a fourth dimension, which I shall refer to as 'pattern'. For instance, the theory commonly known as 'distribution-sensitive utilitarianism' cares how utility is spread across individuals. In the finite case, such a theory may distinguish between the following two distributions: Equal distribution. Each of five people has five units. Unequal distribution. One person has 21 units, while four others each have one. Neither total nor average utilitarianism can distinguish these two cases. If this is a Different People Choice, then a person-affecting theory will fail also. Admitting the significance of pattern is thus another possible departure from utilitarianism. It is not clear how a concern for pattern might be extended into the infinite case when locations have no natural order. I leave these complexities for another occasion.
13. A more complicated solution would allow that both temporal and personal identity are significant, but accord one lexical priority over the other. Perhaps the Basic Idea for personal locations would trump the Basic Idea for temporal locations.
14. There may be a connection here with a central debate in the philosophy of time, namely the controversy between A-theorists and B-theorists. The A-theory posits the existence of genuine properties of past-ness, present-ness, and futpre-ness; while the B-theory holds that time consists solely of temporal relations between and among temporal objects. (See, for instance, B. Nunn, 'Differences between A- and B-time', Philosophical Inquiry, 22 (2000), pp. 103-14.) The conclusion reached in the text might be expressed as follows: the A-theory is appropriate when we are evaluating an individual life from within, while the B-theory may be appropriate for aggregation across lives.
15. There is a close analogy here with Derek Parfit's comparison between his own z-world and Nozick's utility monster. The former is a possible world containing a vast number of people whose lives are barely worth living, while the latter is a single creature who derives more utility from any given resource than any possible human population could. (Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p. 389.) Parfit argues that the z-world is much easier to imagine than the utility monster. The utility monster is a radically different kind of creature from anything we know, whereas the z-world is constructed merely by putting together many ordinary human lives. In the same way, a civilization consisting of an infinite series of human lives is much less of a leap than a single human individual with an infinite life. (Some of us also find a civilization with an infinite future much easier to imagine than one with an infinite past. However, this asymmetry may simply reflect a cultural bias, as belief in an infinite past has been widespread in human history.)
16. Some may object that my proposal is, in effect, that utilitarians should abandon utilitarianism. There is some justice in this claim. Some purists may regard any move away from PTU as an abandonment of utilitarianism. However, I would reply that my proposal is merely a logical extension of the admission that the value of an individual human life is not merely the sum of the pleasures it contains. One can make this admission, and follow where it leads, while still retaining the central utilitarian belief that moral action consists in promoting the good, where goodness is defined solely in terms of human well-being.