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G. M. (Mark) Baker's avatar

The fundamental error in utilitarianism, and in EA it seems from your description of it, is that is conflates suffering with evil. Suffering is not evil. Suffering is an inherent feature of life. Suffering is information. Without suffering we would all die very quickly, probably by forgetting to eat.

Causing suffering is evil, because it is cruelty.

Ignoring preventable suffering is evil because it is indifference.

But setting yourself up to run the world and dictate how everyone else should live because you believe that you have the calculus to mathematically minimize suffering is also evil because it is tyranny.

Holocausts are evil because they are cruel. Stubbed toes are not evil because they are information. (Put your shoes on!)

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TW's avatar

The diluted form of utilitarianism that makes the most sense to me, and which does still feel compatible with the general EA ethos, is one in which you don’t feel constrained by the results of the utilitarian calculus, but you should actually make the effort to do the math before deciding.

For example, before choosing where to give money to charity, I think it’s very much worthwhile to try and do some kind of calculations to compare them. This forces you to actually consider all the factors and identify your unknowns. But your decision should still be based, in the end, on what seems like the best choice, even if one has a higher expected value on paper.

This isn’t a formal philosophical way of looking at things, but it seems like it avoids the failure modes where you don’t do the math and end up donating to local causes that don’t need as much help as international ones AND the failure modes where you would trade massive numbers of stubbed toes for the Holocaust.

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