On two arguments for Fanaticism
Jeffrey Sanford Russell (University of Southern California)
GPI Working Paper No. 17-2021, published in Noûs
Should we make significant sacrifices to ever-so-slightly lower the chance of extremely bad outcomes, or to ever-so-slightly raise the chance of extremely good outcomes? Fanaticism says yes: for every bad outcome, there is a tiny chance of extreme disaster that is even worse, and for every good outcome, there is a tiny chance of an enormous good that is even better. I consider two related recent arguments for Fanaticism: Beckstead and Thomas’s argument from strange dependence on space and time, and Wilkinson’s Indology argument. While both arguments are instructive, neither is persuasive. In fact, the general principles that underwrite the arguments (a separability principle in the first case, and a reflection principle in the second) are inconsistent with Fanaticism. In both cases, though, it is possible to rehabilitate arguments for Fanaticism based on restricted versions of those principles. The situation is unstable: plausible general principles tell against Fanaticism, but restrictions of those same principles (with strengthened auxiliary assumptions) support Fanaticism. All of the consistent views that emerge are very strange.
Other working papers
Economic inequality and the long-term future – Andreas T. Schmidt (University of Groningen) and Daan Juijn (CE Delft)
Why, if at all, should we object to economic inequality? Some central arguments – the argument from decreasing marginal utility for example – invoke instrumental reasons and object to inequality because of its effects…
In Defence of Moderation – Jacob Barrett (Vanderbilt University)
A decision theory is fanatical if it says that, for any sure thing of getting some finite amount of value, it would always be better to almost certainly get nothing while having some tiny probability (no matter how small) of getting sufficiently more finite value. Fanaticism is extremely counterintuitive; common sense requires a more moderate view. However, a recent slew of arguments purport to vindicate it, claiming that moderate alternatives to fanaticism are sometimes similarly counterintuitive, face a powerful continuum argument…
Do not go gentle: why the Asymmetry does not support anti-natalism – Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, Oxford University)
According to the Asymmetry, adding lives that are not worth living to the population makes the outcome pro tanto worse, but adding lives that are well worth living to the population does not make the outcome pro tanto better. It has been argued that the Asymmetry entails the desirability of human extinction. However, this argument rests on a misunderstanding of the kind of neutrality attributed to the addition of lives worth living by the Asymmetry. A similar misunderstanding is shown to underlie Benatar’s case for anti-natalism.