The weight of suffering
Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
GPI Working Paper No. 4-2022, forthcoming in The Journal of Philosophy
How should we weigh suffering against happiness? This paper highlights the existence of an argument from intuitively plausible axiological principles to the striking conclusion that in comparing different populations, there exists some depth of suffering that cannot be compensated for by any measure of well-being. In addition to a number of structural principles, the argument relies on two key premises. The first is the contrary of the so-called Reverse Repugnant Conclusion. The second is a principle according to which the addition of any population of lives with positive welfare levels makes the outcome worse if accompanied by sufficiently many lives that are not worth living. I consider whether we should accept the conclusion of the argument and what we may end up committed to if we do not, illustrating the implications of the conclusions for the question of whether suffering in aggregate outweighs happiness among human and non-human animals, now and in future.
Other working papers
Heuristics for clueless agents: how to get away with ignoring what matters most in ordinary decision-making – David Thorstad and Andreas Mogensen (Global Priorities Institute, Oxford University)
Even our most mundane decisions have the potential to significantly impact the long-term future, but we are often clueless about what this impact may be. In this paper, we aim to characterize and solve two problems raised by recent discussions of cluelessness, which we term the Problems of Decision Paralysis and the Problem of Decision-Making Demandingness. After reviewing and rejecting existing solutions to both problems, we argue that the way forward is to be found in the distinction between procedural and substantive rationality…
The unexpected value of the future – Hayden Wilkinson (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
Various philosophers accept moral views that are impartial, additive, and risk-neutral with respect to betterness. But, if that risk neutrality is spelt out according to expected value theory alone, such views face a dire reductio ad absurdum. If the expected sum of value in humanity’s future is undefined—if, e.g., the probability distribution over possible values of the future resembles the Pasadena game, or a Cauchy distribution—then those views say that no real-world option is ever better than any other. And, as I argue…
Non-additive axiologies in large worlds – Christian Tarsney and Teruji Thomas (Global Priorities Institute, Oxford University)
Is the overall value of a world just the sum of values contributed by each value-bearing entity in that world? Additively separable axiologies (like total utilitarianism, prioritarianism, and critical level views) say ‘yes’, but non-additive axiologies (like average utilitarianism, rank-discounted utilitarianism, and variable value views) say ‘no’…