I think to see what equality really justifies, it's worth comparing interpersonal utility comparisons to comparisons within a single person. Every point in the article becomes quite clearly true in the case of a single individual who values their moments equally. If you valued all parts of your life equally, you wouldn't value equality for its own sake between moments. Nor would you say 'you don't really value the moments of your life going well, you only value the things that make your life go well'.
Similarly, you wouldn't treat all the moments equally. If one moment was better than another and you had to jettison one of them, you should obviously jettison the worse one. And if you could choose between one moment that would both be pleasant and increase your lifespan by two more moments or two moments that don't increase your lifespan, of course you'd choose the one moment -- the single person pharmacy case is very obvious.
Can't implies need not (“not must”? “Mustn’t” is not the negation of “must.” How to express that in English? “Needn’t,” I suppose.)
No one can care about everyone equally, nor would we wish to, if we could.
No one is obligated to care about everyone equally.
If no one can or must care about everyone equally, what does it mean for everyone to matter equally? Should we perhaps try to approximate an ideal we can’t actually achieve? I suppose Kant has set a precedent.
It makes sense to criticize or reform social institutions on the grounds that they treat people as if they have different significance, if the criteria of discrimination have nothing to do with the purpose of the social institution. Everyone has an interest in this, since even if the arbitrary discrimination goes in my favor now, there is no guarantee it will discriminate correctly and never arbitrarily change to something less advantageous. It isn’t a prisoners' dilemma.
That seems to fall short of “everyone matters equally.” If we divide social experience crudely into institutional experience and personal experience, “everyone matters equally” only in the institutional cases (and ignoring obvious relevant differences, e.g. hospitals are for sick people). Does your principle apply also to personal experience? Or is this qualification so obvious that it doesn’t need mentioning?
I think I mostly agree with your main thrust here, which, if I understand it, is basically this: Even if we treat everyone equally, we’ll still always inevitably end up with unequal outcomes simply because everyone by nature does not posses exactly equal abilities, desires, drives, ambitions, IQ etc. (I don’t mean this by race or gender of course but by individual genetics and childhood environment, etc.)
To me, it seems like utilitarianism would hold the proposition of a rich person having children as morally superior to the proposition of a poor person having children. How would you respond to this?
I talk about this and some other criticisms of utilitarianism (as well as a weird solution) in the inaugural post of my recently launched Substack. But I'm not an actual philosopher. I would appreciate any feedback you might have if you want to check it out:
"For those who are interested, my linked paper also refutes more sophisticated versions of the ‘value receptacle’ objection, including the worry that (some forms of) utilitarianism treat individuals as fungible means to the aggregate welfare."
Again, I don't think you can address this issue without talking about population ethics, which you don't in the present post. If I recall, you maybe mentioned it in the linked paper, but only very briefly, which is inadequate since population ethics is **the central issue** in a discussion of the value-receptacle view.
I think to see what equality really justifies, it's worth comparing interpersonal utility comparisons to comparisons within a single person. Every point in the article becomes quite clearly true in the case of a single individual who values their moments equally. If you valued all parts of your life equally, you wouldn't value equality for its own sake between moments. Nor would you say 'you don't really value the moments of your life going well, you only value the things that make your life go well'.
Similarly, you wouldn't treat all the moments equally. If one moment was better than another and you had to jettison one of them, you should obviously jettison the worse one. And if you could choose between one moment that would both be pleasant and increase your lifespan by two more moments or two moments that don't increase your lifespan, of course you'd choose the one moment -- the single person pharmacy case is very obvious.
I genuinely can't imagine disagreeing with utilitarianism about the pharmacist case. Great article!
“everyone matters equally. “
To whom? For what?
Must implies can.
Can't implies need not (“not must”? “Mustn’t” is not the negation of “must.” How to express that in English? “Needn’t,” I suppose.)
No one can care about everyone equally, nor would we wish to, if we could.
No one is obligated to care about everyone equally.
If no one can or must care about everyone equally, what does it mean for everyone to matter equally? Should we perhaps try to approximate an ideal we can’t actually achieve? I suppose Kant has set a precedent.
It makes sense to criticize or reform social institutions on the grounds that they treat people as if they have different significance, if the criteria of discrimination have nothing to do with the purpose of the social institution. Everyone has an interest in this, since even if the arbitrary discrimination goes in my favor now, there is no guarantee it will discriminate correctly and never arbitrarily change to something less advantageous. It isn’t a prisoners' dilemma.
That seems to fall short of “everyone matters equally.” If we divide social experience crudely into institutional experience and personal experience, “everyone matters equally” only in the institutional cases (and ignoring obvious relevant differences, e.g. hospitals are for sick people). Does your principle apply also to personal experience? Or is this qualification so obvious that it doesn’t need mentioning?
I think I mostly agree with your main thrust here, which, if I understand it, is basically this: Even if we treat everyone equally, we’ll still always inevitably end up with unequal outcomes simply because everyone by nature does not posses exactly equal abilities, desires, drives, ambitions, IQ etc. (I don’t mean this by race or gender of course but by individual genetics and childhood environment, etc.)
To me, it seems like utilitarianism would hold the proposition of a rich person having children as morally superior to the proposition of a poor person having children. How would you respond to this?
I talk about this and some other criticisms of utilitarianism (as well as a weird solution) in the inaugural post of my recently launched Substack. But I'm not an actual philosopher. I would appreciate any feedback you might have if you want to check it out:
https://orbistertius.substack.com/p/morality-and-marginal-existence
"For those who are interested, my linked paper also refutes more sophisticated versions of the ‘value receptacle’ objection, including the worry that (some forms of) utilitarianism treat individuals as fungible means to the aggregate welfare."
Again, I don't think you can address this issue without talking about population ethics, which you don't in the present post. If I recall, you maybe mentioned it in the linked paper, but only very briefly, which is inadequate since population ethics is **the central issue** in a discussion of the value-receptacle view.