Philosophical Vegan Forum

What I'm thinking of is a repugnant conclusion in its own right: for every short life A filled with happiness there must be some much longer life B barely worth living but which adds up to more "happy units" overall. Yet it doesn't seem intuitive at all that a B is more valuable than A
(perhaps "barely worth living" is too strong a negative in this world and so one can substitute it for "boring"; however the former still works as a possible worlds scenario where humans have much longer lifespans).
But at the same time there must be some much much shorter life C filled with even more units of happiness per second than B, which doesn't seem intuitive to want either.

So it seems that a long somewhat boring life isn't preferrable to a shorter happier life even if the "happiness-units" are higher in total for the very long life; but the same difference is then intuitively rejected for an even shorter life (at least assuming that that life is short enough). More "happy units" doesn't cut it on its own, but neither does "more happy units per second". There seems to have to be some balance, but I'm unsure as to what this balance persists of. I guess it's two competing wants: More life, and more happiness.

Does this want for more life expose a form of existence bias? And how does one square this with utilitarian calculations on wellbeing (on a macro level the boring/barely worth living long long life would have to count as a higher good)?

Gregor Samsa wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2017 1:21 pm What I'm thinking of is a repugnant conclusion in its own right: for every short life A filled with happiness there must be some much longer life B barely worth living but which adds up to more "happy units" overall. Yet it doesn't seem intuitive at all that a B is more valuable than A
(perhaps "barely worth living" is too strong a negative in this world and so one can substitute it for "boring"; however the former still works as a possible worlds scenario where humans have much longer lifespans).

If B uses the same amount of resources as a single A, then it's more valuable.
We have to consider opportunity cost, though. If you can provide ten A with the resources it takes to keep B alive for 500 years, you might prefer many A lives instead of one B.

Gregor Samsa wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2017 1:21 pmBut at the same time there must be some much much shorter life C filled with even more units of happiness per second than B, which doesn't seem intuitive to want either.

In practice, there tend to be diminishing returns in either direction.

If we are not hedonists, we are also concerned with interests and we may have to consider the cost of death itself as an interest violation.

Gregor Samsa wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2017 1:21 pmI guess it's two competing wants: More life, and more happiness.

As long as we are preference based, yes, this is very plausible.

Gregor Samsa wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2017 1:21 pmDoes this want for more life expose a form of existence bias?

Aren't all wants biases? We're talking about the root of subjectivity.

The only way we'd accuse those wants of being invalid is if we're hedonists and we judge them only in terms of pure experienced pleasure/pain.

Gregor Samsa wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2017 1:21 pmAnd how does one square this with utilitarian calculations on wellbeing (on a macro level the boring/barely worth living long long life would have to count as a higher good)?

You can't with classical (hedonistic) utilitarianism. You can with preference utilitarianism though.

This could be another intuitive example to convince people to abandon hedonism (aside from the happy pill thought experiment).