Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Ethodynamics of Omelas, published by dr s on June 10, 2023 on LessWrong.

Epistemic status: just kidding... haha... unless...

Introduction

A great amount of effort has been expended throughout history to decide the matter of "what is good" or "what is right" [citation needed]. This valiant but, let's face it, not tremendously successful effort has produced a number of possible answers to these questions, none of which is right, if history is any indication. Far from this being their only problem, the vast majority of these answers also suffer from the even more serious flaw of not being able to produce anything resembling a simple quantitative prediction or computable expression for the thing they are supposed to discuss, and instead prefer to faff about with qualitative and ambiguously defined statements. Not only they aren't right; they aren't even wrong.

More recently, and in certain premises more than others, a relatively new-ish theory of ethics has gained significant traction as the one most suited to a properly scientific, organized and rational mind - the theory of Utilitarianism. This approach to ethics postulates that all we have to do to solve it is to define some kind of "utility function" (TBD) representing all of the "utility" of each individual who is deemed a moral subject (TBD) via some aggregation method (TBD) and in some kind of objective, commensurable unit (TBD). It is then a simple matter of finding the policy which maximizes this utility function, and there you go - the mathematically determined guide to living the good life, examined down to however many arbitrary digits of precision one might desire! By tackling the titanic task head on, refusing to bow to the tyranny of vague metaphysics, and instead looking for the unyielding and unforgiving certainty of numbers, Utilitarianism manages one important thing:

Utilitarianism manages to be wrong.

Now, I hope the last statement doesn't ruffle too many feathers. If it helps reassure any of those who may have felt offended by it, I'll admit that this study also deals unashamedly into Utilitarianism; and thus, by definition, it is also wrong. But one hopes, at least, wrong in an interesting enough way, which is often the best we can do in such complex matters. The object of this work is the aggregation method of utility. There are many possible proposals, none, in my opinion, too satisfactory, all vulnerable to falling into one or another horrible trap laid by the clever critic which our moral instincts refuse to acknowledge as possibly ever correct.

A common one, which we might call Baby's First Utility Function, is total sum utilitarianism. In this aggregation approach, more good is good. Simple enough! Ten puppies full of joy and wonder are obviously better than five puppies full of joy and wonder, even an idiot understands as much. What else is left to consider? Ha-ha, says the critic: but what if a mad scientist created some kind of amazing super-puppy able to feel joy and wonder through feasting upon the mangled bodies of all others? What if the super-puppy produced so much joy that it offsets the suffering it inflicts? Total sum utilitarianism tells us that if the parameters are right, we ought to indeed accept the numbers and with them the super-puppy and the pain to be found within its joyous and drooling jaws, which isn't the common sense ethical approach to the problem (namely, take away the mad scientist's grant funding and have them work on something useful, like a RCT on whether fresh mints cause cancer).

But even without super-puppies, total sum utilitarianism lays more traps for us. The obvious one is that if more total utility is always good, then as long as life is above the threshold for positive utility (TBD), it's a moral imperative to simply spawn more humans. This is known as t...