The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Thursday, April 19, 2018

Not so fast, my utilitarian friend

Societies A and B have the same population size at any given time.

In society A, people live for an average of 75 years.

In society B, people live for 35 years and are then killed by the government to make room for more young people.

Because younger people are happier than older people, the average utility of people living in society B is greater than that of people living in society A, though the utility of people in society A is generally positive throughout their lives.

And for the first 35 years of their lives, persons in society A are as happy as persons in society B.

So the total, lifelong happiness of people in society A is greater than the total, lifelong happiness of people in society B.

And no one in society A is deprived of a future they have every expectation would be happy by their government.

Egoists in the Original Position would surely choose A over B.

It is not true, as some utilitarian critics of Rawls claimed from the first, that each of us in such a position could be confident that the greater the average utility of the whole population the greater our own expectations.

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