From: Damien Broderick (damienb@unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Thu May 29 2003 - 00:59:15 MDT
At 02:13 PM 5/28/03 -0700, Hal wrote:
>the "averagist" philosophy is
>internally inconsistent. This is the view that we should maximize
>the average happiness of human beings, i.e. the sum of all happiness
>divided by the number of people. The problem is that half the people
>are of below average happiness, hence they are dragging down the curve.
>By killing off the less happy half of the human race, we can greatly
>increase average happiness, hence this is an acceptable goal for the
>averagist.
How can this possibly be right when dealing with people most of whom will
be plunged into appalling misery as a result of this mass murder?
Of course, `happiness' is not entirely consistent over time anyway, so that
today's moiety of the miserable will contain some members who tomorrow will
be happier than some of today's happy. Iteration and memory! (And
rational/emotional foresight!)
Damien Broderick
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