Inertia of Loss: a resolution to the Repugnant Conclusion?
~ are ethics a snap-shot of value, itself, or the change in state? ~
TL;DR — The conversation around “The Repugnant Conclusion” in ethics-minded circles fails to appreciate “path-dependence,” a concept seen in models of complex systems. Inertia is an example of this, with snap-shots of planets telling nothing, because they lack the context: how fast, and in what directions are they moving through space? Categorically, all the supposed cures to the Repugnant Conclusion suffer from this lack of path-dependence. I show how path-dependence, as well as spring-gauges, offer key insights and seem to resolve the dispute.
A to Z
Imagine Population A, with 100 people, and all of them rank their lives at 10 out of 10 — wonderful! Yet, wouldn’t it be better to have MORE happy people? What if you have many times more people, with a slightly lower happiness? If you say yes, we can keep going with that to the extreme. Call that abundant-and-dissatisfied Population Z. If you accept that one first step, it leads you inexorably toward “the Repugnant Conclusion”: that it would be a better world to have billions who are all in terrible circumstances, rather than a hundred in bliss. “Total” happiness is greater, though it is so fanned-out as to be minuscule in each life.
Ethicists excuse long luncheons with this debate, where they presume that there must exist a simplistic rule which singularly solves all instances! Math-guy, here — we have a problem with that approach.
“Which extreme should I choose?” is not the right question. You can go to either extreme — billions of people, destitute and suffering most of the time, or only ONE person, immensely satisfied with themselves. BOTH extrema are inane. The paradoxical demands of the ethicists ignore the fact: the answer cannot be found by comparing snap-shots! Instead, you have to ask: “What are the earlier states that we are changing from?”
For example, with our Population A of 100 blissful people, and Population Z with billions in pain, we must ask the historical context: “Are we proposing that it is ethical to MOVE from A to Z? What about MOVING from Z to A?” Let’s be the people in those circumstances, for a moment…
Population A, a hundred happy folk, are told that they will have all their joys taken from them, if only to supply the crudest life for billions of other, future people. That’s unethical, to command their sacrifice. Meanwhile, Population Z has billions of people struggling in vain — can we tell them “we’ll kill most of you, so that we can concentrate happiness in the hands of one hundred people!” No, that’s unethical. MOVING Population A towards Population Z is unethical; MOVING Population Z towards Population A is unethical. Because these philosophers are acting like dictators. They deny agency and dialogue. They ignore the population’s own goals and history.
[And, jargon-watch: fundamentally, the value of each population can be “intransitive,” forming loops of preference. Ethicists presumed that must be impossible — no. Historical inertia, the cost to those living of the real change, allows intransitives. Just as in mathematics, there are intransitive operators. It happens some times, and this is one of those times. An example of an ‘intransitive inequality in preferences’ in physics is the “time crystal”, which wants to migrate from state A →B →C →D →A, a sort of quantum-mechanical entropy-clock. Each state prefers the next, forming a closed loop. Sorry to the ethicists who assume everything MUST be transitive and simply additive. That’s just incorrect.]
Compare those victimized populations A and Z to these ones: Population Alpha is 100 blissful folks… who see an opportunity to expands the swath of humanity without sacrificing too much of the contentment and liberty of those future generations. They choose this because they value it, and they are well within their rights to make that SELF-sacrifice. Similarly, Population Omega has billions who suffer…and so, they risk their lives to end the torment, free themselves, and set the world right. That’s NOT unethical — it’s noble! They have their own goal, and choose to risk themselves for it; no ethicist commands from on-high that they die for the good of a few.
All real-world ethical scenarios will be path-dependent. You cannot force someone to lose, because of a supposed gain for another in the future, neither toward either extreme. If, however, they choose to make that shift, themselves, they have taken steps of self-sacrifice which are commonly regarded as virtuous. It only seems to be a Repugnant Conclusion when ethicists force that result upon them. The denial of agency, voice, and compassion is the source of the fault, and all real-world solutions entail those.
Non-Fungible Ethics
There’s more to this problem, as well, derived from a confusion about the nature of Right and Wrong — they presume that if you do harm to some, that can in some way be ‘justified’ by a larger gain to others. No, injustice is non-fungible and incomparable. Right and Wrong exist on separate axis — if one person does “zero Good, zero Evil” that is NOT equivalent coordinates as “ten Good, ten Evil”, because the second person was unjust, and the first is inconsequential.
Understandably, because we are imperfect, we end-up doing harm sometimes. No amount of virtue BUYS the RIGHTS to injustice, though. No amount excuses or undoes the wrong. We have no time-machines. Instead, we are personally responsible for our imperfections; we have to accept that distinction, instead of pretending there is one simplistic rule that protects us from all mistakes.
The search for ANY ‘always-so’ rule is also dangerous. I will explain below how paradox is necessary for intelligence (the “spring-gauge”), though this broader point is understandable without those details:
We CANNOT hold wisdom in ONE mind. That is a fruitless and arrogant fantasy. So, when a group ALL agrees, they have collapsed to ONE mind, and they have lost wisdom. We cannot merely tolerate a diversity of vantage-points — we have a necessity for them, to have hope of wisdom at all. No rule which can be comprehended and followed explicitly will ever be sufficient. Now, to explain the details of why that is the case:
The Spring-Gauge
Imagine two springs in a row, wedged between two boards. The springs are pushing upon each other, resisting each other. They’re not identical, so they are NOT ‘split evenly down the middle’. Yet, they DO end-up balancing-out somewhere near the middle. These are the spring-gauge.
When you exert even a little force in either direction, you are helping one of the springs and resisting the other. You can, with little effort, nudge the springs towards one side. Yet! If you try to push the springs ALL the way to EITHER extreme, you will be fighting the full force of that spring by yourself. The spring-gauge is NOT trying to have ONE SIDE WIN. The spring-gauge works because NEITHER extreme succeeds.
Why have a spring-gauge? It lets you measure things, respond to sensitive events you would otherwise miss, record the delicate changes, the vicissitudes that bridge to deeper insights. We NEED the spring-gauge, NOT either extreme.
And, within us… what is our spring-gauge? Those are the places where we have Paradoxical Goals. For example, people want to have a calm, stable, comfortable environment. And, simultaneously, people crave new, curious, exciting and challenging environments. You cannot have both at the same time. It’s a paradox. We are doomed to always be at least somewhat dissatisfied, because our desires are paradoxical. We NEED it to be that way, neither side winning, in order to be sensitive to the changes in the world.
Extended to ethics, we should NOT settle on one simplistic rule. And we must weigh our conflicting goals, suffering some negative consequence whichever path we take. Like strands of grass we read the winds, each of us undulating in our own mode, yet nudged by the same motive force.
