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Date: Mon, 6 Nov 2006 19:46:13 -0500 (EST)
To: Erik Talvitie <etalviti &AElig eecs.umich.edu>
cc: improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: Daniel Reeves <dreeves &AElig umich.edu>
Subject: Re: social welfare + fairness + knowledge
Status: O

Huh.  Well said.  I concede defeat on this whole thread.

Now let's see some responses to some of the other recent posts!

As you all know, tomorrow is a pretty important day (it's the 2nd 
anniversary of ImproveTheWorld)!

Oh, I started a yootles blog:  http://dreeves.wordpress.com/
I would derive a lot of utility from y'all checking it out!

Danny

--- \/   FROM Erik Talvitie AT 06.11.06 19:11 (Today)   \/ ---

> Aha. But if we take into account the level of meta-utility that Dan 
> introduced, we might just find, if we factor in yours and my and lots of 
> other people's disutility for living in a society where torture is condoned, 
> that it would in fact be allocatively efficient to ban torture, regardless of 
> any fairness criterion. Which raises the question, what is it about fairness 
> (and by extension search for knowledge) as an additional criterion that 
> separates it from alternative criteria like, say "no cruelty to animals" or 
> "fancy hotels should put a mint on your pillow?" If the society as a whole 
> values fairness, then it will automatically be captured by social welfare. If 
> it doesn't, then it won't be, but who says a society that doesn't value 
> fairness should be forced to practice it anyway?
>
> Which to me is why saying "Social welfare is the only thing worth fighting 
> for" seems a bit meaningless. Isn't that like saying "The only things worth 
> studying are in the universe?" I mean, the concept of utility is so 
> all-encompassing that efficiency seems nigh impossible to measure and 
> therefore doesn't seem to be much help when it comes down to deciding what 
> laws to enact or what rallies to attend or what to put on people's pillows.
>
> $0.02 from Erik
>
> Matt Rudary wrote:
>> I meant to put this out here before: Fairness, or at least justice, is not 
>> in fact part of maximizing social welfare. Perhaps that was too strong a 
>> statement, but here is another shot:
>> 
>> A social system that maximizes the sum of the welfare of the individuals in 
>> the society is not just. For instance, assuming A) torture is an effective 
>> means of obtaining information and B) the standard ticking time bomb 
>> torture thought experiment in which getting information from a terrorist 
>> would save lives (but only if you get it soon), in such a society torture 
>> of one individual would be justified. I know that A is not necessarily a 
>> valid assumption, but I would oppose torture even if it were. In general, 
>> such a society allows the *premeditated and intentional* sacrifice of a 
>> small population *against their will* to benefit a larger population.
>> 
>> So ensuring fairness is separate from, though not orthogonal to, maximizing 
>> social welfare.
>> 
>> Matt
>> 
>> Daniel Reeves wrote:
>> 
>>> That's another tricky thing about maximizing social welfare (synonymous 
>>> with maximizing utility, as Dave notes) -- deciding how to include 
>>> nonhumans in the equation.  You have to include animals' utility in some 
>>> way otherwise it would be ethically A-OK to torture animals for fun.
>>> Or maybe it suffices that there are *people* who get disutility from the 
>>> torture of animals.  For example, if we had a yootles auction to decide 
>>> whether to kill a puppy, we wouldn't need the puppy's participation to 
>>> decide not to do it.
>>> 
>>> That puts me tentatively in the "animals don't count" camp.  Anyone else?
>>> 
>>> (I disagree with Dave that 2 & 3 are subsets of 1.  Splitting utility 
>>> equally is often more important than maximizing the sum of utilities.  For 
>>> example, it's not OK to steal money from someone who doesn't need it as 
>>> much as you.)
>>> 
>>> (And knowledge, truth, and scientific understanding are intrinsically 
>>> valuable, beyond their applicability to improving social welfare.  But 
>>> perhaps my own strong feelings about this undermine my own point.  In 
>>> other words, maybe we don't need to include it for the same reason we 
>>> don't need to include animal welfare.)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> --- \/   FROM Dave Morris AT 06.10.30 11:25 (Oct 30)   \/ ---
>>> 
>>>> I think that it's important to note that 2 & 3, while distinct and 
>>>> interesting components of the discussion, are in fact subsets of 1, which 
>>>> could be rephrased in it's general sense as "maximization of utility" if 
>>>> you don't want to treat only the defined subset of "human". :-)
>>>> 
>>>> On Oct 28, 2006, at 1:30 PM, Daniel Reeves wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Based on off-line discussion with my grandfather, I propose that there 
>>>>> are only three fundamental principles worth fighting for in human 
>>>>> society:
>>>>>   1. Social Welfare
>>>>>   2. Fairness
>>>>>   3. The Search for Knowledge
>>>>> 
>>>>> (This started with an argument about the parental retort "who says 
>>>>> life's supposed to be fair?")
>>>>>
>>>>>   (1 and 2 are distinct because if we're all equally miserable, that's
>>>>>   fair but not welfare maximizing.  Likewise, of the methods for 
>>>>> dividing
>>>>>   a cake, for example, the method of "I get all of it" maximizes the sum
>>>>>   of our utilities, but we nonetheless prefer splitting it in half.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Is there a number 4?
>>>>> 
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> David P. Morris, PhD
>>>> Senior Engineer, ElectroDynamic Applications, Inc.
>>>> morris &AElig edapplications.com, (734)?786-1434, fax: (734)?786-3235
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>

-- 
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"

Let us live!!
Let us love!!
Let us share the deepest secrets of our souls!!
...
You first.