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 Æ edapplications.com, (734)?786-1434, fax: (734)?786-3235
>>>
>>>
>>