So I've commented on this in other forums but why can't we just bit the bullet on happiness-suffering min-maxing utilitarianism as the utility function?
The case for it is pretty straightforward: if we want a utility function that is continuous over the set of all time, then it must have a value for a single moment in time. At this moment in time, all colloquially deontological concepts like "humans", "legal contracts", etc. have no meaning (these imply an illusory continuity chaining together different moments in time). What IS atomic though, is the valence of individual moments of qualia, aka happiness/suffering - that's not just a higher-order emergence.
It's almost like the question of "how... (read more)
So I've commented on this in other forums but why can't we just bit the bullet on happiness-suffering min-maxing utilitarianism as the utility function?
The case for it is pretty straightforward: if we want a utility function that is continuous over the set of all time, then it must have a value for a single moment in time. At this moment in time, all colloquially deontological concepts like "humans", "legal contracts", etc. have no meaning (these imply an illusory continuity chaining together different moments in time). What IS atomic though, is the valence of individual moments of qualia, aka happiness/suffering - that's not just a higher-order emergence.
It's almost like the question of "how... (read more)