In Infinite Ethics Nick Bostrom argues against using discount factors to resolve problems created by the temporal and spatial infinities that arise in moral theories. While this argument is compelling in the context of aggregative consequentialism it is less compelling under ethical egosim. Incorporating discount factors into ethical models handles many of the problematic infinities and allows us to analyze individual ethical decisions mathematically. In this post I present a model for decision making under uncertainty that incorporates the possibility of eternal reward or punishment.

Motivation

Material conditions for humanity have never been so good yet so many people focus primarily on worldly rewards. Many of these worldly rewards even have diminishing marginal utility. With such abundance for so many I would expect humanity to become more religious and more concerned about what happens after we die. Why has the opposite happened? Perhaps we lack the models needed for evaluating existential matters. Every day we face ethical choices that may or may not have eternal consequences. Despite belief in these consequences even deeply religious people sin sometimes. They risk eternal punishment for some worldly benefit - we should be able to model this behavior. Maybe sin is sometimes rational. Maybe even Faust's bargain was utility optimizing.

In his work Bostrom identifies two types of discount factors, spatial and temporal. The former is easily addressed through ethical egoism. If I am unconcerned about the well-being of others, to the extent it does not impact my well-being, then my spatial discount factor is zero and one class of infinities is resolved. The later can be addressed with temporal discount factors less than one. In economics temporal discount factors are widely used and empirically verified. While Bostrom writes temporal discount factors are "viewed with great suspicion" empirical studies show that people use discount factors when making decisions. These discount factors are commonly used to evaluate potential reward and punishment in the economics of crime literature. For example in their work Crime and Human Nature (1985) Wilson and Herrnstein argue that individuals with high temporal discount factors are more prone to criminal behavior. If sins are crimes that are only punished after we die then we can apply the same decision theoreti...

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