Hard-line Negative Utilitarianism vs Tradeoffy Classical Utilitarianism
If you are a Negative Utilitarian (NU) you are morally obliged to wipe out all existence for the sake of a pin prick, but if you are a Classical Utilitarian (CU) you are morally obliged to accept trade-offs between suffering and bliss as long as the bliss outweighs the suffering.
NU doesn’t accept trade-offs, it’s hard-line to the maximum infinite[1]! In contrast, the essence of CU is about accepting trade-offs along the way to achieve grand project of maximising aggregate well-being.
For the hard-line NU, no amount of bliss is worth even a fraction of suffering. Therefore if there was a vanishingly tiny potential for even the most minute suffering for just one organism for a billisecond, NUs, accepting no pain/bliss trade-offs, would force oblivion on the entire living universe (callously disregarding the preferences of all those who on balance are enjoying being alive).
Let that sink in.
Moreover, NUs are so very hard-line they would probably botch the whole ‘lets destroy the universe’ thing anyway, and inadvertently cause even more suffering. Why? Because to the NU an infinite amount of non-suffering (via triggering non-existence) is paramount and non-negotiable, the NU would accept any gambit with mindbogglingly bad odds of success[2] – remembering that the infinite non-suffering (via triggering non-existence) trumps any finitely huge odds it will backfire[3].
More moreover, CUs preference solutions where the bliss most outweighs the suffering (inc max bliss and zero suffering). If you are NU there is no room for leeway – for NUs it’s a rush up a terrifying tech tree to find the fastest way to eradicate all current and future potential for suffering (via deleting existence, i.e initiating something like a false vacuum domino effect). On the other hand, if you are CU, you can hold your nose with a non-defeatist acceptance of suffering, enjoy bliss – opting for keeping good ‘ol existence around for it’s utility in making progress on the daring program of maximising aggregate well-being – so yes, this means actually enduring the discomfort of a little effort in working on solutions to the problem of suffering (i.e. progressively improving the trade-offs towards the potential of phasing out suffering and phasing in unimaginable amounts of bliss). I reiterate: the functional requirement that existence needs to stay intact is imperative for us to work on the rest of the grand project.
Note: David Pearce in his remarks has shown that he accepts trade-offs, so hard-line isn’t as hard as one might think.
[2] take the smallest imaginable likelihood greater than 0, then divide it by itself, and keep doing that the maximum imaginable number possible times over, and even then your not even close.
[3] note that non-existence is infinite, but the universe likely isn’t
