I think most consequentialists, especially utilitarians, consider all sentient beings to have moral status. Utilitarians say an action is morally better to the extent that it produces more well-being in the world.
Anyway I would prefer to focus on whether act consequentialism implies that all actions as morally equivalent, if the universe might be canonically infinite. Jon On Oct 21, 2:50 am, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 10/20/2011 6:37 PM, nihil0 wrote: > > > However, this class action argument assumes that the value-density > > approach is an acceptable way to measure the value in a world. There > > are a few problems with the value-density approach. First of all, it > > seems to give up aggregationism (total consequentialism) in favor of > > average consequentialism. Average consequentialism has the > > counterintuitive implication that we should kill people who have below- > > average utility and few friends or loved ones, such as some hermits > > and homeless people. Secondly, the value-density approach "places > > ethical significance on the spatiotemporal distribution of value." > > This is at odds with consequentialism's commitment to impartiality > > (the idea that equal amounts of value are equally good to promote, no > > matter who or where the beneficiaries are). > > But this kind of consequentialism is already unworkable. Who counts as a > beneficiary? a > fetus? someone not yet conceived? chimpanzees? dogs? spiders? In practice we > value the > well-being of some people a lot more than others and we do so for the simple > reason that > it makes our life better. > > Brent > > > > > > > > > Third, the value-density > > approach fails to apply to inhomogeneous infinite worlds . . . because > > value-density is undefined for such worlds." (16) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
