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      "body": "In the previous posts ([Part I](https://steemit.com/ethics/@raztard/ethics-is-an-optimization-problem), [Part II](https://steemit.com/philosophy/@raztard/who-matters)) in this series I proposed that ethics from a global perspective is best seen as an optimization problem, and that the objective is to maximize the individual utility values of all sentient beings. Utility was defined in terms of what each sentient being would prefer for itself if it could somehow choose one out of a number of counterfactual alternatives after having lived through them all.\n\nIn order to close in on a mathematical formulation of the moral optimization problem I propose that each sentient individual (as defined in [Part II](https://steemit.com/philosophy/@raztard/who-matters)) at each given time can be assigned a real-valued number which we will call its utility. The higher the utility number, the more the individual will be inclined to prefer this particular state of the world compared to the alternatives. I hypothesize that it is possible to define utility in this manner so that it is *transitive*, *i.e.* if outcome *A* is preferred to outcome *B*, and *B* is preferred to *C*, then it is always the case that *A* is preferred to *C*. \n\nUnfortunately, intransitivity of preferences in decision making is routinely observed in both behavioral economics and psychology studies, making this assumption questionable at first sight. However, these studies observe how people actually make decisions in real life and what they seem to show is how sensitive our decision making strategies are to what should be irrelevant situational details. For example, having recently encountered an arbitrary number affects how much money subjects report being willing to pay for goods, such that a higher number makes people more willing to pay, even if it is explicitly stated that it is a random number (for more reading on such quirks of cognition I recommend Daniel Kahneman's seminal book *Thinking, fast and slow*). As such, these experiments do not reveal the actual utility subjects get out of the different options but only how much relative utility the subjects, with their limited foresight, *predict* they will get out of them. And since decision making is such a hard task, we often make do with quick and dirty heuristics that work well enough most of the time.\n\nIndeed, we often realize eventually (or at least come to believe) that we made the wrong decision as we bear the consequences. This suggests to me that while we often fail to make the optimal choices, it is probably possible, at least *in principle*, to order the utility values of counterfactuals. However difficult this is in practice, all we need for our theoretical edifice is that it is possible in principle. Transitivity is thus one of the central postulates of the theory proposed here.\n\nWe are now at a point where it is possible to formalize the optimization problem mathematically. As I argued in [Part I](https://steemit.com/ethics/@raztard/ethics-is-an-optimization-problem), ethics is fundamentally a multi-agent problem. The main questions that we need to address in order to move from an individual to a global measure of utility are 1) how to assign moral weights to different moral subjects, and 2) how to accumulate their individual utilities into a single global value.\n\nThis post will mostly deal with the second aspect, as the first one is complex enough to warrant at least a full post of its own. For the purposes of this discussion, we will simply state (without supporting arguments for now) that every individual can be assigned a number representing its degree of sentience, and that this is the moral weight of the subject. Conceptually, this degree of sentience encodes the extent to which an individual is aware of, and has a capacity to care for, distinctions in its environment.\n\nAs for how to weigh together individual utilities, there are two obvious suggestions which have been amply discussed thoughout the history of utilitarianism, both with clear merits and shortcomings. The first of these is to simply add up all individual utilities. Each individual will have a range of possible utility values, the span of which depends on its degree of sentience. The global utility at a given instant in time is then simply computed as the sum of all individual utility values. In this scheme, a world with many sentient beings is considered to be morally superior to one with fewer or more dimly sentient beings, which makes a certain amount of sense. After all, a universe devoid of sentience is not a very meaningful place. However, it also tells us that we should put as many children as possible into the world, even if they are expected to live in misery. Clearly this doesn't work as universally as we would like it to.\n\nThe other obvious choice is to instead compute the average utility and strive to maximize this. In this scheme we avoid the absurd moral imperative to procreate at any cost, but on the other hand, this scheme tells you to kill anyone whose utility level is below average, which hardly seems like the moral thing to do. So we have two simple schemes, neither of which stands up to scrutiny. Of course we could be creative and try to divine up some kind of nonlinear function of the individual utilities, but we don't have complete freedom in choosing such a function. To begin with, we would want to conserve the symmetry  between individuals in the sense that nobody is special. We also want the global utility to be a  monotonously growing function of the individual utilities, so that if anyone is better off, all else being equal, the global utility increases. So our hands are pretty tied. What gives?\n\nMy solution to this problem is to note that the moral good of a single state in isolation is not meaningful. Ethics is about choosing among possible transitions from the current state to a future one. Because of this, *transitions* is what our moral value function needs to evaluate. In some transitions, the subtleties described in the previous paragraphs don't apply since all the stakeholders in a transition are present both before and after the transition. In these cases it doesn't matter whether we use an additive or average measure of utility, they will both yield the same ordering of possible transitions. \n\nThe difficult cases discussed above all stem from *changing numbers of moral subjects*. In assessing transitions where the total amount of sentience in the universe changes, it is important to recognize that the stakeholders that matter are the ones in existence *before the transition*, as these are the ones who are currently real. We cannot take into account the interests of not yet conceived children, *because they do not yet exist*, they are only potential. They are not actual persons but a probability distribution over the persons they may become if born at all. Likewise, in a transition where someone dies, it seems obvious that their interests should have a bearing on the global moral utility, so that we in this case are lead to choose an average measure of utility.\n\nThis resolves the issues with the previous suggestions, but isn't it too simplistic to completely disregard the unborn? What above our moral duty to be good stewards of the world so that future generations should not suffer for our sins? It would be a quite extreme position to say that we have no responsibility at all to those unborn. The simple summing scheme told us that it is morally right to produce offspring even to miserable lives, but now it seems it is simply morally irrelevant.\n\nWell, not quite. It is not exactly that the unborn don't matter, and they are not unreal in the sense of being fictional. There will certainly be people in the next generation, unless we drive ourselves to extinction in a very near future. We can describe quite well the aggregate interests of, say, the next billion people to be born, because their individual differences, which we cannot predict, will smooth out over the population, and in the big scheme of things, they will be, well, human. Thus this group of people, even though they are not yet sentient beings, can be straightforwardly included in moral considerations about the future. Failure to do so is negligence on the part of the moral optimizer. Thus in a sense, this billion of unborn children is real, even if none of them individually exist yet.\n\nWhat about the moral implications of bringing a single child into the world? There is of course the effects on the parents and other currently living people, which our model already covers. But what about the interests of the potential new person?  In this case the uncertainty is much larger. However, there are some things we can know that somewhat narrows the probability distribution of moral outcomes for the unborn. If the parents are starving in destitute poverty, the prospects of the child are probably not very favorable. If the parents are prosperous, living in an affluent society and yearn for children, its chances of having a life worth living is of course much better.\nFollowing the principle stated in the previous post: \n\n>The interest of each individual should be considered in such a way that their moral vote is cast on the alternative that they would prefer above all others if they were to live through all alternatives,\n\nit seems that it is morally good to bring a child to the world if the expectation value of the change in global utility including the utility of the child, is positive. The child's utility should be evalutated  over the probability distribution of possible life trajectories, in each case from the perspective of the distribution of personalities that the child could have. While this definition is hardly actionable in practice, it is theoretically consistent, which is all we need here.\n\nSumming up our conclusions from this part of the series, ethics is an optimization problem with the aim of maximizing the global utility of sentient beings, where the global utility is defined as the (weighted) average utility of currently existing moral stakeholders and a probability distribution representing the average utility of stakeholders brought into existence during the transition.\n\nThe probability distributions alluded to throughout this post merit some discussion of how they are to be interpreted. These distributions are Bayesian in nature, meaning that they reflect not some carefully measured frequency behavior of a well defined process, like casting dice, but rather the believes of whoever is doing the moral consideration. As such they are not objective facts of the world. However, given a set of believes of what is likely to happen, the theoretical framework presented here is meant to give you guidance in how to act to maximize the expected moral outcomes.\n\nThere is another point that is always relevant when making decisions under uncertainty. As a lot of different very smart people have been credited with saying: *it is hard to make predictions, especially about the future*. And if the near future is hard to predict, the far future is so much more difficult. The further ahead you try to forecast, the more uncertain are your projections. This has bearings on rational decision making. Economists have understood this for a long time and encode it in what is called *discount rates*. The economic concept has many reasons, only one of which is uncertainty, but the point here is that the further into the future something is expected to happen, the less weight you should give it in your decision making, simply because you are more uncertain about its relevance. In any actual application of moral optimization, there therefore needs to be some kind of discounting of the future. This concludes the current discussion and I would just like to close by repeating the moral equation, as we have stated it in words:\n\n>Ethics is an optimization problem with the aim of maximizing the global utility of sentient beings, where the global utility is defined as the weighted average utility of currently existing moral stakeholders and a probability distribution representing the average utility of stakeholders brought into existence during the transition, discounted in proportion to their uncertainty.\n\nIf you've made it this far into the text, thanks for reading. As always, feel free to upvote, resteem, share on other social media or comment if you found this interesting.",
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      "body": "You know empirically what caring feels like for you. I think that is the fact of the matter of what it means for you to care. And I believe that mattering is something that people do, who care about anything. Because if you care about something, that something matters to you, which means that in some sense, this thing now matters, whereas if no one cared about it, it wouldn't matter at all.\n\nI also believe that there are a lot of things that matter that you can by and a lot of things that matter that you cannot buy, but we tend to focus more on those things which we frustratingly cannot buy.\n\nThanks for reading and dropping a line, I'll make sure to take a look at your content as well!",
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      "body": "I am curious of what your own opinions are on Kant's philosophy? I myself am quite conflicted. I have to laud him for being the first to make a proper attempt to describe moral philosophy from first principles. At the same time I believe he tried too hard and pushed on too far so that he would reach a full synthesis with the tools he had to his disposal. To me, while often being a good heuristic for moral conduct, it seems clear that there cannot strictly exist anything like a true categorical imperative, except for ones that are so vague as to almost not mean anything at all.\n\nI think it is comparable to Marx and Freud, both astute observers and ambitious theorists but ultimately wrong in most of their conclusions. By trying to be too general while basing their theories on too little quantitative data, they fall short of actually describing the world accurately, as does Kant, e.g. in the thought experiment of hiding jews from Nazi officers and refusing to lie to save their life because lying must be wrong according to the cathegorical imperative.",
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      "body": "Why am I reading this just now!\n\nIt took me more than 5+ years to realize the following: \n\"...even if someone is not competent enough to know what is in their own self interest (as defined by themselves), a custodian might not be the best answer, since incapacitation usually comes with a cost in terms of frustration, social standing and self esteem. It is therefore in every case important to weigh all the benefits and costs against each other to arrive at a true optimum.\"\n\nA great post again @raztard, resteemed!",
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      "body": "Right. Human exceptionalism is another issue - I personally find it is quite hard to justify in a secular perspective though. Because drawing an arbitrary conclusion on what beings worth more can easily backfire. i.e. what if the black people think the white people worthless 100 years after? Would it be justified if they ascent to a dominance position in the world?\n\nBtw, I checked out your blog. Interesting! I like your perspective of taking a computational scientist's perspective on \"optimizing\" moral problems. I am a utilitarian and I think there's quite a lot of common grounds between our moral view - I think our advancement in​​ computer science does definitely​ give us a new tool for​ evaluating utility​. Look forward to more of your posts.",
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      "body": "Good balanced commentary. Have you seen crypto investor's and datadash's videos on Raiblocks? Which one of them do you think got it more right?",
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      "body": "Thank you for reading, raztard! Yes, I'll be posting more on this interface :) \n\nI'm looking forward to reading and resteeming that too!",
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      "body": "Vielen Dank! :)",
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      "body": "Congratulations @raztard! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :\n\n[![](https://steemitimages.com/70x80/http://steemitboard.com/notifications/firstvoted.png)](http://steemitboard.com/@raztard) You got a First Vote\n[![](https://steemitimages.com/70x80/http://steemitboard.com/notifications/firstcommented.png)](http://steemitboard.com/@raztard) You got a First Reply\n\nClick on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.\nFor more information about SteemitBoard, click [here](https://steemit.com/@steemitboard)\n\nIf you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word `STOP`\n\n> By upvoting this notification, you can help all Steemit users. Learn how [here](https://steemit.com/steemitboard/@steemitboard/http-i-cubeupload-com-7ciqeo-png)!",
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      "title": "Who matters? And who cares?",
      "body": "This is part II of a planned series of posts on the foundations of ethics. In the [first part](https://steemit.com/ethics/@raztard/ethics-is-an-optimization-problem) (which you should probably read first if you haven't) I made the case that ethics (from a systems perspective) can be formulated as an optimization problem and I promised that subsequent posts would go over how to actually do this. The most difficult part of this task lies in relating and negotiating the interests of different moral stakeholders, but before tackling these thorny issues, let us first discuss who should have the right to moral consideration in the first place, and what moral good means for those individuals considered in isolation.\n\nIn the [previous post](https://steemit.com/ethics/@raztard/ethics-is-an-optimization-problem) I argued that when reasonable people disagree on how society should be organized it is mostly because they substitute a complex problem, which they cannot solve (how to create the best world possible) with one that is more tractable (how to maximize freedom/fairness/equality/prosperity etc, depending on their personal sensibilities). I find that another much too common reason for people to argue (even if they basically agree completely) is the imprecise use of words – often highly abstract ones that tend to mean very different things to different people.\n\nWhile a field of study is in its infancy, people tend to use whatever everyday words that best fit what they are trying to describe. In the beginning, the wording is very heterogeneous, but with time the nomenclature is coalesced, and words that are vague and ambiguous in their everyday usage take on a precise technical meaning within the field. A good example of this is work. In colloquial use it could mean effort, employment or even to function. In the physical sciences however, it has come to take on the very precise meaning of force exerted on a body over its trajectory (where force is incidentally another great example).\n\nSince ethics from a scientific perspective is very much in its infancy (in terms of not yet having produced any consensus results) its frequently used words are still rife with ambiguity. I would therefore like to start this post by clearly defining my own personal use of some foundational words. As stated in the previous post, I believe ethics and morality only make sense as concepts because there are sentient beings. So before moving on to comparing the interests of different sentient beings I want to make sure we are on the same page regarding how I define sentience (whether or not that agrees with yours or anybody else's definition). Related to sentience, another word that has people talking past each other to no end is consciousness, and I wish to clarify what I mean with consciousness as well, so that I can later use these words at my discretion.\n\nI will start with the latter word, since to me consciousness is a prerequisite for sentience. I define consciousness as having a subjective experience. It does not involve *self* consciousness, inner monologue or anything else apart from simply having an experience. If there is no consciousness, nobody is home in the universe, which means that no one can possibly be there to care about good or evil. On the other hand, it is conceivable (at least at our present understanding of consciousness) that there would be conscious beings who simply don't care about anything. Such beings would not have a concept of good or bad as they couldn't care less either way. They do therefore not fulfill the requirements for being moral stakeholders. A conscious being who also has a subjective experience of good or bad (in the strictly self interested sense for now) are defined as sentient. A shorter, snappier way of putting it is that a moral stakeholder is anyone who cares.\n\nEthics is then the business of maximizing the subjectively good for all sentient beings (i.e. moral stakeholders). But what is to be maximized, exactly? Historically, in the tradition of utilitarianism, hedonic qualities were the first to be considered. Good was defined as pleasure, bad as pain. While Bentham's hedonic calculus involved many variables, including the intensity, duration, immediateness and certainty that the pain or pleasure would follow from a given act, ultimately, the qualities that mattered were pain and pleasure. If we accept his calculus it follows that the greatest moral good would be for everyone to have constant orgasms in a comfortable bed on a Mediterranean beach while eating cheese crust pizza and drinking mojitos or something to the same effect. Is that really the life you want? (Admittedly, that doesn't sound too bad, but I would definitely get tired of it eventually.)\n\nEven for animals, it seems that the most worthwhile life would not be one of constant high intensity pleasure (Bentham's successor, John Stuart Mill, made similar objections to the simple hedonistic view of moral optimum. His proposed solution was to distinguish between higher (mental and spiritual) and lower (purely carnal) forms of pleasure. However, I do not find this very satisfactory as it is very arbitrary and heavily tainted by cultural biases). Rather, the best examples we could find of happy mammals would have their basic needs provided. They would not go hungry (maybe even finding the occasional special treat), they would have access to sexual partners, be able to provide for themselves and their offspring by exercising their skills at hunting, grazing or gathering food. If they were social animals they would probably be on the top of the social ladder among their peers, while not being seriously challenged by the next in line. Fear of predators would be absent or intermittent. What would it feel like to be such an animal? Of course, we can only speculate. But I bet it would not be anything like the constant orgasm scenario painted in the last paragraph.\n\nRather than constant ecstasy their emotional valence would be mostly neutral, with semi regular spikes of positive affect and a few hedonic dips of pain, discomfort and uncertainty, representing the challenges of life, usually successfully overcome. Thus, the indivual maximization of moral good for a mammal in isolation would look somewhat like a rollercoaster ride, with most of the deviations from equilibrium to the postive side.\n\nThis picture strikes a chord in the human case as well. Like the sucessful rodent, a maximally happy human is probably safe and warm, neither starving nor obese, with the financial means to fulfill most of one's other material desires. She or he has a good social standing and ample mutual trust among family and friends. But in contrast with the other animals, this is not the full picture.\n\nMost humans want a meaningful job, they want to contribute to something greater than themselves. They have hopes and dreams. They are the only ones who know of their own mortality, which allows them to fear death (their own and their loved ones'), and they may wish to be remembered after they are gone. Due to our exceptionally large social groups, superior communication skills as well as stories, news and gossip, we are aware of a host of possible fates that might befall us or those for which we care. Our ability to comprehend arbitrarily abstract concepts and understand ourselves and our environment in terms of those gives us an additional layer of metacognition with no counterpart in other species.\n\nIt seems to me that even the more nuanced picture given above of how animal welfare is maximized is not sufficient to understand what to maximize for optimal human outcomes. However, all these layers of metacognition, however many and contorted, build up to a top layer with a very accessible interface: If you want to know what a human truly wants, why not just ask them?\n\nAny imagined utilitarian utopia where humans are kept as well-provided-for zoo animals would be more like a dystopia to most people. Why? Because we evolved executive function to be able to make quick and adaptable decisions on what is best for us. The evolutionary rationale for this is that while our genes set the boundary conditions of what we seek in life, an adult human being will usually be able to make much more adaptive decisions within the circumstances where they find themselves than any hard coded instincts ever could. This has lead to most humans strongly valuing the ability to independently make decisions regarding their own lives.\n\nIt thus seems like each moral stakeholder with the ability to speak for their own interests be free to do so. However, there are important objections to this prescription. There are many cases of humans who would not be better off deciding for themselves, the most obvious example being children. All cultures, to my knowledge, recognize that children are better off if a lot of decisions affecting their wellbeing are outsourced to their caregivers, because they don't yet have sufficient life experience to make competent decisions.\n\nThis exception and others (e.g. the demented elderly) tells us that we need a refinement to the principle hinted at above. This refinement should respect the intuitive exceptions but maintain the spirit of the principle. I propose that for moral optimization, the interest of each individual should be considered in such a way that their moral vote is cast on the alternative that they would prefer above all others if they were to live through all  alternatives. This means that if someone else is better equipped to make such choices, this may be warranted. I wish I could state this in a more precise and lucid fashion, but for now, this is the best I can do. As this is the main conclusion of this part of the series, I will reiterate it:\n\n>The interest of each individual should be considered in such a way that their moral vote is cast on the alternative that they would prefer above all others if they were to live through all  alternatives\n\nThis refined principle maintains some sense of self sovereignty even to those in need of a custodian. Even if their custodian is the one actually making the decision, in order to optimize moral outcomes, they should make the decision in such a way that they believe the likely outcome will be the one preferred by their protege. This principle applies equally to animals. Wild animals are often better equipped than anyone else to fend for their own wellbeing (even if they don't actually succeed). Their behavior will be a boundedly rational attempt at just this: making the choices that are most likely to be preferred by themselves in the long run. However, for domesticated or injured animals, there is a strong moral case for human custodianship. \n\nThe refined principle also enshrines a subtle caveat: even if someone is not competent enough to know what is in their own self interest (as defined by themselves), a custodian might not be the best answer, since incapacitation usually comes with a cost in terms of frustration, social standing and self esteem. It is therefore in every case important to weigh all the benefits and costs against each other to arrive at a true optimum.\n\nThis leads to the primacy of consent in moral decisionmaking, as very eloquently formulated in [this recent post](https://steemit.com/philosophy/@voluntaryelle/that-bastard-understanding-morality#@raztard/re-voluntaryelle-that-bastard-understanding-morality-20180101t002059948z) by [voluntaryelle](https://steemit.com/@voluntaryelle) which I highly recommend.\n\nI hope you found this piece interesting, and whether you agree or disagree, please let me know in the comment field – in this way we might both learn something! And if you found it interesting at all, please upvote!",
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      "body": "I believe your are absolutely right on this. Are you planning to write additional pieces on the interface of robotics, AI and ethics? Would be interesting to read.\n\nI  also intend to write a future post on how to compare the moral worth of different sorts of beings, including robots and pure software.",
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      "body": "Thanks a lot for the resteem!\n\nYeah, I really agree with you that it's getting easier to discuss with time and human development. But in the meantime, while it is still a difficult subject to discuss with people in general, let's continue discussing it with likeminded people on the internet :)\n\nIch wünche dich auch einen Schöner Tag! \n(only guessing German is your first language based on your introduction post in German)",
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      "author": "raztard",
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      "body": "This is part II of a planned series of posts on the foundations of ethics. In the [first part](https://steemit.com/ethics/@raztard/ethics-is-an-optimization-problem) (which you should probably read first if you haven't) I made the case that ethics (from a systems perspective) can be formulated as an optimization problem and I promised that subsequent posts would go over how to actually do this. The most difficult part of this task lies in relating and negotiating the interests of different moral stakeholders, but before tackling these thorny issues, let us first discuss who should have the right to moral consideration in the first place, and what moral good means for those individuals considered in isolation.\n\nIn the [previous post](https://steemit.com/ethics/@raztard/ethics-is-an-optimization-problem) I argued that when reasonable people disagree on how society should be organized it is mostly because they substitute a complex problem, which they cannot solve (how to create the best world possible) with one that is more tractable (how to maximize freedom/fairness/equality/prosperity etc, depending on their personal sensibilities). I find that another much too common reason for people to argue (even if they basically agree completely) is the imprecise use of words – often highly abstract ones that tend to mean very different things to different people.\n\nWhile a field of study is in its infancy, people tend to use whatever everyday words that best fit what they are trying to describe. In the beginning, the wording is very heterogeneous, but with time the nomenclature is coalesced, and words that are vague and ambiguous in their everyday usage take on a precise technical meaning within the field. A good example of this is work. In colloquial use it could mean effort, employment or even to function. In the physical sciences however, it has come to take on the very precise meaning of force exerted on a body over its trajectory (where force is incidentally another great example).\n\nSince ethics from a scientific perspective is very much in its infancy (in terms of not yet having produced any consensus results) its frequently used words are still rife with ambiguity. I would therefore like to start this post by clearly defining my own personal use of some foundational words. As stated in the previous post, I believe ethics and morality only make sense as concepts because there are sentient beings. So before moving on to comparing the interests of different sentient beings I want to make sure we are on the same page regarding how I define sentience (whether or not that agrees with yours or anybody else's definition). Related to sentience, another word that has people talking past each other to no end is consciousness, and I wish to clarify what I mean with consciousness as well, so that I can later use these words at my discretion.\n\nI will start with the latter word, since to me consciousness is a prerequisite for sentience. I define consciousness as having a subjective experience. It does not involve *self* consciousness, inner monologue or anything else apart from simply having an experience. If there is no consciousness, nobody is home in the universe, which means that no one can possibly be there to care about good or evil. On the other hand, it is conceivable (at least at our present understanding of consciousness) that there would be conscious beings who simply don't care about anything. Such beings would not have a concept of good or bad as they couldn't care less either way. They do therefore not fulfill the requirements for being moral stakeholders. A conscious being who also has a subjective experience of good or bad (in the strictly self interested sense for now) are defined as sentient. A shorter, snappier way of putting it is that a moral stakeholder is anyone who cares.\n\nEthics is then the business of maximizing the subjectively good for all sentient beings (i.e. moral stakeholders). But what is to be maximized, exactly? Historically, in the tradition of utilitarianism, hedonic qualities were the first to be considered. Good was defined as pleasure, bad as pain. While Bentham's hedonic calculus involved many variables, including the intensity, duration, immediateness and certainty that the pain or pleasure would follow from a given act, ultimately, the qualities that mattered were pain and pleasure. If we accept his calculus it follows that the greatest moral good would be for everyone to have constant orgasms in a comfortable bed on a Mediterranean beach while eating cheese crust pizza and drinking mojitos or something to the same effect. Is that really the life you want? (Admittedly, that doesn't sound too bad, but I would definitely get tired of it eventually.)\n\nEven for animals, it seems that the most worthwhile life would not be one of constant high intensity pleasure (Bentham's successor, John Stuart Mill, made similar objections to the simple hedonistic view of moral optimum. His proposed solution was to distinguish between higher (mental and spiritual) and lower (purely carnal) forms of pleasure. However, I do not find this very satisfactory as it is very arbitrary and heavily tainted by cultural biases). Rather, the best examples we could find of happy mammals would have their basic needs provided. They would not go hungry (maybe even finding the occasional special treat), they would have access to sexual partners, be able to provide for themselves and their offspring by exercising their skills at hunting, grazing or gathering food. If they were social animals they would probably be on the top of the social ladder among their peers, while not being seriously challenged by the next in line. Fear of predators would be absent or intermittent. What would it feel like to be such an animal? Of course, we can only speculate. But I bet it would not be anything like the constant orgasm scenario painted in the last paragraph.\n\nRather than constant ecstasy their emotional valence would be mostly neutral, with semi regular spikes of positive affect and a few hedonic dips of pain, discomfort and uncertainty, representing the challenges of life, usually successfully overcome. Thus, the indivual maximization of moral good for a mammal in isolation would look somewhat like a rollercoaster ride, with most of the deviations from equilibrium to the postive side.\n\nThis picture strikes a chord in the human case as well. Like the sucessful rodent, a maximally happy human is probably safe and warm, neither starving nor obese, with the financial means to fulfill most of one's other material desires. She or he has a good social standing and ample mutual trust among family and friends. But in contrast with the other animals, this is not the full picture.\n\nMost humans want a meaningful job, they want to contribute to something greater than themselves. They have hopes and dreams. They are the only ones who know of their own mortality, which allows them to fear death (their own and their loved ones'), and they may wish to be remembered after they are gone. Due to our exceptionally large social groups, superior communication skills as well as stories, news and gossip, we are aware of a host of possible fates that might befall us or those for which we care. Our ability to comprehend arbitrarily abstract concepts and understand ourselves and our environment in terms of those gives us an additional layer of metacognition with no counterpart in other species.\n\nIt seems to me that even the more nuanced picture given above of how animal welfare is maximized is not sufficient to understand what to maximize for optimal human outcomes. However, all these layers of metacognition, however many and contorted, build up to a top layer with a very accessible interface: If you want to know what a human truly wants, why not just ask them?\n\nAny imagined utilitarian utopia where humans are kept as well-provided-for zoo animals would be more like a dystopia to most people. Why? Because we evolved executive function to be able to make quick and adaptable decisions on what is best for us. The evolutionary rationale for this is that while our genes set the boundary conditions of what we seek in life, an adult human being will usually be able to make much more adaptive decisions within the circumstances where they find themselves than any hard coded instincts ever could. This has lead to most humans strongly valuing the ability to independently make decisions regarding their own lives.\n\nIt thus seems like each moral stakeholder with the ability to speak for their own interests be free to do so. However, there are important objections to this prescription. There are many cases of humans who would not be better off deciding for themselves, the most obvious example being children. All cultures, to my knowledge, recognize that children are better off if a lot of decisions affecting their wellbeing are outsourced to their caregivers, because they don't yet have sufficient life experience to make competent decisions.\n\nThis exception and others (e.g. the demented elderly) tells us that we need a refinement to the principle hinted at above. This refinement should respect the intuitive exceptions but maintain the spirit of the principle. I propose that for moral optimization, the interest of each individual should be considered in such a way that their moral vote is cast on the alternative that they would prefer above all others if they were to live through all  alternatives. This means that if someone else is better equipped to make such choices, this may be warranted. I wish I could state this in a more precise and lucid fashion, but for now, this is the best I can do. As this is the main conclusion of this part of the series, I will reiterate it:\n\n>The interest of each individual should be considered in such a way that their moral vote is cast on the alternative that they would prefer above all others if they were to live through all  alternatives\n\nThis refined principle maintains some sense of self sovereignty even to those in need of a custodian. Even if their custodian is the one actually making the decision, in order to optimize moral outcomes, they should make the decision in such a way that they believe the likely outcome will be the one preferred by their protege. This principle applies equally to animals. Wild animals are often better equipped than anyone else to fend for their own wellbeing (even if they don't actually succeed). Their behavior will be a boundedly rational attempt at just this: making the choices that are most likely to be preferred by themselves in the long run. However, for domesticated or injured animals, there is a strong moral case for human custodianship. \n\nThe refined principle also enshrines a subtle caveat: even if someone is not competent enough to know what is in their own self interest (as defined by themselves), a custodian might not be the best answer, since incapacitation usually comes with a cost in terms of frustration, social standing and self esteem. It is therefore in every case important to weigh all the benefits and costs against each other to arrive at a true optimum.\n\nThis leads to the primacy of consent in moral decisionmaking, as very eloquently formulated in [this recent post](https://steemit.com/philosophy/@voluntaryelle/that-bastard-understanding-morality#@raztard/re-voluntaryelle-that-bastard-understanding-morality-20180101t002059948z) by [voluntaryelle](https://steemit.com/@voluntaryelle) which I highly recommend.\n\nI hope you found this piece interesting, and whether you agree or disagree, please let me know in the comment field – in this way we might both learn something! And if you found it interesting at all, please upvote!",
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