Toby Ord's Main Argument Against Negative Utilitarianism Is Correct

Negative utilitarianism misidentifies what is valuable.

Philosopher Toby Ord says the following is his “main argument” against negative utilitarianism:

In their day to day lives, people make tradeoffs between happiness and suffering. They go to the gym, they work hard in order to buy themselves nicer food, they sprint for the bus to make it to the theatre on time, they read great books and listen to beautiful music when they could instead be focusing on removing suffering from their lives. According to all commonly held theories of wellbeing, such tradeoffs can improve people’s lives.

However, there is a big problem for [negative utilitarianism] in how it assesses these tradeoffs. Absolute [negative utilitarianism] and Lexical [negative utilitarianism] say that no such tradeoff can be moral, as does Lexical Threshold [negative utilitarianism] if the amount of suffering is greater than its threshold.¹

In his point-by-point critique of Toby Ord’s argument, Magnus Vinding writes:

In particular, going to the gym helps to prevent suffering caused by poor physical fitness and feelings of idleness (conversely, it seems unlikely that the aim of minimizing suffering would recommend being physically inactive). Likewise, to the extent that people “work hard in order to buy themselves nicer food”, one can question whether that behavior is indeed mainly driven by the aim of attaining pure pleasure, rather than reducing frustrated preferences and cravings (e.g. tasty foods may relieve gustatory cravings, healthier foods may help keep bad health at bay, and fancy foods may satisfy a need to signal social status).

One could make the same point about “sprinting to make it to the theater on time”, in that failing to make it to the theater on time is likely to trigger unpleasant feelings such as embarrassment (due to other people’s judgments) and regret (due to missing parts of the play). And people may have similar motives for visiting the theater in the first place — e.g. avoiding boredom, avoiding the perception of being a low-status philistine, and avoiding the fear of missing out. The same goes for reading great books and listening to beautiful music: these activities often serve to reduce and prevent unpleasant states, such as feelings of stress and understimulation.

I think Vinding’s point eloquently captures my primary objection to negative utilitarianism.

First, Vinding’s argument gives counterintuitive results in any number of everyday situations. Let’s say I found out about a play my friend would love, but that she otherwise wouldn’t have learned about. If I don’t tell her, she’ll enjoy a quiet, pleasant evening at home with no suffering. Vinding’s argument suggests that it is morally wrong to tell her about the play—no matter how much pleasure it would bring her—because she might have to sprint to make it to the theater on time.

Similarly, let’s say that you had only looked at mediocre art and were content with this. I showed you a piece of much, much more beautiful art and gave you a new sense of what art could be. Under Vinding’s argument, I wronged you, because now you’ll be discontent with the mediocre art you were looking at before. Or let’s say that you had bad taste in art, and then went to an art appreciation class, and learned to tell good art from bad. The art appreciation class is morally wrong because you are no longer content with the flower paintings in hotel lobbies.

Let’s say I’m not particularly concerned about social status: anyone who would judge me as a philistine is a ridiculous person whose opinion I do not need to take into account. Still, I have a great appreciation of fine wine. I don’t suffer without it—if a doctor told me I had to stop drinking wine for my health I’d be fine with that—but it brings me pleasure. You are just as happy with a $20 bottle of whatever happens to be in the store, except that you occasionally worry that people will judge your for this preference. Vinding’s argument implies that you should go on a Napa Valley wine-tasting tour and I shouldn’t.

Or let’s say that I want children. Raising children is often unpleasant and stressful and involves a truly astonishing number of bodily fluids. Still, it gives me a sense of meaning and purpose and fulfillment in my life; I feel a sense of deep contentment about the contribution I’m making to the next generation. If I had never had children, I would feel an occasional wistful desire for children, but the absence of meaning wouldn’t cause me any intense suffering. Vinding suggests that I shouldn’t have kids.

Or let’s say that you have great equanimity. You rarely experience regret about missed opportunities or bad things that happen to you; you experience pleasure in the small things in life and are rarely bored. Maybe you meditated a lot and reached enlightenment, I don’t know. Vinding’s argument suggests that it no longer matters whether you get to read books or listen to music that brings you joy.

Second, Vinding’s argument doesn’t line up with my intuitive sense of value. Without generalizing to other people—I support your right to pursue your own sense of the Good—I find my desire for social status to be a nasty, vicious little passion. It rarely guides me to do things that, in retrospect, I’m proud of or that reflect the sort of person I want to be. I accept this desire as part of myself, but when I notice I’m doing something only in order to get The Imaginary Judgmental Societal Hivemind That I Just Made Up to think I’m cool, I usually take that as a sign to do something else.

On the other hand, my desire for beauty, for achievement according to my own judgment, even for raw physical pleasure—these I endorse. When I pursue these things, I like myself better and I’m more the sort of person I want to be. I do not appreciate people saying that, actually, the thing that matters is those of my preferences I don’t like and don’t endorse and that make me a worse person, and that the things that give my life meaning are worthless.

I don’t believe my intuitions about social status generalize to everyone. But I think nearly everyone agrees that the primary benefit of going to the theater is not “people might judge me if I don’t” or “I have crippling FOMO.” Nearly everyone agrees that it is desirable to eat food you like, even if you had no particular cravings for it and no one cares about your eating habits. Nearly everyone agrees it is nice if your favorite song comes on the radio, even if you weren’t especially bored or understimulated before.

Vinding’s examples seem, in a fundamental sort of way, to be missing the point. Music is about more than preventing boredom; food is about more than fulfilling cravings; the theater is about more than seeming erudite to your friends. A life where you only care about the things negative utilitarians care about seems like a sad, empty sort of life—one which doesn’t have most of what makes life worth living.

1. The differences between these views don’t really matter for the argument.