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Negative utilitarianism
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Negative utilitarianism (NU) is a form of negative consequentialism that can be described as the view that people should minimize the total amount of aggregate suffering, or that they should minimize suffering and then, secondarily, maximize the total amount of happiness. It can be regarded as a version of utilitarianism that gives greater priority to reducing suffering (negative utility or "disutility") than to increasing pleasure (positive utility).[1] This differs from classical utilitarianism, which does not claim that reducing suffering is intrinsically more important than increasing happiness. Both versions of utilitarianism, however, hold that whether an action is morally right or wrong depends solely on whether it promotes or decreases net well-being.[2] Such well-being consists of both positive and negative aspects, that is, it is the sum of what is good and what is bad for individuals.[3]

Negative utilitarianism would thus differ from other consequentialist views, such as negative prioritarianism or negative egalitarianism. While these other theories would also support minimizing suffering, they would give special weight to reducing the suffering of those who are worse off.

The term "negative utilitarianism" is used by some authors to denote the theory that reducing negative well-being is the only thing that ultimately matters morally.[4] Others distinguish between "strong" and "weak" versions of negative utilitarianism, where strong versions are only concerned with reducing negative well-being, and weak versions say that both positive and negative well-being matter but that negative well-being matters more.[5]

Other versions of negative utilitarianism differ in how much weight they give to negative well-being ('disutility') compared to positive well-being (positive utility), as well as the different conceptions of what well-being (utility) is. For example, negative preference utilitarianism says that the well-being in an outcome depends on frustrated preferences. Negative hedonistic utilitarianism thinks of well-being in terms of pleasant and unpleasant experiences.[6] There are many other variations on how negative utilitarianism can be specified.

The term "negative utilitarianism" was introduced by R. Ninian Smart in 1958 in his reply to Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies. Smart also presented the most famous argument against negative utilitarianism:[7] that negative utilitarianism would entail that a ruler who is able to instantly and painlessly destroy the human race would have a duty to do so. Furthermore, every human being would have a moral responsibility to commit suicide, thereby preventing future suffering.[8] Many authors have endorsed the rationale behind these arguments against negative utilitarianism.[9][10][11][12][13]

History

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The term "negative utilitarianism" was introduced by R. N. Smart in his 1958 reply to Karl Popper's book[14] The Open Society and Its Enemies, published in 1945.[15] In the book, Popper emphasizes the importance of preventing suffering in public policy.[16] The ideas in negative utilitarianism have similarities with ancient traditions such as Jainism and Buddhism.[17] Ancient Greek philosopher Hegesias of Cyrene has been said to be "one of the earliest exponents of NU [Negative Utilitarianism]."[18] In more recent times, ideas similar to negative utilitarianism can be found in the works of 19th century psychologist Edmund Gurney who wrote:

Enough suffering will always remain to make the question of the desirability ... of their sojourn on earth a question which numbers will answer ... in the negative.... When we forget pain, or underestimate it, or talk about people "getting used to it", we are really so far losing sight of what the universe, which we wish to conceive adequately, really is.[19]

Discussions and writings about negative utilitarianism have become increasingly common, particularly in recent decades. While the term was relatively rare before the late 20th century, it has experienced a significant surge in usage since then. This could be attributed to various factors, such as the rise of movements focused on global suffering and the increasing accessibility of information.[20]

Present figures include David Pearce, a leading advocate of negative utilitarianism who has extensively explored its implications for future technological and ethical advancements. In his work The Hedonistic Imperative, Pearce argues for the use of biotechnology to eradicate suffering in all sentient beings.[21]

Versions

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Like other kinds of utilitarianism, negative utilitarianism can take many forms depending on what specific claims are taken to constitute the theory. For example, negative preference utilitarianism says that the utility of an outcome depends on frustrated preferences. Negative hedonistic utilitarianism thinks of utility in terms of hedonic mental states such as suffering and unpleasantness.[6] Negative Average Preference Utilitarianism[22] makes the same assumptions on what is good as negative preference utilitarianism, but states that the average number (per individual) of preferences frustrated should be minimized. Versions of (negative) utilitarianism can also differ based on whether the actual or expected consequences matter, and whether the aim is stated in terms of the average outcome among individuals or the total net utility (or lack of disutility) among them.[23] Negative utilitarianism can aim either to optimize the value of the outcome or it can be a satisficing negative utilitarianism, according to which an action ought to be taken if and only if the outcome would be sufficiently valuable (or have sufficiently low disvalue).[24] A key way in which negative utilitarian views can differ from one another is with respect to how much weight they give to negative well-being (disutility) compared to positive well-being (positive utility). This is a key area of variation because the key difference between negative utilitarianism and non-negative kinds of utilitarianism is that negative utilitarianism gives more weight to negative well-being.

The weight of evil (disutility)

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Philosophers Gustaf Arrhenius and Krister Bykvist develop a taxonomy of negative utilitarian views based on how the views weigh disutility against positive utility.[25] In total, they distinguish among 16 kinds of negative utilitarianism.[26] They first distinguish between strong negativism and weak negativism. Strong negativism "give all weight to disutility" and weak negativism "give some weight to positive utility, but more weight to disutility."[27] The most commonly discussed subtypes are probably two versions of weak negative utilitarianism called "lexical" and "lexical threshold" negative utilitarianism. According to "lexical" negative utilitarianism, positive utility gets weight only when outcomes are equal with respect to disutility. That is, positive utility functions as a tiebreaker in that it determines which outcome is better (or less bad) when the outcomes considered have equal disutility.[28] "Lexical threshold" negative utilitarianism says that there is some disutility, for instance some extreme suffering, such that no positive utility can counterbalance it.[29] 'Consent-based' negative utilitarianism is a specification of lexical threshold negative utilitarianism, which specifies where the threshold should be located. It says that if an individual is suffering and would at that moment not "agree to continue the suffering in order to obtain something else in the future" then the suffering cannot be outweighed by any happiness.[30]

Other distinctions among versions of negative utilitarianism

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Thomas Metzinger proposes the "principle of negative utilitarianism", which is the broad idea that suffering should be minimized when possible.[31] Mario Bunge writes about negative utilitarianism in his Treatise on Basic Philosophy but in a different sense than most others. In Bunge's sense, negative utilitarianism is about not harming.[32] In contrast, most other discussion of negative utilitarianism takes it to imply a duty both not to harm and to help (at least in the sense of reducing negative well-being).[33]

Tranquilist axiology, closely related to negative utilitarianism, states that "an individual experiential moment is as good as it can be for her if and only if she has no craving for change."[34] According to tranquilism, happiness and pleasure have no intrinsic value, only instrumental value. From this perspective, positive experiences superficially appear to have intrinsic value because these experiences substitute for, distract from, or relieve suffering or dissatisfaction that an agent would have otherwise faced in the absence of such experiences.

The benevolent world-exploder

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R. N. Smart introduced the term "negative utilitarianism" in a 1958 article and argued against it, stating that negative utilitarianism would entail that a ruler who is able to instantly and painlessly destroy the human race, "a benevolent world-exploder", would have a duty to do so.[35] This is the most famous argument against negative utilitarianism,[7] and it is directed against sufficiently strong versions of negative utilitarianism.[36] Many authors have endorsed this argument,[37] and some have presented counterarguments against it. Below are replies to this argument that have been presented and discussed.

Cooperation between different value systems

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One possible reply to this argument is that only a naive interpretation of negative utilitarianism would endorse world destruction. The conclusion can be mitigated by pointing out the importance of cooperation between different value systems.[38] There are good consequentialist reasons why one should be cooperative towards other value systems and it is particularly important to avoid doing something harmful to other value systems.[39] The destruction of the world would strongly violate many other value systems and endorsing it would therefore be uncooperative. Since there are many ways to reduce suffering which do not infringe on other value systems, it makes sense for negative utilitarians to focus on these options. In an extended interpretation of negative utilitarianism, cooperation with other value systems is considered and the conclusion is that it is better to reduce suffering without violating other value systems.[40]

Eliminating vs. reducing disutility

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Another reply to the benevolent world-exploder argument is that it does not distinguish between eliminating and reducing negative well-being, and that negative utilitarianism should plausibly be formulated in terms of reducing and not eliminating.[41] A counterargument to that reply is that elimination is a form of reduction, similar to how zero is a number.[42]

Attempting world destruction would be counterproductive

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Several philosophers have argued that to try to destroy the world (or to kill many people) would be counterproductive from a negative utilitarian perspective. One such argument is provided by David Pearce, who says that "planning and implementing the extinction of all sentient life couldn't be undertaken painlessly. Even contemplating such an enterprise would provoke distress. Thus a negative utilitarian is not compelled to argue for the apocalyptic solution."[43] Instead, Pearce advocates the use of biotechnology to phase out the biology of suffering throughout the living world, and he says that "life-long happiness can be genetically pre-programmed."[44] A similar reply to the similar claim that negative utilitarianism would imply that we should kill off the miserable and needy is that we rarely face policy choices and that "anyway there are excellent utilitarian reasons for avoiding such a policy, since people would find out about it and become even more miserable and fearful."[45] The Negative Utilitarianism FAQ's answer to question "3.2 Should NUs try to increase extinction risk?" begins with "No, that would be very bad even by NU standards."[6]

Life could evolve again in a worse way

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Some replies to the benevolent world-exploder argument take the form that even if the world were destroyed, that would or might be bad from a negative utilitarian perspective. One such reply provided by John W. N. Watkins is that even if life were destroyed, life could evolve again, perhaps in a worse way. So the world-exploder would need to destroy the possibility of life, but that is in principle beyond human power.[46] To this, J. J. C. Smart replies,

I am also a little puzzled by Watkin's remark that the pain minimizer would have to destroy the very possibility of life. If the sentient forms of life were totally destroyed, it might be that the sentient forms would be most unlikely to evolve. This is on the supposition, held by some experts, that the evolution of higher forms of life on earth depended on a lot of lucky accidents. If this is not the case, then the benevolent world destroyer should ensure that all forms of life are destroyed, even bacteria and plants and insects, but should this be impossible the world destroyer might have at least ensured a pain free globe for hundreds of millions of years to come. In any case my brother's example was of a world exploder, and I think this would ensure the destruction of all life on earth. Of course there might be sentient life on planets of distant stars. No doubt the world exploder can do nothing about this, even with the resources of a future physics, but his or her negative utilitarian duty would not be to do the impossible, but would be to minimize suffering as much as lies within his or her power.[47]

But in their article The expected value of extinction risk reduction is positive, Brauner and Grosse-Holz quote David Pearce:

For example, one might naively suppose that a negative utilitarian would welcome human extinction. But only (trans)humans – or our potential superintelligent successors – are technically capable of phasing out the cruelties of the rest of the living world on Earth. And only (trans)humans – or rather our potential superintelligent successors – are technically capable of assuming stewardship of our entire Hubble volume.[48]

Getting killed would be a great evil

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Another oft-cited reply to the "world-exploder" argument is that getting killed would be a great evil. Erich Kadlec defends negative utilitarianism and addresses the benevolent world-exploder argument (partially) as follows: "[R. N. Smart] also dispenses with the generally known fact that all people (with a few exceptions in extreme situations) like to live and would consider being killed not a benefit but as the greatest evil done to them."[49]

Frustrated preferences

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Negative preference utilitarianism has a preferentialist conception of well-being. That is, it is bad for an individual to get his aversions fulfilled (or preferences frustrated), and depending on the version of negative utilitarianism, it may also be good for him to get his preferences satisfied. A negative utilitarian with such a conception of well-being, or whose conception of well-being includes such a preferentialist component, could reply to the benevolent world-exploder argument by saying that the explosion would be bad because it would fulfill many individuals' aversions.[50] Arrhenius and Bykvist provide two criticisms of this reply. First, it could be claimed that frustrated preferences require that someone exists who has the frustrated preference. But if everyone is dead there are no preferences and hence no badness.[51] Second, even if a world-explosion would involve frustrated preferences that would be bad from a negative preference utilitarian perspective, such a negative utilitarian should still favor it as the lesser of two evils compared to all the frustrated preferences that would likely exist if the world continued to exist.[51]

The Negative Utilitarianism FAQ suggests two replies to Arrhenius and Bykvist's first type of criticism (the criticism that if no one exists anymore then there are no frustrated preferences anymore): The first reply is that past preferences count, even if the individual who held them no longer exists.[52] The second is that "instead of counting past preferences, one could look at the matter in terms of life-goals. The earlier the death of a person who wants to go on living, the more unfulfilled her life-goal."[6] The Negative Utilitarianism FAQ also replies to Arrhenius and Bykvist's second type of criticism. The reply is (in part) that the criticism relies on the empirical premise that there would be more frustrated preferences in the future if the world continued to exist than if the world was destroyed. But that negative preference utilitarianism would say that extinction would be better (in theory), assuming that premise, should not count substantially against the theory, because for any view on population ethics that assigns disvalue to something, one can imagine future scenarios such that extinction would be better according to the given view.[53]

Combining negative utilitarianism with rights

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A part of Clark Wolf's response to the benevolent world-exploder objection is that negative utilitarianism can be combined with a theory of rights. He says:

A more direct way to address this problem would be to incorporate a theory of rights, stipulating that in general, policy makers simply have no right to make decisions about whether the lives of others are worth living, or whether they should live or die. Since it is clear that policy makers have no right to kill off the miserable and destitute, this response gains support from our moral intuitions.[54]

Negative utilitarianism can be combined, in particular, with Rawls' theory of justice.[55] Rawls knew Popper's normative claims[56] and may have been influenced by his concern for the worst-off.

Classical utilitarianism may also entail world destruction

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For someone who believes that consequentialism in general is true, yet is uncertain between classical and negative utilitarianism, the world destruction argument is not fatal to negative utilitarianism if there are similar hypothetical scenarios in which a classical utilitarian (but not a negative utilitarian) would be obligated to destroy the world in order to replace those killed by new individuals. Simon Knutsson writes:

There are scenarios in which traditional utilitarianism, but not negative utilitarianism, implies that it would be right to kill everyone, namely, scenarios in which the killing would increase both positive and negative well-being and result in a greater sum of positive minus negative well-being. Negative utilitarianism does not imply that it would be right to kill everyone in such scenarios because, in these scenarios, killing everyone would increase negative well-being. An example of such a scenario is that all humans or all sentient beings on Earth could be killed and replaced with many more beings who, collectively, experience both more positive well-being and more negative well-being, but with a greater sum of positive minus negative well-being.[57]

Other works

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Toby Ord provides a critique of negative utilitarianism in his essay "Why I'm Not a Negative Utilitarian",[58] to which David Pearce, Bruno Contestabile and Magnus Vinding have replied.[59][60][61] Other critical views of negative utilitarianism are provided by Thaddeus Metz,[62] Christopher Belshaw,[63] and Ingmar Persson.[64]

Joseph Mendola develops a modification of utilitarianism, and he says that his principle:

is a kind of maximin rule.... The principle also resembles a form of utilitarianism which is familiar from the work of Popper and the Smart brothers, negative utilitarianism. That too suggests we should concern ourselves before all else with the elimination of pain.[65]

Professor Henry Hiz writes favorably of negative utilitarianism.[66]

Fabian Fricke published the German article "Verschiedene Versionen des negativen Utilitarismus".[67]

In book format, Jonathan Leighton has defended a variation of negative utilitarianism he terms "xNU+", with the "x" placing particular emphasis on the prevention of extreme suffering, and the "+" accommodating deep human intuitions, including the desire to exist and to thrive.[68][69]

See also

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  • Ahimsa – Ancient Indian principle of nonviolence
  • Antifrustrationism – Axiological position which prioritizes avoiding preference frustration
  • Antinatalism – Value judgment that procreation is unethical
  • Eradication of suffering – Biotechnological elimination of involuntary suffering
  • Harm principle – Moral philosophy principle
  • Negative consequentialism – Version of consequentialism
  • Negative hedonism – Philosophical system
  • Negative reinforcement – Consequence affecting an organism's future behavior
  • Painism – English animal rights advocate (born 1940)
  • Philosophical pessimism – View that life and existence are of negative value
  • Prioritarianism – View within ethics and political philosophy
  • Speciesism – Philosophical term on species treatment
  • Suffering-focused ethics – Ethical positions that prioritize the reduction of suffering
  • Suffering risks – Scenarios of large amounts of future suffering
  • Veganism – Practice of abstaining from exploitation of animals and the use of animal products
  • Wild animal suffering – Suffering of wild animals due to natural processes

Citations

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  1. ^ For example, Leslie 1998, p. 12: "'Negative utilitarianism' is concerned mainly or entirely with reducing evils rather than with maximizing goods." The example unpleasant experiences is an example based on a hedonistic theory of well-being, according to which pleasant experiences are good for individuals and unpleasant experiences are bad for individuals. But there are other theories of well-being and negative utilitarianism need not adopt a hedonistic theory.
  2. ^ Bykvist 2009, p. 19: "The whole family of utilitarian theories is captured by the equation: Utilitarianism = Consequentialism (nothing but the values of outcomes matter for the rightness of actions) + Welfarism (nothing but well-being matters for the value of outcomes)."
  3. ^ Bykvist 2009, chpt. 4.
  4. ^ Smart 1958.
  5. ^ Arrhenius & Bykvist 1995, p. 29 says that strong versions of negative utilitarianism "give all weight to disutility" and weak versions "give some weight to positive utility, but more weight to disutility." Arrhenius & Bykvist 1995, p. 115: “Our point of departure was the firm intuition that unhappiness and suffering have greater weight than happiness. By taking this stand we revealed ourselves as members of the negative utilitarian family.” Ord 2013: “NU [negative utilitarianism] comes in several flavours, which I will outline later, but the basic thrust is that an act is morally right if and only if it leads to less suffering than any available alternative. Unlike Classical Utilitarianism, positive experiences such as pleasure or happiness are either given no weight, or at least a lot less weight.”
  6. ^ a b c d Negative Utilitarianism FAQ 2015.
  7. ^ a b Arrhenius & Bykvist 1995, p. 31.
  8. ^ Smart 1958, p. 542.
  9. ^ Parfit, Derek (1984). Reasons and Persons. Oxford University Press. p. 410.
  10. ^ Arrhenius, Gustaf (2000). "An Impossibility Theorem for Welfarist Axiologies". Economics and Philosophy. 16 (2): 259. doi:10.1017/S0266267100000249.
  11. ^ Mogensen, Andreas (2024). "The Weight of Suffering". The Journal of Philosophy. 121 (6): 335–354. doi:10.5840/jphil2024121624.
  12. ^ Heikkinen, Karri (2024). "Why Intergenerational Sufficientarianism Is Not Enough". Politics, Philosophy & Economics. 24 (2): 11. doi:10.1177/1470594X241259185.
  13. ^ Baker, Calvin (2024). "Non-Archimedean Population Axiologies". Economics and Philosophy. 41: 14–15. doi:10.1017/S0266267124000099.
  14. ^ K. Popper, "Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 1. Routledge. pp. 284–285.
  15. ^ Smart 1958, p. 542: "Professor Popper has proposed a negative formulation of the utilitarian principle, so that we should replace 'Aim at the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number' by 'The least amount of avoidable suffering for all'. He says: 'It adds to the clarity of ethics if we formulate our demands negatively, i.e. if we demand the elimination of suffering rather than the promotion of happiness'. However, one may reply to negative utilitarianism..."
  16. ^ For example, Popper wrote, "I suggest, for this reason, to replace the utilitarian formula 'Aim at the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number', or briefly, 'Maximize happiness' by the formula 'The least amount of avoidable suffering for all', or briefly, 'Minimize suffering'. Popper, Karl (2012). The Open Society and Its Enemies. Routledge. p. 548. ISBN 978-0415610216. Popper claimed that "there is, from the ethical point of view, no symmetry between suffering and happiness, or between pain and pleasure... In my opinion human suffering makes a direct moral appeal, namely, the appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the happiness of a man who is doing well anyway. A further criticism of the Utilitarian formula "Maximize pleasure" is that it assumes a continuous pleasure-pain scale which allows us to treat degrees of pain as negative degrees of pleasure. But, from the moral point of view, pain cannot be outweighed by pleasure, and especially not one man's pain by another man's pleasure. Instead of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, one should demand, more modestly, the least amount of avoidable suffering for all..." Popper, Karl (2002). The Open Society and Its Enemies: Volume 1: The Spell of Plato. Routledge. pp. 284–285. ISBN 978-0415237314.
  17. ^ Contestabile 2014, p. 298: "Negative utilitarianism and Buddhism share the following intuitions: Negative utilitarianism—understood as an umbrella term—models the asymmetry between suffering and happiness and therefore accords with the Buddhist intuition of universal compassion. The Noble Truths of Buddhism accord with the negative utilitarian intuition that (global) suffering cannot be compensated by happiness. Some forms of Buddhism and negative utilitarianism share the intuition that non-existence is a perfect state." Goodman 2009, p. 101: “Negative utilitarianism shares with Buddhism a strong focus on alleviating the suffering of beings.”
  18. ^ Keown 1992, p. 175: “one of the earliest exponents of NU, Hegesias...”
  19. ^ "Edmund Gurney (1847–88)".
  20. ^ "Google Ngram Viewer: "negative utilitarianism"". Google Ngram Viewer. Retrieved 18 January 2025.
  21. ^ "Negative Utilitarianism". Envisioning. Retrieved 18 January 2025.
  22. ^ Chao, Roger (March 2012). "Negative Average Preference Utilitarianism" (PDF). Journal of Philosophy of Life. 2: 66 – via pdf.
  23. ^ Sinnott-Armstrong 2014 provides an overview of the many ways in which consequentialism can be varied. Since utilitarianism (and negative utilitarianism) is a kind of consequentialism, much of it applies to utilitarianism and negative utilitarianism as well. Section 1. "Classic Utilitarianism" shows the many distinct and variable claims that make up Classic Utilitarianism.
  24. ^ Bykvist 2009, p. 102, states satisficing utilitarianism as follows: "Satisficing utilitarianism An action ought to be done if and only if it would bring about a sufficient level of total well-being."
  25. ^ They write that they distinguish among kinds of "negative utilitarianism": "Our point of departure was the firm intuition that unhappiness and suffering have greater weight than happiness. By taking this stand we revealed ourselves as members of the negative utilitarian family. The problem was then to find out which members of this family we want to join, and to spell out why we do not want to be as some of our siblings." Arrhenius & Bykvist 1995, p. 115. The taxonomy is phrased in terms of "negativisms", which appear to be the same as "negativist" and "negative" utilitarianisms: "we believe that disutility has greater weight than utility. The overall aim with this part of our essay is to give an account of this weight, which means that we shall try to formulate a welfarist act-consequentialism that takes seriously the weight of disutility. In other words, we are looking for an acceptable negativist utilitarianism." Arrhenius & Bykvist 1995, p. 20.
  26. ^ Arrhenius & Bykvist 1995, pp. 30, 38.
  27. ^ Arrhenius & Bykvist 1995, p. 29.
  28. ^ Arrhenius & Bykvist 1995, p. 39: "The claim that disutility has greater weight can now be expressed by letting the disutilities have greater lexical weight. But still the utility has some weight in the sense that if the disutilities are the same in the alternatives, and hence we cannot minimise the disutility any further, then we ought to maximise the utility. Depending on what kinds of disutilities we choose in establishing this order, we get different lexical negativisms."
  29. ^ Ord 2013: "Lexical Threshold NU Suffering and happiness both count, but there is some amount of suffering that no amount of happiness can outweigh."
  30. ^ Brian Tomasik formulated and advocated consent-based negative utilitarianism. He writes, "would the person-moment suffering agree to continue the suffering in order to obtain something else in the future? If yes, then the suffering doesn't pass the threshold of unbearableness and thus can be outweighed by happiness." Tomasik 2015. See section “Consent-based negative utilitarianism?” The 'person-moment' means the person in the moment of suffering, as opposed to before or after the suffering occurred.
  31. ^ Metzinger 2003, p. 622: “In terms of a fundamental solidarity of all suffering beings against suffering, something that almost all of us should be able to agree on is what I will term the “principle of negative utilitarianism”: Whatever else our exact ethical commitments and specific positive goals are, we can and should certainly all agree that, in principle, and whenever possible, the overall amount of conscious suffering in all beings capable of conscious suffering should be minimized. I know that it is impossible to give any truly conclusive argument in favor of this principle. And, of course, there exist all kinds of theoretical complications—for example, individual rights, long-term preferences, and epistemic indeterminacy. But the underlying intuition is something that can be shared by almost everybody: We can all agree that no additional suffering should be created without need. Albert Camus once spoke about the solidarity of all finite beings against death, and in just the same sense there should be a solidarity of all sentient beings capable of suffering against suffering. Out of this solidarity we should not do anything that would increase the overall amount of suffering and confusion in the universe—let alone something that highly likely will have this effect right from the beginning.”
  32. ^ Bunge 1989, p. 230: "By recommending passivity it [negative utilitarianism] condones evil. The spectator who watches impassively a hooligan attacking an old woman, and the citizen who does not bother to vote, comply with negative utilitarianism and thereby tolerate evil."
  33. ^ See for example Pearce & Negative Utilitarianism: Why Be Negative?
  34. ^ Gloor, Lukas (2017-07-18). "Tranquilism". Foundational Research Institute. Retrieved 2019-07-18.
  35. ^ Smart 1958, p. 542: "Suppose that a ruler controls a weapon capable of instantly and painlessly destroying the human race. Now it is empirically certain that there would be some suffering before all those alive on any proposed destruction day were to die in the natural course of events. Consequently the use of the weapon is bound to diminish suffering, and would be the ruler's duty on NU grounds." For his use of the term 'the benevolent world-exploder' see page 543.
  36. ^ That is, the argument is directed against strong versions of negative utilitarianism that prescribe only reducing negative well-being, as well as weak versions that are sufficiently close to strong negative utilitarianism. Such weak versions would be those that, although they give weight to both negative and positive well-being, give sufficiently much more the weight to negative well-being, so that they would have the same implications as strong versions in relevant situations.
  37. ^ For example, Bunge 1989, p. 230: "Negative utilitarianism ... is open to the following objections.... Fourthly, the most expeditious way of implementing the doctrine would be to exterminate humankind, for then human suffering would cease altogether (R. N. Smart 1958)." Heyd 1992, p. 60: "Negative utilitarianism, which seems promising in guiding us in genethics, also urges (at least in its impersonal version) paradoxical (and to some, morally abhorrent) solutions to the miseries of humanity. Primarily it recommends the painless annihilation of all humanity—either by the collective suicide of all actual beings, or by total abstention from procreation by one generation (Smart 1958, 542–543)." Ord 2013: "R. N. Smart wrote a response [3] in which he christened the principle 'Negative Utilitarianism' and showed a major unattractive consequence. A thorough going Negative Utilitarian would support the destruction of the world (even by violent means) as the suffering involved would be small compared to the suffering in everyday life in the world."
  38. ^ "Gains from Trade through Compromise – Foundational Research Institute". foundational-research.org. 10 April 2015. Retrieved 2015-12-17.
  39. ^ "Reasons to Be Nice to Other Value Systems – Foundational Research Institute". foundational-research.org. 29 August 2015. Retrieved 2015-12-17.
  40. ^ "Negative Utilitarianism FAQ".
  41. ^ This is essentially H. B. Acton's reply. Acton & Watkins 1963, p. 84: "Eliminating suffering is not the same thing as reducing it or as arriving at 'the least amount of avoidable suffering for all', and it is the latter, not the former, that might, with some plausibility, be regarded as a possible substitute for the more usual form of utilitarianism. Would not, then, the destroyer imagined by Smart be making a terrible mistake through failing to notice the difference between eliminating and reducing?"
  42. ^ This is J. J. C. Smart's reply to Acton. J. J. C. Smart agrees with his brother R. N. Smart that "if we made the minimization of misery our sole ultimate ethical principle ... we should approve of a tyrannical but benevolent world exploder." Smart 1973, p. 29 J. J. C. Smart replies to Acton that "surely eliminating is a case of reducing – the best case of all, the negative utilitarian would say. In suggesting that eliminating is not reducing, Acton seems to me to be like a person who says that zero is not a number." Smart 1989, p. 44
  43. ^ Pearce 2005.
  44. ^ Pearce & Negative Utilitarianism: Why Be Negative?.
  45. ^ Clark Wolf proposes and defends 'negative critical level utilitarianism' in the context of social choice and population choices, which says that "population choices should be guided by an aim to minimize suffering and deprivation" (Wolf 1996, p. 273). He brings up the possible objection to his principle that "it might occur to someone that the best way to minimize current suffering and deprivation would be to quietly, secretly, and painlessly kill off all of those who are miserable and needy" (Wolf 1996, p. 278). A part of his reply is that "die hard utilitarians could argue that we rarely face such a policy choice, and that anyway there are excellent utilitarian reasons for avoiding such a policy, since people would find out about it and become even more miserable and fearful" (Wolf 1996, p. 278).
  46. ^ John W. N. Watkins describes himself as "a sort of negative utilitarian" (Acton & Watkins 1963, p. 95). He replies to R. N. Smart that "even if all life were destroyed, in due course living matter might emerge from the slime once more, and the evolutionary process start up again—this time accompanied, perhaps, by even more pain than would have accompanied the continued existence of the human race. So the pain minimiser would need to destroy the very possibility of life. And I like to think that this is something which is in principle beyond human power" (Acton & Watkins 1963, p. 96).
  47. ^ Smart 1989, pp. 44–45.
  48. ^ "The expected value of extinction risk reduction is positive". Effective Altruism. Retrieved 2019-06-20.
  49. ^ Kadlec 2008, p. 110.
  50. ^ "A preferentialist could, for example, claim that most people now living prefer to live, and that these preferences must be counted when elimination is at stake. So, the elimination results in a lot of frustrated preferences, and we must balance the evil ofthis against the evil of the unhappiness in the future of humanity." (Arrhenius & Bykvist 1995, pp. 31–32)
  51. ^ a b Arrhenius & Bykvist 1995, p. 32.
  52. ^ "NIPU [negative ideal preference utilitarianism] isn't about minimizing the amount of unsatisfied preferences that currently exist, but rather about minimizing the total amount of unsatisfied preferences in the (space-time) universe. This includes past preferences." (Negative Utilitarianism FAQ 2015)
  53. ^ Negative Utilitarianism FAQ 2015. See section "2.1.5 Back to destroying the world, doesn't NIPU still imply that extinction would be best, because if there will be a lot of people in the future, their unsatisfied preferences combined are worse than the preferences being thwarted by extinction?"
  54. ^ Wolf 1996, p. 278.
  55. ^ Contestabile & Negative Utilitarianism and Justice.
  56. ^ Rawls 1958, p. 174.
  57. ^ Knutsson, Simon (2019-08-29). "The world destruction argument". Inquiry. 64 (10): 1004–1023. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2019.1658631. ISSN 0020-174X.
  58. ^ Ord 2013.
  59. ^ Pearce & A response to Toby Ord's essay.
  60. ^ Contestabile & Why I'm (Not) a Negative Utilitarian – A Review of Toby Ord's Essay.
  61. ^ Vinding, Magnus (30 May 2022). "Point-by-point critique of Ord's "Why I'm Not a Negative Utilitarian"". Retrieved 4 April 2024.
  62. ^ Metz 2012, pp. 1–2: "Negative utilitarianism is well-known for entailing anti-natalism as well as pro-mortalism, the view that it is often prudent for individuals to kill themselves and often right for them to kill others, even without their consent. It pretty clearly has these implications if one can kill oneself or others painlessly, but probably does so even if there would be terror beforehand; for there would be terror regardless of when death comes, and if death were to come sooner rather than later, then additional bads that would have been expected in the course of a life would be nipped in the bud."
  63. ^ Belshaw 2012, p. 118: "Negative utilitarianism can be plucked from the shelf, but there is no good reason to suppose it true. And were it true, it would take us too far, generating not only anti-natalism but straightaway also its pro-mortalist neighbour."
  64. ^ Persson 2009, p. 38: “negative utilitarianism seems implausible, as is shown by an argument sketched by McMahan, on the basis of an argument originally put forward by Richard Sikora (1978). This argument turns on the observation that if what would be bad for individuals in life is a reason against conceiving them, but what would be good for them is no reason in favour of conceiving them, then, as far as those individuals are concerned, it is wrong to conceive them, however much good their lives will contain, provided that they will also contain something that is bad for them. This seems clearly absurd.”
  65. ^ Mendola 1990, p. 86.
  66. ^ Hiz 1992, p. 423: "Utilitarianism failed, but what is sometimes called 'negative utilitarianism' avoids many of the shortcomings of classical utilitarianism. It is a good candidate for an ethics that expresses the Enlightenment tradition."
  67. ^ Fricke 2002.
  68. ^ Leighton 2011.
  69. ^ Leighton 2023.

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Negative utilitarianism

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Negative utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory that prioritizes the minimization of over the maximization of or , asserting that reducing negative states holds greater weight than promoting positive ones due to an asymmetry in their ethical significance. The view traces to philosopher Karl Popper's argument that moral action should target the alleviation of , as "there is, from the ethical point of view, no between and ," rendering efforts to maximize the latter potentially misguided or secondary. In contrast to classical , which evaluates actions by their contribution to overall net —balancing against —negative utilitarianism deems interventions morally obligatory if they diminish aggregate , even if they do not enhance . This focus yields distinctive implications for , including preferences for harm prevention in policy and a rationale for measures like voluntary extinction in scenarios of intractable , though such conclusions remain contentious. Critics contend that strict adherence could rationalize the elimination of sentient life to achieve zero , prioritizing non-existence over any form of hedonic balance and diverging sharply from intuitive equilibria.

Definition and Core Principles

Fundamental Concepts

Negative utilitarianism is a form of that directs moral agents to prioritize the reduction of total among sentient beings over the promotion of or preference satisfaction. Unlike classical , which evaluates actions based on their tendency to maximize net —balancing pleasures against pains—negative utilitarianism assigns primary or exclusive moral significance to disvalue, viewing the prevention of as the core ethical mandate. This approach posits that actions are right insofar as they diminish aggregate negative states, such as pain or frustration, even if they do not augment positive ones to an equivalent degree. Central to negative utilitarianism is the principle that carries a disproportionate ethical urgency compared to , such that calculus favors averting a unit of over generating a unit of . This focus on negative outcomes distinguishes it from broader consequentialist theories, which aggregate utilities symmetrically; here, the imperative is to eliminate or mitigate bads, treating goods as morally neutral or instrumentally valuable only insofar as they facilitate 's reduction. Empirical patterns in behavioral underpin this emphasis, revealing that organisms exhibit stronger responses to threats of —evident in heightened avoidance behaviors and neural activation—than to opportunities for reward, suggesting a causal where pain's intensity drives adaptive priorities more forcefully than pleasure's allure. In practice, this entails evaluating policies or choices by their impact on the worst-off or most intense negative experiences, rather than overall welfare sums, aligning ethical reasoning with observable causal dynamics in and aversion. The framework thus operates as a threshold-sensitive ethic, where thresholds of demand intervention irrespective of compensatory benefits elsewhere in the distribution.

Asymmetry Thesis

The asymmetry thesis maintains that the ethical imperative to prevent or alleviate suffering carries greater moral weight than the imperative to produce or enhance happiness, reflecting a fundamental imbalance in how disvalue impacts moral reasoning. This view holds that eliminating a given intensity of pain outweighs creating an equivalent intensity of pleasure, as suffering represents a deviation from baseline homeostasis that demands restoration, whereas additional pleasure does not compel equivalent causal priority in ethical calculus. Proponents argue this asymmetry arises from the distinct phenomenological and biological roles of pain and pleasure: pain functions as an urgent signal of threat, disrupting equilibrium and motivating avoidance, while pleasure serves adaptive reinforcement without comparable existential disruption. Philosophically, the thesis draws early articulation from Karl Popper's 1945 analysis in The Open Society and Its Enemies, where he asserted that "all moral urgency has its basis in the urgency of or ," distinguishing the removal of harm as asymmetrically prior to the promotion of good to avoid conflating ethical . Popper's formulation underscores that symmetric treatments of and pleasure, common in classical , overlook this priority, potentially leading to moral errors in prioritizing aggregate over harm mitigation. This perspective influenced subsequent negative utilitarian thought by framing suffering elimination as a negative —binding and non-optional—contrasted with the supererogatory nature of creation. Empirical support emerges from , particularly prospect theory's demonstration of , where individuals weigh potential losses approximately twice as heavily as equivalent gains, mirroring how suffering's subjective intensity exceeds pleasure's in aversiveness. further substantiates this through evidence that occupy asymmetrical neural pathways: nociceptive pain activates urgent, homeostatic threat responses via structures like the , while hedonic pleasure engages reward circuits without proportional motivational force or disruption. Studies on reveal pain's contributions to overall valence as disproportionately negative and non-linear, with even mild pains reducing welfare more than comparable pleasures elevate it, challenging symmetric hedonic scaling in ethical theories. Critics of symmetric , which equate on a zero-sum hedonic continuum as in Benthamite , contend that such views ignore these asymmetries despite their normalization in academic , where empirical deviations are often downplayed. Mainstream ethical frameworks assuming linear fail to account for showing suffering's outsized role in welfare judgments—e.g., in well-being surveys, negative experiences predict dissatisfaction more potently than positives predict satisfaction—potentially biasing toward interventions that amplify net utility at the expense of unaddressed harms. This thesis thus prioritizes causal realism in , emphasizing verifiable disruptions from disutility over idealized symmetries unsubstantiated by human experiential .

Historical Development

Precursors in Utilitarian Thought

Ancient philosophical traditions laid groundwork for ideas akin to negative utilitarianism by emphasizing the avoidance or elimination of suffering over the active pursuit of positive states. (341–270 BCE), in his Letter to and Principal Doctrines, defined the supreme good as ataraxia (tranquility of mind) and aponia (absence of bodily pain), viewing pleasure primarily as the removal of distress rather than its indefinite accumulation. This approach prioritizes minimizing pains—such as fear of death or unnecessary desires—as the core of ethical living, prefiguring negative utilitarianism's asymmetry by treating pain's cessation as more fundamental than pleasure's maximization. Similarly, early Buddhist teachings, as articulated in the around the 5th century BCE, center on the , which identify dukkha ( or unsatisfactoriness) as inherent to existence and prescribe the for its eradication through insight and ethical conduct. Unlike hedonistic maximization, this framework focuses on uprooting the causes of suffering—craving, ignorance, and attachment—without equivalent stress on generating bliss, offering a causal emphasis on suffering's reduction as the ethical imperative. Jeremy Bentham's foundational utilitarian text, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (), introduced the hedonic calculus to quantify pleasures and pains via dimensions like intensity, duration, certainty, and extent, theoretically treating them symmetrically under the principle of the "greatest happiness of the greatest number." However, Bentham's practical applications, such as penal reforms to diminish institutional cruelties, implicitly accorded pains greater moral weight due to their potent disruption of , reflecting an asymmetry in urgency even if not doctrinally explicit. John Stuart Mill, in Utilitarianism (1861), refined Bentham's hedonism by distinguishing higher intellectual pleasures from lower sensory ones, arguing that competent judges prefer the former despite potential for deeper dissatisfaction. Mill observed that individuals of higher faculties "require more to make [them] happy" and are "capable probably of more acute ," underscoring 's amplified impact and suggesting a de facto priority for its prevention to safeguard human development, though without endorsing full lexical . This qualitative lens provided a first-principles rationale for addressing pains' outsized disvalue in utilitarian deliberation.

Key Formulations and Thinkers

The philosopher Karl Popper articulated an asymmetry in ethical priorities in his 1945 work The Open Society and Its Enemies, arguing that efforts to eliminate suffering hold greater moral weight than attempts to maximize happiness, due to the practical and causal difficulties in achieving the latter without risking unintended harms. Popper's position stemmed from observations of totalitarian regimes' failures to engineer utopian goods, emphasizing instead the verifiable potential to reduce existing evils like oppression and violence, which he witnessed empirically in interwar Europe and World War II. This formulation rejected classical utilitarianism's symmetric treatment of pleasure and pain, prioritizing negative duties (avoiding harm) over positive ones (promoting welfare) as more feasible under causal constraints of human action. R. N. Smart formalized the term "negative " in his 1958 article in the journal Mind, using it to describe and critique views like Popper's that prioritize the prevention of over the symmetric maximization of . Smart highlighted the doctrine's departure from Benthamite and Millian symmetry, where disutility from pain outweighs utility from pleasure, but warned of extreme implications, such as a hypothetical agent extinguishing sentient life to eliminate all future —a consequence he deemed implausible yet logically derivable from strict negative prioritization. His analysis, grounded in logical scrutiny of utilitarian axioms, marked the mid-20th-century distinction of negative as a response to classical theory's perceived overoptimism about positive interventions amid post-World War II evidence of widespread atrocities under state-enforced "goods." Postwar thinkers like drew early influences from this asymmetry in works such as Animal Liberation (1975), shifting focus toward empirically verifiable reductions in animal and human —evident in factory farming and global poverty—over unbounded happiness pursuits, reflecting a broader philosophical pivot informed by totalitarian horrors and their documented causal chains of mass . Singer's preference for interventions with high certainty of harm aversion, such as aid against , echoed Popper's causal realism without fully endorsing lexical negative priority, influencing effective altruism's emphasis on tractable metrics over speculative utility gains. These mid-century developments bridged historical toward specialized variants by underscoring empirical asymmetries in 's intensity and preventability, as substantiated by historical data on 20th-century genocides exceeding 100 million deaths from ideologically driven "progress."

Variants of Negative Utilitarianism

Hedonistic Negative Utilitarianism

Hedonistic negative evaluates actions based on their impact on sensory experiences, prioritizing the minimization of —defined as unpleasant physical or psychological sensations—over the maximization or even maintenance of . In this view, derived from classical , constitutes a disvalue with asymmetric moral weight, demanding urgent reduction regardless of potential compensatory pleasures, while holds neutral or subordinate status since its absence does not inflict equivalent harm. Proponents argue that ethical should target the aggregate intensity and duration of suffering across sentient beings, as felt disrupts and demands immediate resolution, unlike which enhances it without comparable ethical compulsion. This framework receives empirical grounding from evolutionary , which demonstrates 's primacy in mechanisms. pathways, mediated by nociceptors and ascending spinal tracts, evolved to elicit rapid behavioral avoidance of threats like or toxins, thereby preserving organismal fitness; for instance, nociceptive responses trigger withdrawal reflexes within milliseconds, preventing further damage essential for and . In contrast, pleasure circuits, such as those involving release in the , reinforce adaptive behaviors like feeding but lack the same imperative intensity, as their disruption rarely poses immediate existential risks. This reflects causal realism in : 's motivational force ensures under , evidenced by conserved mechanisms across vertebrates dating back over 500 million years, underscoring why reducing it holds foundational ethical priority over augmentation. In practical application, hedonistic negative utilitarianism directs resources toward averting widespread sensory suffering, such as through measures combating endemic pains from or infectious diseases, rather than initiatives solely enhancing hedonic states like recreational amenities. For example, campaigns against poliomyelitis, which reduced global cases from 350,000 in 1988 to fewer than 100 annually by 2023, exemplify prioritizing the elimination of paralytic agony over equivalent investments in pleasure-boosting infrastructure. Similarly, famine efforts, which mitigate acute visceral from affecting millions—such as the 1984 Ethiopian crisis impacting 8 million—outweigh funding for arts programs that yield diffuse enjoyment without addressing baseline . This focus avoids conflating abstract satisfactions with tangible relief, maintaining fidelity to experiential metrics.

Preference-Based Negative Utilitarianism

Preference-based negative utilitarianism posits that the primary is to minimize the or thwarting of individuals' preferences, treating such frustrations as measure of disutility rather than hedonic pain. In this view, an action's ethical value derives from its capacity to prevent unmet desires or goals, with perfect preference satisfaction holding neutral moral status equivalent to nonexistence, while any degree of introduces disvalue proportional to its extent and intensity. This framework shifts from sensory-based assessments to ordinal rankings of preferences, where moral priority attaches to averting deprivations like unmet (e.g., thwarting the preference for nourishment) over fulfilling optional wants. The causal basis for this disutility lies in the role of preferences as proxies for adaptive objectives, where their reliably generates downstream harms such as impaired functioning or psychological distress, observable across empirical contexts like and . For instance, studies in preference satisfaction theory demonstrate that thwarted goals correlate with measurable reductions in agency and , extending beyond immediate sensations to long-term volitional deficits. This approach allows for verifiable disutility through preference elicitation methods, such as revealed choice experiments, which quantify without relying solely on self-reported feelings. Unlike symmetric , which balances satisfactions against frustrations, this variant emphasizes asymmetric weighting, where reducing existing frustrations carries greater moral urgency than adding new satisfactions, though without invoking absolute lexical thresholds. Proponents argue this reflects the intuitive greater wrongness of causing deprivation compared to forgoing enhancement, as evidenced in thought experiments where preventing a preference loss (e.g., revoking access to essential resources) outweighs granting a comparable gain. This prioritization avoids overemphasis on aggregate positive utilities, focusing instead on targeted interventions against verifiable blocks.

Lexical Priority Variants

Lexical priority variants of negative utilitarianism impose a strict hierarchical ordering on disutilities, whereby minimizing the intensity of the worst takes absolute precedence over any aggregation of lesser harms or gains in positive , regardless of scale. Under this framework, evaluation proceeds lexicographically: first, the maximum level of is reduced to the greatest extent possible; only then are subsequent tiers of lesser disutility considered, with positive states holding no compensatory role at any stage. This structure, often termed lexical-threshold negative utilitarianism, utilizes ordered vectors or thresholds to represent utilities, ensuring that no quantity of lower-order harms or pleasures can offset even a single instance of higher-order . Proponents argue that this avoids the pitfalls of mere additive aggregation, which permits implausible trade-offs such as countless minor pains outweighing one case of severe agony, a result that undermines the empirical reality of suffering's non-linear intensity, where extreme cases dominate subjective experience and long-term welfare. For example, averting one occurrence of excruciating, protracted —capable of shattering psychological integrity—cannot be morally counterbalanced by preventing billions of fleeting headaches, as the former's qualitative depth renders aggregation irrelevant to ethical . This stance critiques infinite divisibility in utility functions, positing that thresholds reflect the causal primacy of preventing catastrophic disvalue over diffuse optimizations. In applied contexts, lexical priority mirrors triage protocols in and , where resources are allocated first to mitigate the most acute threats—such as immediate or hemorrhagic shock—before addressing stable or minor conditions, thereby minimizing the peak severity of harm under constraints. Protocols like the (START) system, employed since 1983, classify victims into categories prioritizing those with life-threatening injuries (red category), ensuring the worst suffering is targeted irrespective of the number of lower-acuity cases (yellow or green). While standard often incorporates utilitarian elements like salvaging the most lives overall, the severity-based substantiates a negative utilitarian emphasis on averting extreme disutility as a non-negotiable initial step.

Key Implications and Thought Experiments

Prioritizing Suffering Reduction Over Happiness Creation

Negative utilitarianism posits that moral actions should primarily aim to minimize suffering, assigning it asymmetric priority over the creation or maximization of , as the prevention of yields greater ethical value than equivalent gains in pleasure. This view, articulated in philosophical discussions, holds that interventions alleviating existing disutility—such as medical treatments for or reductions in animal exploitation—outweigh efforts to generate new instances of , like recreational programs or focused on positive experiences. In population ethics, this prioritization implies that creating additional happy lives contributes neutral or minimal moral value, since the non-existence of pleasure does not constitute a , whereas procreation risks introducing unavoidable from , injury, or environmental pressures. Consequently, negative utilitarians may view —refraining from reproduction—as a neutral act at worst or ethically preferable, as it avoids imposing potential net disutility on future beings without forgoing any compensatory good from unrealized . This stance contrasts with classical utilitarianism's endorsement of under net-positive welfare conditions, potentially leading negative utilitarians to deprioritize pro-natalist policies in favor of suffering-focused measures like voluntary advocacy or enhanced contraception access. Empirical considerations in welfare further underscore this asymmetry, with estimates indicating that the scale of among wild populations—driven by predation, , and —affects trillions of and billions of vertebrates annually, likely exceeding the aggregate derived from human endeavors. For instance, analyses suggest that most wild animals endure lives where pain from violent deaths and chronic hardships predominates over fleeting pleasures, rendering interventions to reduce such , like or genetic modifications to lessen pain sensitivity, more urgent than initiatives amplifying human joy. These calculations direct away from promotion toward anti- priorities, such as research into non-lethal population controls or analgesics for wildlife.

The Benevolent World-Exploder Scenario

The benevolent world-exploder scenario posits a hypothetical agent capable of instantly and painlessly extinguishing all sentient life on Earth, thereby preventing any future instances of suffering without causing harm in the process. In negative utilitarian frameworks, such an act could be deemed morally obligatory or at least permissible if the total elimination of suffering outweighs any disvalue in non-existence, given the asymmetry thesis that the absence of pleasure carries no moral weight while the prevention of pain does. This thought experiment, articulated by R. N. Smart in his 1958 response to Karl Popper's advocacy of negative utilitarianism, tests the implications of prioritizing suffering minimization above all else, assuming a materialist ontology where extinction precludes rebirth or afterlife suffering. Proponents of strong forms of negative utilitarianism defend the scenario's by appealing to empirical observations of pervasive in biological , such as , , and existential distress documented across . For instance, if life's net utility is negative—supported by arguments that pleasures are fleeting while pains are profound and unavoidable—then averting billions of future human lives and trillions of animal experiences from justifies as a net positive. This view aligns with causal realism, positing that the direct consequence of painless is the permanent cessation of all disvalue without introducing new harms, under assumptions of no posthumous or cosmic recycling of . Variants of negative utilitarianism, such as those emphasizing lexical priority to suffering reduction, reinforce the scenario by treating any preventable agony as infinitely worse than missed opportunities for , rendering total superior to perpetuating a world where interventions like or merely postpone inevitable declines. Empirical data on global suffering scales, including estimates of 10^15 to 10^17 hours of pain annually from factory farming and wild predation, underscore the scale of disutility at stake. Thus, the benevolent world-exploder embodies a commitment to absolute suffering elimination, challenging agents to confront whether itself, absent flawless bliss, sustains more harm than void.

Criticisms and Objections

Repugnant and Counterintuitive Conclusions

Critics of negative utilitarianism argue that its strict prioritization of suffering minimization can endorse morally repugnant actions, such as the deliberate extinction of sentient life to prevent future instances of that might otherwise occur. Philosopher , in his 2013 essay, contends that a thoroughgoing negative utilitarian would rationally support the destruction of the world—even through violent means if painless options are unavailable—on the grounds that the suffering involved in such an act would be outweighed by the vast aggregate averted among potential future beings. Similarly, J.J.C. Smart's 1958 analysis of negative utilitarianism implied that adherents should advocate for the painless elimination of the human race to eradicate all possibility of , a conclusion he presented as a logical but intuitively abhorrent outcome of the theory. These implications extend to justifying or forced sterilization if such measures demonstrably prevent greater total , as the theory's asymmetry dismisses the intrinsic value of continued existence or flourishing in favor of non-existence. Such conclusions are deemed counterintuitive because they conflict with widely held intuitions against or population suppression, even when framed as net reducers of . Ord highlights that negative utilitarianism's neglect of positive welfare potentials leads to an overly pessimistic ethic that undervalues scenarios where happy lives could be created without proportionate , thereby endorsing elimination over or risk-taking for . In effective altruism circles, where suffering-focused views have gained traction, Ord's critique has been invoked to caution against normalizing negative utilitarian leanings, arguing they risk sidelining the to foster human progress and rights-respecting flourishing. Empirical trends in further undermine the theory's eliminationist logic by demonstrating that can be substantially alleviated through technological and social advancements without resorting to . For instance, global rates fell from 42% of the world's in 1981 to 8.6% in 2018, driven by and interventions that enhanced living standards. Violence-related deaths have declined dramatically over centuries, with rates dropping from medieval highs to modern lows, as documented in comprehensive historical data analyses. Innovations in medicine, such as vaccines and antibiotics, have reduced from over 40% in the 1800s to under 4% today, illustrating causal pathways to reduction via progress rather than cessation of life. These patterns challenge negative utilitarianism's premise that future inevitably demands drastic depopulation, suggesting instead that optimistic, proactive strategies have empirically yielded net gains in welfare without the repugnant costs of enforced non-existence.

Challenges to the Asymmetry Thesis

Critics of negative utilitarianism contend that the asymmetry thesis, which grants lexical priority to reducing suffering over increasing happiness, overlooks the commensurability of pleasure and pain as established in classical utilitarian frameworks. Jeremy Bentham posited that human motivation is governed equally by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, treating them as opposite poles on a hedonic scale where maximizing net pleasure equates to minimizing pain without inherent asymmetry in moral weighting. John Stuart Mill similarly viewed utility as the balance of pleasures against pains, arguing that higher-quality pleasures could offset pains quantitatively and qualitatively, challenging any absolute priority for suffering prevention. Empirical evidence from hedonic adaptation further undermines the asymmetry by demonstrating that positive affective states, like , persist in motivating behavior comparably to avoidance. Studies show individuals adapt to both gains and losses, returning to baseline hedonic levels, but sustained positive experiences—such as variety in rewarding activities—correlate with long-term and , suggesting pleasure's motivational with in sustaining goal-directed action. This adaptation process implies that pleasure functions not merely as the absence of but as an active driver, evolved to encourage adaptive behaviors with equivalent causal force. From an evolutionary standpoint, the of and exhibits functional , as both serve as proximate mechanisms for without one dominating causally over the other. aversion prompts immediate avoidance, while secures acquisition and reproduction, with neural reward systems calibrated to balance these incentives across , indicating no intrinsic lexical in their motivational impact. This aligns with causal realism, wherein emerges from symmetric hedonic signals optimizing fitness rather than an asymmetric weighting favoring reduction. Philosopher Johan E. Gustafsson has advanced structural critiques, employing value-pump arguments to reveal flaws in negative utilitarianism's aggregation of . In scenarios where creating minor allows for its subsequent prevention, yielding net reductions, negative utilitarianism permits infinite value extraction through repetition—analogous to money-pump paradoxes—exposing inconsistencies absent in classical utilitarianism's balanced pleasure-pain calculus. Gustafsson argues this vulnerability stems from negative utilitarianism's isolated focus on pain minimization, which disrupts coherent interpersonal comparisons and leads to counterintuitive cycles not compelled by symmetric theories.

Practical Counterproductivity

Attempts to implement negative utilitarianism's imperative to minimize through drastic measures, such as extinguishing all sentient life to prevent future , encounter causal barriers that amplify in the interim. For example, deploying technologies or agents for global destruction would trigger widespread panic, injury, and prolonged agony among populations aware of or affected by the process, thereby increasing net disvalue before any purported cessation. Moreover, incomplete eradication risks life's re-emergence via surviving microbes or cosmic processes, potentially yielding evolutionary outcomes with intensified , as historical biological adaptations have favored as a signal without guaranteeing net positivity. In preference-based variants, such actions directly thwart entrenched desires for continued and , documented in psychological studies showing instincts as among the strongest human motivators, rendering the strategy self-undermining. Empirical interventions prioritizing suffering prevention via positive means, however, demonstrate feasibility without these pitfalls. evaluations indicate that distributing insecticide-treated bed nets averts over 100,000 deaths annually while reducing associated morbidity like fever and , achieving high cost-effectiveness in suffering reduction—estimated at $3,000 to $5,000 per life saved—without evidence of offsetting harms. Similarly, campaigns against diseases such as have prevented 23.2 million deaths between and by forestalling outbreaks of severe and complications, underscoring how targeted measures diminish disvalue through prevention rather than elimination. Even modified negative utilitarian frameworks, which incorporate deontological constraints like rights to avert repugnant outcomes, falter in practice by eroding incentives for broad cooperation. Philosophical analyses note that the theory's asymmetry discourages alliance-building, as adherents may prioritize isolated suffering-minimization over reciprocal positive-sum arrangements, leading to suboptimal real-world outcomes like reduced participation in mutual aid networks. This dynamic manifests in lower motivational efficacy compared to symmetric utilitarianism, where empirical social science data on cooperation games reveal that balanced incentives sustain higher collective welfare gains than suffering-focused asymmetries. Consequently, negative utilitarianism's practical pursuit often yields counterproductive equilibria, prioritizing abstract disvalue calculus over observable causal pathways to relief.

Comparisons with Other Ethical Frameworks

Versus Classical Utilitarianism

Classical utilitarianism, as articulated by thinkers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, seeks to maximize the total net utility across all affected beings, treating pleasure and pain as symmetric counterparts in the moral calculus where the aggregate sum of pleasures minus pains determines the rightness of actions. In contrast, negative utilitarianism emphasizes minimizing the total amount of suffering or disutility, often positing an asymmetry wherein the prevention or reduction of suffering holds greater moral weight than the promotion of equivalent amounts of happiness, thereby altering the aggregation process to prioritize disvalue over net positive value. This difference in focus leads negative utilitarianism to reject the classical imperative to create new sentient lives solely for potential net utility gains, as the risk of introducing unavoidable suffering outweighs marginal happiness additions in the ethical equation. In terms of , classical 's totalist aggregation permits expansive if it yields overall net positive , even if average declines, as seen in defenses of large-scale human expansion aligned with historical societal progress toward higher living standards and technological advancement since the . , however, resists such creation if it foreseeably introduces net , potentially implying that non-existence for potential beings avoids disutility without forgoing existing , thus challenging classical views on procreation and risks. R. N. Smart, in his 1958 analysis responding to Karl Popper's hints at negative demands in , formalized while noting its stark implication: in extreme interpretations, it could obligate the rapid elimination of all to eradicate ongoing and future , a conclusion he contrasted with classical 's affirmative pursuit of maximization. Philosophical debates highlight how negative utilitarianism evades classical 's repugnant conclusion—wherein a vast existing at barely positive is deemed preferable to a smaller, highly blissful one—but at the cost of endorsing potentially counterintuitive outcomes like prioritizing over mere mitigation. Modern defenses of classical , such as those addressing aggregation paradoxes, argue that empirical observations of human flourishing through and growth support symmetric net over asymmetric minimization, as asymmetric models undervalue causal pathways to reduced baseline via . Critics of negative utilitarianism, including Johan E. Gustafsson in his 2017 , contend that its disutility focus leads to intransitive or overly myopic choices, whereas classical aggregation better accommodates dynamic under .

Relations to Deontology and Rights-Based Ethics

Negative utilitarianism, as a form of , fundamentally tensions with and rights-based ethics by prioritizing the aggregate reduction of over absolute prohibitions on certain actions or inviolable individual entitlements. frameworks, such as those emphasizing Kantian duties or rule-based imperatives, hold that actions like killing or are intrinsically wrong, irrespective of their outcomes in minimizing pain; negative utilitarianism, conversely, evaluates morality solely by net averted, potentially licensing violations if they yield greater overall relief. For instance, a negative utilitarian might endorse forced of individuals in severe, irremediable distress to eliminate their entirely, overriding the deontic or , as the act's consequence—zero for that person—outweighs procedural constraints. This aggregative logic extends to scenarios where suppressing , such as through coercive population controls, prevents broader societal , a position that rights theorists like those invoking Lockean natural reject as eroding the foundational barriers against exploitation. Intersections arise in hybrid proposals that attempt to graft deontic constraints onto negative utilitarianism, such as incorporating side-constraints that prohibit violations unless thresholds are extraordinarily high. These hybrids aim to preserve consequentialist aggregation while borrowing 's intuitive protections, as explored in discussions of threshold where rules hold until catastrophic disutility overrides them. However, critics argue such additions are , introducing non-consequentialist elements that dilute negative utilitarianism's coherence; for example, determining the precise threshold for overriding a right like non-harm risks subjective , undermining the theory's claim to impartial, outcome-based . -based ethicists further contend that these constraints fail to address interpersonal aggregation's flaws, where comparing subjective across individuals lacks verifiable interpersonal metrics, leading to unreliable justifications for overrides. Empirical historical patterns underscore deontology's causal advantages for stability, as utilitarian-inspired policies—often rationalized by aggregate welfare gains akin to negative 's minimization—have repeatedly escalated into abuses that amplified total harm. Benthamite , for instance, dismissed natural as "nonsense upon stilts," influencing 19th-century reforms that prioritized collective over individual liberties, yet contributed to interventions like colonial administrative overreaches in British India, where purported benevolence masked coercive measures exacerbating local . In the , programs justified by utilitarian logic to avert future "defective" led to forced sterilizations in the U.S. (affecting over 60,000 individuals by estimates) and similar policies elsewhere, violating bodily and yielding long-term social distrust without proportional reduction. These cases illustrate how consequentialist aggregation invites slippery slopes, as decision-makers overestimate net benefits while underestimating backlash and unintended escalations; deontology's rigid , by contrast, enforce predictable boundaries that empirically curb such errors, fostering societies where is contained through enforceable norms rather than fallible calculations.

Applications and Influence

In Effective Altruism and Suffering-Focused Ethics

Negative utilitarianism has influenced subsets of the effective altruism (EA) community by emphasizing interventions that target the prevention or alleviation of suffering, particularly among non-human animals, over those maximizing overall well-being or happiness. Suffering-focused ethics, a broader framework aligned with negative utilitarianism, posits that reducing suffering holds primary moral weight, leading proponents to advocate for cause areas like wild animal suffering reduction, where billions of sentient beings endure predation, starvation, and disease annually. This prioritization diverges from mainstream EA focuses such as global health, as negative utilitarians argue that the scale of suffering in nature—estimated at trillions of insects and wild animals—outweighs benefits from human-centric happiness enhancements. Organizations like the Center for Reducing Suffering, co-founded in 2020 by Tobias Baumann and Magnus Vinding, exemplify this influence by conducting research and advocacy on suffering prioritization, including ethical arguments for de-emphasizing positive welfare in favor of harm minimization. Their work draws on negative utilitarian principles to promote interventions such as improving standards or exploring biotechnological means to lessen pain, influencing EA discussions on neglected high-impact areas. Similarly, Brian Tomasik's essays have shaped EA thought by applying suffering-focused lenses to , urging shifts toward preventing vast-scale natural harms over traditional . Debates on insect sentience further highlight negative utilitarianism's role, with EA researchers estimating that —numbering around 10 quintillion globally—could represent the majority of sentient if capable of , prompting calls for welfare considerations in and ecosystems. Evidence from behavioral studies, such as fruit flies exhibiting anxiety-like states reversible by antidepressants, supports partial credence in insect valenced experiences, though uncertainties persist regarding neural complexity thresholds for . Proponents argue this justifies reallocating EA resources from human health metrics to insect-inclusive interventions, like humane farming alternatives, to address disproportionate loads. While these efforts have succeeded in elevating suffering reduction within EA discourse—evident in dedicated forum topics and for related projects—critics within the community contend that negative utilitarianism undervalues human flourishing and positive states, potentially leading to myopic strategies that ignore long-term trade-offs. For instance, has argued against it, claiming it fails to justify creating happy lives and risks counterintuitive outcomes like ecosystem disruption, a view echoed in EA critiques highlighting its limited academic backing outside utilitarian circles. Despite such objections, suffering-focused approaches continue to foster specialized EA subcommunities dedicated to empirical evaluation of suffering-heavy interventions.

Policy and Existential Risk Considerations

Negative utilitarianism's policy implications prioritize interventions that directly reduce existing while discouraging the creation of new sentient beings capable of experiencing it. Proponents argue for measures such as programs and enhanced to alleviate unavoidable human suffering, viewing these as morally urgent over initiatives promoting or happiness enhancement. More radically, the framework aligns with antinatalist policies, including subsidies for non-procreation or public campaigns highlighting the asymmetry of harm in birth, as creating lives inevitably introduces net suffering without commensurate benefits. Such recommendations stem from the view that preventing potential sufferers outweighs any purported goods of , potentially extending to incentives for gradual depopulation to minimize aggregate disvalue over time. In the domain of existential risks, negative utilitarianism shifts focus from extinction events to "s-risks"—scenarios of persistent, astronomical-scale suffering, such as AI-enforced dystopias or locked-in states of torment—deeming them graver threats due to their causal potential to perpetuate disvalue indefinitely. Unlike classical , which might equate with the loss of vast future , negative variants treat non-existence as neutral or preferable, as it forestalls additional without forgoing positive states that were never realized. This prioritization informs risk mitigation strategies emphasizing safeguards against malevolent outcomes, such as robust to prevent suffering-maximizing systems, over pure survival imperatives. Critics highlight that these considerations risk endorsing coercive or -adjacent policies, where calculus might justify involuntary interventions—like selective population reduction or preemptive harm elimination—to achieve minimization, echoing historical totalitarian applications of pain-eradication rationales. For instance, extreme negative could theoretically support accelerating if it reliably ends all current and near-term more effectively than gradual measures, raising concerns about feasibility and unintended escalations in a world of imperfect actors. Empirical parallels exist in past -inspired programs, such as early 20th-century efforts framed as societal welfare improvements, underscoring the need for deontological constraints absent in pure .

Recent Developments

Contemporary Advocacy and Organizations

In the 2020s, Magnus Vinding has emerged as a prominent defender of negative utilitarianism, authoring works such as (2020), which argues for prioritizing the reduction of over the promotion of positive states, drawing on asymmetries in hedonic experience. Vinding has directly engaged critiques of the view, including a 2022 point-by-point rebuttal to Toby Ord's 2013 essay "Why I'm Not a Negative Utilitarian," contending that Ord underestimates the moral priority of averting severe without requiring its elimination to justify action. The Center for Reducing Suffering (CRS), established around 2015, advances aligned with negative utilitarian principles by funding and conducting research on interventions to minimize across sentient beings, including wild animals and potential future populations. CRS researchers, such as Vinding, emphasize empirical strategies like habitat redesign for wild animals and for options in cases of , positioning these as higher priorities than welfare enhancements that merely add mild positive experiences. Negative utilitarianism has influenced discussions in AI ethics since the mid-2010s, particularly regarding "s-risks"—scenarios of astronomical-scale enabled by advanced , such as misaligned systems optimizing for outcomes that inadvertently or deliberately maximize torment. Advocates argue for proactive measures like research focused on suffering minimization, with organizations such as on Long-Term Risk incorporating negative utilitarian considerations into s-risk prevention frameworks, prioritizing these over x-risks ( risks) due to the view's thesis.

Ongoing Debates in Analytic Philosophy

Toby Ord's 2013 essay "Why I'm Not a Negative Utilitarian" challenges the core thesis of negative utilitarianism, which posits that preventing holds greater moral weight than promoting , by arguing that it implies counterintuitive outcomes, such as preferring worlds with mild over those with vast but no additional . Vinding's 2022 point-by-point rebuttal defends the , contending that Ord misrepresents negative utilitarian views and overlooks for 's disproportionate impact, such as psychological studies on pain's greater salience compared to equivalent . Recent discussions on platforms like in 2025 have debated the intuitiveness of negative utilitarianism, with one analysis arguing it aligns more closely with common moral intuitions—such as prioritizing harm prevention over benefit creation—than classical , potentially resolving apparent repugnance in thought experiments like utility monsters by emphasizing disvalue over value. Critics counter that such intuitions may stem from evolved heuristics rather than normative truth, urging falsifiable tests over anecdotal alignment, particularly in communities where suffering-focused views risk uncritical endorsement without rigorous scrutiny of causal pathways from interventions to net suffering reduction. Philosophers debate the empirical testability of the , proposing as a avenue: studies show distinct neural processing for aversion versus reward seeking, with negativity biases in suggesting suffering's outsized motivational force, though these findings remain correlational and do not directly validate moral lexicality. Johan Gustafsson's analysis critiques lexical variants of negative utilitarianism for implying absurd discontinuities, where infinitesimal positive could override arbitrary suffering thresholds, violating continuity axioms in expected theory. These disputes highlight unresolved tensions: while negative utilitarians advocate prioritizing verifiable reductions in observable , opponents demand stronger evidence against , questioning whether the view withstands formal axiomatic scrutiny or risks conflating descriptive with prescriptive . Open questions persist on integrating causal models of suffering propagation with broader welfare aggregation, absent consensus on asymmetry's foundational status.

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