Biblio

Total and average utilitarianism are very different theories, and where they differ most is over extinction. If global warming extinguishes humanity, according to total utilitarianism, that would be an inconceivably bad disaster. The loss would be all the future wellbeing of all the people who would otherwise have lived. On the other hand, according to at least some versions of average utilitarianism, extinction might not be a very bad thing at all; it might not much affect the average wellbeing of the people who do live. So the difference between these theories makes a vast difference to the attitude we should take to global warming. According to total utilitarianism, although the chance of extinction is slight, the harm extinction would do is so enormous that it may well be the dominant consideration when we think about global warming. According to average utilitarianism, the chance of extinction may well be negligible.

John Broome, Counting the cost of global warming: A report to the Economic and Social Research Council on research by John Broome and David Ulph, London, 1992, p. 121

When I ask my expert colleagues whether I can safely accept Eddington’s conclusions in these matters, they always answer in the negative. But this does not satisfy me. For I am quite convinced that their unfavourable answer is not based on a first-hand study of the arguments. It is quite plain that their attitude may be summed up in the sentence: “This kind of thing must be wrong somewhere; but I can’t be expected to waste my valuable time in finding out precisely where the mistake lies.”

C. D. Broad, Review of Sir Arthur Eddington, The philosophy of Physical Science, Philosophy, vol. 15, no. 59, 1940, pp. 301–312, p. 312

Prichard seems to have thought […] that the normativity of morality cannot be explained at all. But that does not follow. Even if there is no instrumental explanation of its normativity, there may be an explanation of some other sort. It would truly be unsatisfactory if there was no explanation at all. It would be a bad blow to philosophy to find there are inexplicable facts.

John Broome, Ethics out of economics, Cambridge, 1999, p. 98

[Pain] is a bad thing in itself. It does not matter who experiences it, or where it comes in a life, or where in the course of a painful episode. Pain is bad; it should not happen. There should be as little pain as possible in the world, however it is distributed across people and across time.

John Broome, More pain or less?, Analysis, vol. 56, no. 2, 1996, pp. 116–118, p. 117