Utilitarianism, Infinity, and Christianity
Summary. When infinite outcomes are introduced into utilitarian decision-making, they tend to crowd out all other considerations. Religion is one of the few domains of human intellectual activity that has been so similarly concerned with the infinite.
When I first seriously began to think about the suffering of animals in factory farms, I stopped eating meat and became essentially a vegan. Many people who care about animals change their diets to avoid being personally involved in animal cruelty, but they say that vegans shouldn't try to impose their beliefs on others, because other people should be allowed to make their own dietary choices. But I never agreed with this principle. Eating meat is bad, I reasoned, because it objectively causes pain to other organisms (well, actually, purchasing any given piece of meat has a very small probability of causing enormous amounts of pain). But this is true whether I or someone else creates demand for the meat, so--I reasoned--I have an obligation to encourage others to become vegan, too. Thus, when I had the opportunity, I told others about suffering in factory farms, and I supported the work of Vegan Outreach in doing the same. This "evangelical" position on veganism was a direct consequence of the utilitarian philosophy. Unlike many ethical systems that require abstaining from harm but regard positive charitable actions as supererogatory, utilitarianism maintains an obligation to assist those in trouble, even when we are not personally "responsible."
It is not hard to draw parallels between the above and Christian evangelism. By saving nonbelievers, there is--even some atheists will admit--a positive probability that Christian evangelism will prevent enormous amounts of suffering. My point in this paper is not to argue that utilitarianism and Christianity are equivalent or even necessarily similar world views, but I do wish to note that the Christian perspective includes some features--notably, a focus on the infinite--that are very much in line with utilitarian inclinations, and for this reason, it is not unnatural that utilitarians might lean toward Christianity.
Utilitarianism is a demanding philosophy. For instance, a utilitarian concerned with factory farming might be inclined to spend $6 on a movie ticket, but she must realize that those six dollars could have been donated to Vegan Outreach in order to prevent between 1.6 and 303 years of suffering on a factory farm. (This is not to mention the opportunity cost of spending two hours at a movie--a cost that is probably far higher than $6.) Viewed from this perspective, the utilitarian's own welfare--two hours of enjoyment against years of terrible suffering--is negligible. Of course, the utilitarian's happiness may be important for instrumental reasons, but the intrinsic value of the utilitarian's pleasure is essentially zero in comparison to the greater cause.
I said to myself, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself." And behold, it too was futility. [...] I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly, until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under heaven the few years of their lives. [...] Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11)
The negligibility of immediate individual pleasure becomes evident in an even stronger sense when the utilitarian turns her sights toward infinite changes in utility. If the utilitarian can do something that has any positive chance of making a net positive infinite increase in utility, then her own happiness--and indeed, all the pleasures in this world--are completely unimportant by comparison. (Nick Bostrom calls this the "fanaticism problem" on p. 20 of his "Infinite Ethics.") Regardless of what construction of infinity one uses--aleph numbers, hyperreal numbers, surreal numbers--nonzero constant multiples times infinity always completely dominate finite magnitudes; indeed, this is a basic notion that any precise definition of infinity should satisfy. Yet, few secular ethicists have written about infinite concerns, and even fewer are actually doing anything about them. Clearly famine, genocide, and illiteracy are important, but how much more important are problems of potentially infinite magnitude. Why is it that most utilitarians are not actively researching and acting upon hypotheses about infinite changes in utility that they might effect? Is anyone else concerned with this topic?
Yes, in fact: Christians (and members of other religions) are. The premise of Christianity is that there is a God of infinite value and that our own lives, and the lives of all other people, will eventually involve either infinite joy or infinite suffering; the pleasures and pains of this world are fleeting and, ultimately, do not matter in comparison. "Finally," the utilitarian might say to herself, "here is a philosophy that focuses on the infinite, giving this topic the full devotion that it deserves."
I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with which to occupy themselves. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. [...] I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear [revere] Him. (Ecclesiastes 3:10-14)
And Christianity is not just a contrived intellectual speculation about how infinite changes in utility might happen under a hypothetical scenario; it's something that 2.1 billion believe, mostly for reasons that are independent of its value as a theory that involves infinite utility. The point here is that Christianity is not something that was made up to suggest a way utilitarians might make infinite changes in utility; rather, it's something people believe for many other reasons, yet it fits naturally into an infinite-utility framework.
Moreover, if Christianity is true, the answer to what we ought to do is clear, at least in its broad outlines. This is an advantage over materialistic scenarios whereby humans might effect infinite changes in utility, because those changes would usually take place in the far future, allowing butterfly effects to more significantly distort the intended purposes of actions in the present. If Christianity is true (and if we think God is benevolent), then we needn't worry that because of our limited insight our actions will actually end up causing more harm than good; this is because an infinitely wise God has told us that those actions are (infinitely) valuable. In contrast, even if it is possible through material means to develop superintelligent AIs with vastly more computational power than all of humanity combined, the opinions that such beings would reach would always remain fallible. (I acknowledge that this point is, in some sense, cheating. Yes, if Christianity is true and if God is benevolent, then we trivially ought to follow his commands. But the hard part is figuring out the right religion in the first place. So adopting Christianity has its share of uncertainty too; that uncertainty is just located differently than in the case of atheism.)
Finally, if we admit the idea of different sizes of infinity, it's plausible to argue that the infinity of God would be the highest of them or, if there is no highest, would (somehow) be greater than all of them. Few Christians would deny the statement that "God is the greatest possible thing," or that "Heaven is the best possible outcome." For, if Christianity is true, it seems almost a contradiction to say that God would occupy a level of infinity below others. Certainly the magnitude of his value, and the value of heaven for us, would not be smaller than that which could be produced by humans or post-humans through material means.
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