World of Forms Revisited

My friend Tim responded to my world of forms post, and I wanted to respond to his comment.

He said: "I fail to see how a world of forms (supernatural/extraplanar) is based on a material world of observation. Correct me if I am mistaken, but I believe Pluto was under the impression we all came from the same place and will wind up in the same place, thusly, world of forms. My true question is this; With which part of forms do you agree and with which part of forms do you argue? (As you cannot say each of our forms is different and then say you are still in favor of forms as a concept)"

So first of all Plato doesn't think his world of forms is a physical place, as you say, but everything in this world as we know it (i.e., the things we see) are all manifestations and copies of those things in the world of forms.

As far as what exactly I'm saying, I'm refuting his concept of a single immaterial world of forms from which all things originate based upon two things. First of all, he says that a thing is more beautiful the closer it is to the actual form from which it is derived. For example, one cat is more beatiful from a second because the the first cast is closer to the perfect ideal form of cat (regardless of the fact that this ideal form of cat is not material). And then my second point is that I think Plato disregarded the fact that Beauty is a subjective thing. He of course would argue that it is not, that only philosophers who have "seen" the world of forms can know what is beautiful, but I think this is ignoring how things work in the real world (as Plato many times seemed wont to do, what with his idealistic beliefs). So since beauty is a subjective thing, and beauty is a reflection of the world of forms, I believe that each and every person has their own "world of forms." Essentially, I'm saying that at least beauty, and I think some other things but I will not get into those at this moment, is subjective and that from this I conclude that there is not singular world of forms as Plato describes it.

At least I think that's what I'm saying.

Aquinas' Fifth Way

St. Thomas Aquinas had five proofs for the existence of God (and by God he means a full Judeochristian, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient God). They all reside in his Summa Theologica in the first book if you're interested in reading all of them. Today I will explain the fifth and hopefully refute it as a proof for the full Judeochristian God.

His fifth way is very similar to Intelligent Design but not quite. Rather than saying that everything is so orderly, he instead shows that everything in the universe acts toward an end, i.e., everything in the universe has some sort of purpose that it pursues. For example, trees grow and attempt to populate and eat sunshine, etc., while mushrooms eat dead trees and grow and try to spread their fungus, etc. His argument then proceeds to the point that unintelligent things (such as trees and mushrooms) cannot possibly acts toward an end without being guided by something, for that is the definition of unintelligent things: they have no thoughts to guide them toward a purpose. Thus, Aquinas says, there must be some intelligent being that guides these things toward an end, and this being must be God.

First, I ask this question: what is the definition of a tree? or What does it mean for something to be a tree? This is not it exactly, but something generally along the lines of a plant that grows extremely tall, eats sunshine, attempts to populate, etc. So it is thus in the definition of being a tree that it has an end; if it did not have these ends or purposes, it would not be called a tree. Aquinas argue that is has these ends only if given it by something intelligent, rather than having been created by chance or happenstance. This idea of chance is something he doesn't really ever get into, so I'll just ignore it for now and assume that he's correct that it can only be done by design by an intelligent being.

So now I ask this: Why does this thing, this being that created trees have to be a omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and all loving? To me, it only gives us, if you accept that it was created by design, a being that is more powerful than humans are, a being that can create things on a whim, possibly from nothing. I see no reason to ascribe to this being the attributes of a Judeochristian God, but rather only a god, i.e., a being that is more powerful than humans are. It can certainly be intelligent, if you agree with Aquinas that you need an intelligent designer. However, I simply cannot see how it necessitates a full, Judeochristian concept of God.

World of Forms, Part 2

As I said yesterday, Plato ascribes beauty as the relationship of one thing to the form upon which is it based. The closer it is to the pure form, the more beautiful it is.

I agree with this, but I want to add something as well. It seems to me that beauty is a subjective thing when it comes down to it. Things that I find beautiful are much different than things that other people find beautiful. Additionally, the things that people find beautiful are constantly changing, that is, what people might find beautiful today may not be what they find beautiful tomorrow.

So how do we rectify having beauty be subjective while having a world of forms? I believe that each person has, due to a combination of nature and nurture (i.e. genetics and environment), their own world of forms that they create. Additionally, this world is constantly in flux. This makes a lot of sense to me, especially when you think about childhood development. Children will commonly group things together until told otherwise. For example, a small child might call a cow a dog, because it sees that the cow has four legs and a small tail, just as a dog does. However, once corrected, the child will then understand the difference between cow and dog, and thus the two forms are distinguished in his or her mind.

Of course, Plato could come back and say that beauty is not subjective, that there is only one world of forms, and those who disagree with the beauty of the real world of forms are not actually seeing beauty. But to me this seems poppycock: every single person has different perceptions of beauty, and as much as Plato liked to play up the importance of philosophers, we are not that important and all knowing I have to admit. If there is an objective beauty, it would be extremely difficult to determine what it would be, seeing as in a real world application there are so many different opinions. I do not think that simply because Plato was a philosopher did he know what the real world of forms was like and thus know "real" beauty.

World of Forms, Part 1

So I'm going to stray off the elitist path for a while to discuss, mainly because I'm not getting anywhere substantial with my theory. Instead, I'm going to discuss Plato, mainly his idea of the world of forms. Today I'll give a brief summary and tomorrow I'll discuss my opinion of this view.

Plato believes that everything in the world is merely a copy of some greater, grander perfect idea of that given thing. For example, all cats are merely copies of this perfect idea of "catness", or the perfect "cat." Also, all chairs are merely copies of the perfect idea of "chairness", or the perfect "chair." He uses the analogy of the cave to explain this. Imagine you are chained to a wall, with your back to the wall, in such a fashion that you cannot turn around. Between you and the wall there is a fire (that does not hurt you in any way shape or form - it's far enough away). Between you and the fire are all the perfect images of the world, such that all you see are the shadows of these images on the wall in front of you. This is the way the real world is. We only see shadows of the true perfect things, and these true and perfect things are all kept in the world of forms.

Now he takes this one step further and says that beauty is a property of items based on their closeness in perfection to the perfect idea. For example, the closer a chair is to the perfect idea of chair, the more beautiful it is. This is the point that I will argue tomorrow.

It's been a while....

So it's been a while since I posted, and a lot has happened, mainly, people have commented on my blog. I've read them all, and I really wanted to respond to two of the comments.

First off is this one, posted by a former professor of mine (named Vole here) about the ice cream scoop situation. "It's not so clear to me that the elitist will go for five scoops at once. It depends on what we're being elite about. If the elitist ideal is to strive for the best life overall, then a scoop a day is likely to be better (because of diminishing marginal returns, you get more overall utility by spreading it out.) Only if an elitist insists the aim is peak happiness within a life, rather than the best life overall, will 5 today, none tomorrow be the way to go. We could insist on the latter interpretation of elitism - but why?"

Well, the main thing is I wish to be a more pure elitist, and choosing the former in your comment is being more of an average elitist. As long as the average of the lifetime has the highest peak value, it's the best. To me, this is dissatisfying. I would much prefer having a life with a single peak moment that far outshines any other moment. So until it comes to my attention that this stronger view has a huge problem with it (other than the problems already associated with any sort of elitist view) then I will attempt to propone it.

Additionally, Mathieu made some comments about sacrifice, saying that I was incorrect in my usage of the term. He says "to sacrifice means to give up a value for a disvalue." First of all, I'm not entirely certain that this is true due to the fact that value is a scale, not a dichotomy. You can have two things that you value, but you might value one of them moreso than the other. In choosing to do the one that you value less, it's not choosing a disvalue, it's simply choosing something that you value less. If this is what you meant by disvalue, I apologize, but I think of disvalue as something that is not valued at all. So to me, then, a sacrifice is choosing something of less value in your life over something of more value to you when you are presented with both options. And so in my example (in which I stipulate that the test is very important), the student values football (or whatever sport he might wish to play) more than he values studying. So when he chooses studying over football, he is making a sacrifice.

Reading Plato

I'm taking a break for a few days on the blog in case you didn't notice. Reading some Plato (the original elitist). Additionally, life is getting busy.

Which is preferred?

I was recently talking with a friend of mine, and I was attempting to explain my theory. I found a rather apt analogy for it.

Imagine you have won a prize: 5 scoops of ice cream. For the sake of the argument, let's say that 5 scoops is exactly the amount to fill you up (i.e., you won't get overly stuffed by eating 5 scoops at once but instead will be quite satisfied). Now you have a choice. You may either have one scoop of ice cream every day for 5 days or you may have 5 scoops of ice cream at once (remember that 5 scoops of ice cream will not make you feel disgusting). Which do you choose?

In talking with my friend, I found that I was clearly of a mindset to have 5 scoops of ice cream at once, and this is the sort of choice that elitism propones. It has a very high peak value at one point by sacrificing having anything at any other time. It's kind of a "go out with a bang" mentality, or as another of my friends would say, "go big or go home."

Now let's change the example slightly. Let's say that your second option is now to give one scoop of ice cream each to four other people (keeping one for yourself). Also, let's stipulate for this argument that the combined happiness/joy/wellbeing/whathaveyou of all five people having one scoop of ice cream is lower than that of you having 5 scoops of ice cream. To put numbers to it, let's say you eating 5 scoops of ice cream gives you a wellbeing of 6 and each person would get a wellbeing of 1 by eating one scoop of ice cream, thus totalling 5 (which is less than 6, of course). Now which do you choose?

The elitist (and myself) would still propone eating all 5 scoops yourself, especiallys ince even though the total of spreading out the ice cream is 5, it's actually 5 instances of a wellbeing of 1, which is far less desirable in an elitist's eyes. This seems plausible to me. However, I may be a bit biased.

Capitalism and Selfishness

Capitalism promotes selfishness. At least, when you really take it to heart and don't temper it with any other ideals.

Capitalism, at least a bare-bones description of capitalism, allows for capital and all sorts of wealth to be controlled privately: the state has no say over pricing, production, etc. In this form, capitalism leads to selfishness. It is much easier to gain capital and increase production when there is no concern for other people and their wellbeing. For example, monopolies are the epitome of a successful capitalistic venture: complete and utter control over a market segment.

I think this might be a contributing factor in my own personal selfishness when it comes to sacrificing my wellbeing for those who already have a higher wellbeing than I. In the american society in which I live, it is considered good practice to be at least a little bit selfish (at least in the economic world). However, there's a fine line to walk between being selfish and fair, because, thankfully, america's capitalistic economy is tempered by a number of other factors.

This doesn't really help much in the nature/nurture debate, because one could argue that capitalism is merely an expression of human nature's innate selfishness. Conversely, it could be argued that humans are innately unselfish and that capitalism is merely the result of some sort of perversion of human nature. Again, this is merely speculation and doesn't really help anything.

Where does it come from?

The other day I considered the fact that my reticence to lower my own wellbeing for an increase in someone's wellbeing who was higher than mine was comprised mostly of jealousy and/or selfishness. So where does it come from? Well, that's the age old question: nature or nurture?

Is it really human nature to be jealous and selfish of those who are more fortunate than we are? When I think about it, it might be. Consider those people who are NOT selfish and jealous, such as Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King, Jr. (although some might argue me on the latter). If indeed it is human nature to be selfish and jealous, then these two would have not been so due to nurturing, and it seems like they had very nurturing upbringings. Mother Theresa was raised a devout Roman Catholic, and the religion does lend itself, if followed truly, to a sacrificial, non-selfish, non-jealous lifestyle. (Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Theresa for more info on Mother Theresa, she's a cool cat). Dr. King was also raised as a devout to a christian religion (in his case, Baptist), and so he learned to be self-sacrificing, loving, giving, etc.

This is an interesting theory, but it doesn't really have any credence to it since I'm just speculating. Tomorrow I'm going to pursue a nurturing view of how we become selfish/jealous.

Jealousy or selfishness?

I was trying to think about why, psychologically, people would be reticent to give up something of theirs to those who are already better off than them. I tried to have a dialogue with myself (and not be crazy, but that's kind of hard to do), and when I would ask myself, "Why do you not wish to give money to those who have more than you?" my answer was something along the lines of "they don't need any more, I need it more than they do." The other answer I would occassionally give was "they're already better off than me." These answers seem to embody selfishness and jealousy.

A question to be asked, then, is whether or not it is really selfish to think that I need money that (for the sake of the argument) I have worked hard to earn more than somebody who already has more than I will ever have in my entire lifetime. My immediate response is no, of course, because I don't want to be selfish. However, upon further reflection, I really think it is seflish, especially if I am trying to propone an elitist view. What if all that other person needs is one more dollar and he'll create the cure for cancer or the newest and best computer that will in turn lead someone else to create something equally spectacular? It does seem selfish to me.

I think it is also definitely jealousy. If someone is better or smarter or more wealthy than I am, I would feel jealous if he or she ended up with all of the money or books or whatever in the world simply because the person is better than I am in some way.

So I guess the point to all of this is that I (and other people probably) need to be less selfish and jealous if we are to accept my ethical theory.

The Necessity of Sacrifice, part 2

So yesterday I gave two plausible (hopefully, or perhaps at least one) examples of when a person makes a sacrifice within their own life to increase wellbeing later on. This leads into how to increase the peak wellbeing within a world: it requires sacrifice on the part of those with lower wellbeing.

Now, hopefully yesterday I showed that most people are certainly willing to sacrifice within their own lives to make their life better. The thing that people would balk at, then, is making sacrifices in their life in order to increase the wellbeing of someone else. However, it only seems to happen when it's some stranger or someone who they think is already better off. Parents, at least most, sacrifice constantly for their children in the hopes that their children will have better lives than they (the parents) had. Also, many people willingly sacrifice in order to give to those less fortunate than they (e.g., donations to charities, volunteering at soup kitchens, etc.). But if the receiver of such a sacrifice is already better off, then there seems to be a reticence. This is, however, the only way to increase peak value. And I believe that if people truly are willing to sacrifice, then giving up such a thing as money may actually increase the person's own wellbeing by increasing their happiness or some other factor of wellbeing to a higher degree than the loss due to giving up money.

Admittedly, it does seem passing strange to say that people should not be reticent. Even sitting here now, attempting to defend my theory, I'm having trouble saying, "No, give money to the rich and powerful!" and such things like that. I may come back to this idea when I've thought it through a little more.

The Necessity of Sacrifice, part 1

So it occurred to me that people might wonder how, since I have drawn an asymmetry, a world is ever to increase its peak value. To do so, people have to make sacrifices and go above and beyond the call of duty (since it is not necessary to do good but is only necessary not to do bad).

Let's go back to the example I had of a student choosing to play a sport or study for a test. In the scenario I thought was plausible, the student chose to study in order for a higher gain later on. In my eyes, this is making a sacrifice at one point (i.e., lowering wellbeing) in order for a higher wellbeing later. My hope is this seems plausible to most people; I think that most people would say that if the student chose to play the sport, the student was being irresponsible or lazy or some other negative thing. Again, this is what I assume. If my assumption is wrong—i.e., if people think it more plausible that a student should choose playing the sport over studying—then this goes out the door.

Perhaps, if you don't like this example, we can discuss going to work every day. Many adults go to work every day. Excepting for those few who actually enjoy their job, to me, this would be a lowering of wellbeing in order for a later gain (e.g., working 40 hours a week at a job you hate in order to have enough money to put food on the table for your family). This may be a more plausible "sacrifice" example, at least it seems so to me.

I will continue this tomorrow.

An Asymmetrical View

I'm a bit late today in posting, mainly because I had hoped I would come up with a solution overnight to my problem I encountered yesterday, but to no avail. Because this is so, I will instead go back to a small issue that I sort of ran into last week.

Harken back to the day I was explaining a loss of wellbeing for one person that caused a gain in the peak value of wellbeing within a world. If you don't remember, I was mentioning when the man with the highest wellbeing in the world robbed a man with lower wellbeing in order to increase his own wellbeing (the peak wellbeing) to a higher level. This is a good thing, according to the pure elitist. However, many people agree that robbing people is wrong (and I assure you, I am one of those people). Thus, as so many other ethical theorists do, I make my view asymmetrical.

What this means is that under my view, you are NOT required to do the good thing, but are instead only required NOT to do the BAD thing. For example, it is not necessary to move to a higher peak wellbeing. However, it is necessary to prevent moving from a high peak wellbeing to a lower peak wellbeing. Thus, it's asymmetrical.

By making it so, I do not require the man with the highest wellbeing to go around robbing everyone left and right in order to increase his own wellbeing.

A Major Set Back

I realized that not only am I forced to accept the position I discovered yesterday, there's an even more absurd conclusion that I am forced to. Let's set the minimum wellbeing value for a life worth living to 5 again.

Take two worlds. Both have populations A through Z (all the letters in between). In the first world, populations A through Z have a wellbeing of 5.1. Not too bad, since they all have lives worth living. In the second world, populations A through Y have a wellbeing of 100 quintillion, and populatoin Z has a wellbeing of 4.9. I am still forced to accept that the first world is better, but I simply do not see that. It doesn't seem realistic to me that anyone would say that world one is better, when 25/26 populations in world 2 are so much better off than those in the other world. And yet, if I maintain my attitude of the minimum wellbeing value trumping peak value, I have to accept this.

So as of right now, I have two options. Assuming, of course, that most people would agree with me and accept this conclusion as absurd, I could simply bite the bullet and say yes, I accept this conclusion. However, this is very unsatisfactory to me, so I will try to work around this by either adding in another feature or simply removing the minimum life worth living value.

This is kind of a setback, but oh well.

A Problem with Minimum Life Value

So I just thought of a position I think that, as of right now, I am forced to accept. I don't find it completely implausible, but it is certainly a little of a stretch. It comes from the fact that not going below a life worth living trumps peak value.

Take two worlds. Let us stipulate once again (for the sake of argument only) that any population that has a wellbeing below 5 is considered not worth living. They both have two populations (A and B). In the first world, A has a wellbeing of 3 billion and B has a wellbeing of 4. In the second world, both populations have a wellbeing of 6. Because of the fact that I have made not going below a life worth living more important than peak value, I am forced to accept that the 2nd world is a better world.

I'm not quite certain if this is a bad thing, I honestly am not sure what is the right answer here. My elitism cries out that world one is far superior, but I am not sure what the general public would think. Either way, it's definitely a problem I need to address, because no matter where I draw the line for "a life worth living", I will run into this problem. And it's quite easy to make it even more dramatic (change the wellbeing values of A and B in world one to 3 quintillion and 4.99, respectively).

I hate philosophy sometimes.

The Robbed Man

So I had planned on showing why people balk at this today, but instead I think I'll discuss further the idea of people choosing elitism every day without knowing it. Think of any parent. They give up money, time, and practically everything else in their life in order to make their child(ren) happy. At least, a good parent does.

Some might argue that, in reality, this does not actually lower the parent's wellbeing at all, and so I wanted to show an example where it clearly lowers someone's wellbeing for a gain in someone else's. Take a man who is rather well off, has a rather high wellbeing, etc. One day, another man comes to his house, holds him at gunpoint, and takes all of his money, credit cards, etc. Unbeknownst to the first man (the man who is being robbed), all of this money is going to be going to the man with the highest wellbeing in the world in order to increase his peak value of wellbeing (and thus for an elitist, a better world is being made). The robbed man has no inkling on this; as far as he knows, he was simply robbed. In my mind, it's hard to find a way for this to be an increase in the robbed man's wellbeing, even considering the wide variation in belief of what wellbeing actually is.

This is a very strong elitism here, proponing that whoever has the highest wellbeing go around and rob everyone else in order to increase the highest peak wellbeing. Hopefully over the next few weeks in the continuation of my discussion of my theory I won't be forced to this strong elitist view, but we'll see.

Everyday life

So today I'm going to start in on some examples and things that I hope will make my theory sound more plausible. The first is an appeal to everyday life. People every day, at least in my opinion, choose to act in an elitist way (elitist as in the ethical theory, not as in a pompous jackass). Imagine a student. Tomorrow, he has an economics mid-term that, if he fails, will most likely result in a failing grade for the entire semester (since his mid-term is worth 50% of his grade). His friend calls him up and asks him if he wants to go out and play some cricket. At this point, the student has two options (he may have more, but for the sake of argument, let us assume he can ONLY do one of these two things due to some preternatural force): study for his econ mid-term, for which has not studied at all as of yet, or go and play cricket. If he ends up playing cricket, he will fail his mid-term. If he studies, he will not.

Now, let us say that this student abhors studying, such that whenever he studies it decreases his wellbeing. Also, he only mildly enjoys cricket, such that playing cricket does not affect his wellbeing all that much, perhaps only slightly increasing it. However, passing his mid-term due to studying would increase his wellbeing greatly, much more so than playing cricket. Being the good student he is (and unknowingly the good elitist he is), the student elects to study instead of playing cricket, as he desires to pass his econ mid-term. Thus, he has elected to decrease his wellbeing as one point, yet still keep it above the minimum level for a life worth living, in order to gain a higher peak value of wellbeing later on.

This scenario, of choosing to do something that decreases wellbeing in order to have a higher wellbeing than one would have otherwise gotten, seems to be an everyday occurrence in many people's lives. Other examples are donating to charities (for the tax rebate of course), going to work everyday (with the possible exception of those very few who actually like their jobs), paying taxes (so as to not go to jail), etc. These everyday scenarios are elitist through and through, and yet no one realizes it.

Tomorrow I will show why people will balk at this, even though they do it seemingly every day.

The Mere Addition Paradox

I looked through Parfit some, and the only objection I can possibly see is the Mere Addition Paradox, but I avoid this by having something akin to Kavka's "Bad Level" which Parfit explains. This "Bad Level" example has its own problems, mainly that it forces the theorist once again to the Repugnant Conclusion. (If you do not know what this is, check out http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/repugnant-conclusion/. It has a nice succinct summary of it with a few attempts at getting around it.) However, I avoid this conclusion with my prioritization of peak value rather than an averagist or totalistic approach. So as far as I can see, Parfit has nothing to say against my theory, at least, nothing from his book Reason and Persons (Oxford University Press, 1984).

Minimum Life Worth Living Value

So I think I've found a solution by adding a minimum "life worth living" value. What this means is there is a threshold below which a life is no longer worth living. By adding this, I would say that peak value is the most important value, as long as increasing it does not decrease any population below the value of a life worth living. For example, let's say anything below a wellbeing of 5 is not a life worth living. It is alright to do whatever it takes to increase the population in a given world with the highest peak value to a higher peak value, so long as no other population in the world falls below a wellbeing of 5. So in more generic terms, decreasing a population below the level of a life worth living trumps increasing peak value.

I remember Derek Parfit having something to say about ethical theories that take a minimum "life worth living" value into account, but I don't quite remember exactly what he said. I'll have to look it up and see if he has anything that messes up my theory.

A Possible Solution?

So one of the possible solutions is combining total value theory with peak value theory, as I said yesterday. Of course, the problem with this is drawing the line. When does total value theory become more important than peak value theory?

One thought is that you cannot decrease the total value. However, I just immediately disregarded this. If a world is moving from 2 populations both of whom have wellbeings of 10 to 2 populations, one of which has wellbeing 11 and one of which has wellbeing 8, I prefer the second scenario. However, the total wellbeing has decreased (from 20 to 19). So this won't suffice.

Another thought is to say that the total wellbeing cannot go below a certain threshold. But again, I was just thinking of this and I immediately disregard it. Because even if the threshold is something "high" (for the sake of argument, let's say a threshold of 10 is high), it still would not do. You could have one population with 20 and one population with -10, making the total 10 but leaving one population in complete misery.

An idea just struck me that I will attempt to develop tomorrow. It has to deal with adding in a minimum "life worth living" value for each population in a given world.

A Modern Elitism, part 2

Yesterday I attempted to explain peak value. Today I'm going to discuss an issue with value theories that have peak value as their primary concern.

Because only peak value matters, all of the other values are disregarded. This is rather problematic. Imagine two worlds. The first world has two populations, both of which have a wellbeing value of 10. The second world has two populations, one of which has a value of 11 and the other of which has a value of -1x10^200. According to peak value theory, this second world is better since there is a higher peak value. This is a very bad result, as no ethical theorist wants to say that a world in which some population has a wellbeing value that is extremely negative (with anything below 0 being a life not worth living or at least a life that is lived in utter suffering) is better than a world in which both populations have an equally high wellbeing that is positive.

My hope is that I can get around this by somehow combining peak value theory and totalistic value theory. I have yet to come up with the solution, but tomorrow I will put down a few ideas I have.

A Modern Elitism, part 1

My first goal is to work through my own ethical theory. Over the next few weeks I'm going to post ideas, explanations, refutations, etc. regarding my own version of elitism, an ethical theory.

The primary aspect of elitism is that it takes into account Peak Value for wellbeing (wellbeing meaning that generic term to which philosophers in value theory refer when they speak of such things as happiness or wealth, but remembering that it is not limited to these things) over Total Value. For example, for elitism, having two subjects that have a wellbeing of 8 and 2 respectively is better than having two subjects with a wellbeing of 6 each. The math shows that the second set of subjects has a higher total wellbeing, but the elitist would pick the first set of subjects since there is a higher peak value (that value being 8, which is higher than 6). This gives rise to some startling problems, which I will discuss next time.