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.
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"First of all, I'm not entirely certain that this is true due to the fact that value is a scale, not a dichotomy."
ReplyDeleteI apologize if I wasn't being clear; I should have said something along the lines of to sacrifice is to give up a greater value for a lesser value, it is just things that are of disvalue (negative value) are ultimately what one sacrifices to, if one continues to do so.
"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. "
Then this student is either valuing improperly, and as a result his sacrifice is made in his mind and he undercuts his own ability to think, thus rendering studying to be a pointless task (as if most of the time it isn't), or he is valuing properly, and he's studying will be a disvalue to his football career.