Infinitarian paralysis threatens a wide range of popular ethical theories. Consider, to begin
with, hedonistic utilitarianism, which in its classical formulation states that you ought to do
that which maximizes the total amount of pleasure and minimizes the total amount of pain
in the world. If pleasure and pain are already infinite, then all possible actions you could
take would be morally on a par according to this criterion, for none of them would make any
difference to the total amount of pleasure or pain. Endorsing this form of utilitarianism
commits one to the view that, conditional on the world being canonically infinite, ending
world hunger and causing a famine are ethically equivalent options. It is not the case that
you ought to do one rather than the other.
The threat is not limited to hedonistic utilitarianism. Utilitarian theories that have a
broader conception of the good—happiness, preference-satisfaction, virtue, beautyappreciation, or some objective list of ingredients that make for a good life—face the same
problem. So what to do? Over to you, Bishop.
See source: http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/infinite.pdf
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