2024/12/03 by Hayley Clatterbuck, Bob Fischer · 1 voice
Decision Sciences · #Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
paper · doi:10.1086/732624
openalex publication_date 2024/12/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Consider the principle that, given two actions A and B, where A affects some number of (merely) possibly sentient individuals (e.g., shrimp) and B affects some number of clearly sentient individuals (e.g., humans), A and B are morally equivalent if their expected values are equivalent. This recently defended principle can have radical implications. This article considers alternatives to this principle that are based on two kinds of risk aversion—difference-making risk aversion and ambiguity aversion. By rejecting the symmetry between probability and value, it’s possible to reach more intuitive conclusions.