Imperceptible Harms and Benefits

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Pooled Beneficence

   • Garrett Cullity

   Pages 1-23

3. Garrett Cullity’s Response to an Imperceptibility Challenge

   • Jordan Howard Sobel

   Pages 25-48

4. Perceiving Imperceptible Harms (with other Thoughts on Transitivity, Cumulative Effects, and Consequentialism)

   • Donald H. Regan

   Pages 49-73

5. The Least Sub-Noticeable Difference

   • Torbjorn Tannsjo

   Pages 75-93

6. Utility Pumps and the Value of Partial Compliance

   • Michael J. Almeida

   Pages 95-110

7. Utilitarianism and Interpersonally Comparable Cardinal Utility: Some Implications of just Perceivable Increments of Happiness

   • Yew-Kwang Ng

   Pages 111-121

8. Money Pump with Foresight

   • Wlodek Rabinowicz

   Pages 123-154

9. Back Matter

   Pages 155-158

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The papers collected here represent the most recent work on a much­ neglected problem in practical reasoning. It is the problem of imperceptible harms and benefits. It is perhaps better to characterize the problem as a collection of puzzles or paradoxes, since those who deny the existence (or possibility) of imperceptible decrements (or increments) face problems no less perplexing than those who affinn their existence. The puzzles and paradoxes combine very practical and pressing worries about our obligations to relieve starvation, mitigate suffering and conserve resources, with deep metaethical worries about the nature of practical rationality. I use these brief introductory pages to familiarize the reader with the basic set of problems examined in this collection. Most of us think that an action cannot be wrong if its effects are entirely and always imperceptible.· Jonathan Glover's fanciful example of the 100 armed bandits and the 100 Wlarmed tribesman clearly illustrates a deep worry with such moral reasoning.

• Consequentialism
• Utilitarianism
• morality
• utility

• The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA

  Michael J. Almeida

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