Utilities and Utilitarianism
Tyler Cowen, in his Conversation with Will MacAskill, said that utilitarianism doesn't "make sense" at certain times, and that it "just doesn't work". I wanted to push back, perhaps pedantically, but I think it's worth explaining, as Tyler and Will seemed to be talking past each other a bit.
On mentioned issues like rent control and tariffs, Tyler concedes that utilitarianism works pretty well. What works pretty well in those issues is not utilitarianism (adding up utilities) but the calculating of the utilities being added.
1) How many utilities are there to be added? 2) What are their values?
These are the relevant questions! And only these.
The variable difficulty in answering these 2 questions Very Well is the significant issue. Coming up with accurate answers for 1) and 2) is easier for smaller decisions that concern 1 person, or 1 company, or 1 country than all of humanity's every action forever. It is, of course, also possible to come up with *wrong* decisions that are *worse* than doing nothing would have been (in realized utility terms).
But at no point is there a train along whose route utilitarianism becomes more or less effective. The calculations are just much harder at one end of the route than the other. And a lot of the cultural, intuitive knowledge to which Tyler appeals is not in opposition to utilitarianism, but just examples of possible avenues for success calculating utilities at those later train stops with more complexity.
Because on those stops with more complexity, there could easily be two "utilitarians" sitting in the same car. One has his animal-killing weapons and one has his animal-creating weapons. Both utilitarians! You speak with them independently and both have run the calculations, fully convinced they're correct.
The moral is not: be/don't be a utilitarian! kill/create animals!
The moral is: calculate utilities correctly! your intuitions and heuristics can save you from disastrous mistakes! they can hinder you from making good decisions! life is complicated!