1. Presumably if anyone actually thought something like this, they would think "I have lived a bad life *so far*" which would be a true statement.
2. This is an incredibly narrow case of self-referentialism as applied to moral truths. Just excluding intangible moral truths like "I have lived a good life" from consideration (at least if what the person means is their actual numeric value.
3. There is no actual paradox. Let's zoom out. Bob does things. He gets to negative 5 utility total. Then he thinks "Wow, I have had negative 5 utility, but I have helped others etc etc" and that gives him 0.75 utility per second while he thinks about it. After 8 seconds he's at 0 utility, and the statement is now false.
But that doesn't retroactively invalidate the utility he's already recieved. So he would just get to 1 utility.
Your error is assuming the instant gain of utility, which is impossible.
3 Responses. (Hedonists HATE number 3)
1. Presumably if anyone actually thought something like this, they would think "I have lived a bad life *so far*" which would be a true statement.
2. This is an incredibly narrow case of self-referentialism as applied to moral truths. Just excluding intangible moral truths like "I have lived a good life" from consideration (at least if what the person means is their actual numeric value.
3. There is no actual paradox. Let's zoom out. Bob does things. He gets to negative 5 utility total. Then he thinks "Wow, I have had negative 5 utility, but I have helped others etc etc" and that gives him 0.75 utility per second while he thinks about it. After 8 seconds he's at 0 utility, and the statement is now false.
But that doesn't retroactively invalidate the utility he's already recieved. So he would just get to 1 utility.
Your error is assuming the instant gain of utility, which is impossible.
4.