Excessively abstract post

[mmcirvin]

It's a simple result in mathematics (simple enough to be taught in introductory business and economics classes, or so I understand) that if you have any kind of utility function that is a linear function of some input parameters, the optimal solution that maximizes the utility will always be some extreme one on the very edge of the available parameter space.

This might be related to why most simple and easily stated attempts at consistent ethical systems end up implying something abhorrent in some case or other. They're not nonlinear enough.

That probably made no sense.

Comments

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

I understood it, even though my math is barely strong enough to enable me to help 14-year-olds in beginning algebra (one reason I like to do it is that it helps me with my algebra).

Our sense of abhorrence comes from our (correct) gut feeling that life itself is not described perfectly by anything linear. A linear ethos would see no difference between imprisoning ten people for ten years and imprisoning one person for a hundred; common (non-linear) sense observes a difference: in the first case lives are impaired, but in the second a life is destroyed.

[jwgh]

Ethics needs an inverse square law!

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I'd settle for a good square-cube law, at that.