That is a very interesting addition to utilitarian ethics.  I am somewhat of a utilitarian myself, although I tend not to like to label myself too much.

I would argue that this idea is implied in utilitarian ethics because it is inherently forward-looking.  However, it is better to state things explicitly, so this is a good meme to spread in my opinion.  This forward-thinking mentality is the biggest benefit us futurists can give to society.  By planning for and taking into account probable future occurances, we can more smoothly and efficiently progress.

non-existant beings are a non-issue

it is a choice to create a sentient life form that has a balance of pain/pleasure.

We don't know what their pain/pleasure experience ratio will be.

It is not ethical to decide to pre-ordain another life form (through genetic programming) to experience what we believe is a 'fair life' for them "as long as it leads to our sense of grandeur."

This is my thinking.

What would our biological programming have us think? Do we want to follow it's advice in the absense of knowledge?

I guess I'm a utilitarian too, in that I mostly agree with the positions taken by  John Stuart Mill, who refined Jeremy Bentham's earlier work. And generally, most of us want a better world for ourselves and our descendents, hard to argue with that.

Of course it's always on the specifics where the arguments start.

Here are some related thoughts from Bostrom: http://www.nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste.html

Does the logical extension of this result in the hedonistic imperative? Cf.,
http://www.hedweb.com/welcome.htm

Any forms of life whose minds use enjoyment to motivate their actions and suffering to punish their actions are likely to have a lifetime net enjoyment level that is greater than 0.

We want there to be large numbers of this type of being.

Any alien races with an entirely different evolutionary path would be somewhat likely to use entirely different sensations for their motivation-punishment system, for example they may use the sensation we get from tasting peppermint for punishment, and the sensation we get from hot temperature for reward.  These type of beings would not be especially likely to have a lifetime enjoyment level that was greater than zero, because they would not be seeking enjoyment except accidentally or as a means to obtaining the sensation that we get from heat.

The utilitarians from each type of being will have little incentive to keep intelligent beings of the other type  alive except in a controlled scientific setting-- they are too dangerous to their goals.

So in the furtherance of enjoyment directed utilitarianism, a good strategy would be to try to make sure that the ejoyment seeking life forms become as powerful as possible, and obtain as much technology as possible so that they can be the type of being that dominates the universe.

Merely increasing the population of the enjoyment seeking life forms (a.k.a most if not all of the types of life found on earth) without regard to maximisation of technological prowess, is a luxury we cannot afford.


There  might be a crucial race going on right now between all the intelligent life forms in the universe, and if you think about enough you will want the enjoyment seeking/ suffering -avoiding life forms to win.

"Any forms of life whose minds use enjoyment to motivate their actions and suffering to punish their actions are likely to have a lifetime net enjoyment level that is greater than 0.

We want there to be large numbers of this type of being."

I need to see some reason why it is likely.

Abolitionist, assuming that the brain requires more energy to generate more intense sensations, then it seems likely that the net lifetime enjoyment sould be somewhere near zero, because that would save energy while still motivating the being to do the fit behaviors.

Now when the beings are too intelligent, they discover suicide.  Any  sufficiently intelligent being , who believes that not killing himself will have a negative future enjoyment expectation, while killing himself will have a zero future enjoyment expectation , would kill himself, except in cases where there is the enjoyment of other beings to consider.
So I should have restricted my assertion to the sufficiently intelligent beings, not beings in general.