Right, I agree that the sort of argument I offered for maximizing EV at mid-sized population levels doesn't automatically carry over to the individual case. If we imagine starting with $50 in each of two boxes (representing each side of a coin flip, or whatever), we could reasonably be opposed to clustering all of the potential payoff in…
Right, I agree that the sort of argument I offered for maximizing EV at mid-sized population levels doesn't automatically carry over to the individual case. If we imagine starting with $50 in each of two boxes (representing each side of a coin flip, or whatever), we could reasonably be opposed to clustering all of the potential payoff into a single box. This is because the relevant locus of moral concern is *us*, and our interests, not *each separate $50* (and its chance of being awarded to us).
So we have a principled explanation of the intuitive difference that you're pointing to here.
Right, I agree that the sort of argument I offered for maximizing EV at mid-sized population levels doesn't automatically carry over to the individual case. If we imagine starting with $50 in each of two boxes (representing each side of a coin flip, or whatever), we could reasonably be opposed to clustering all of the potential payoff into a single box. This is because the relevant locus of moral concern is *us*, and our interests, not *each separate $50* (and its chance of being awarded to us).
So we have a principled explanation of the intuitive difference that you're pointing to here.