Validity Futility Utility

 

The validity–futility–utility triangle

(a conceptual frame to think clearly when a course of action is simultaneously:

•  strongly justified (valid),

•  almost certainly pointless in any practically meaningful sense (futile),

•  and somewhere on the utility spectrum (useful / neutral / harmful / anti-useful).

)

Core definitions (narrow & sharp)

•  Validity

= There exists at least one complete, non-fallacious, non-self-contradictory normative reason (moral, prudential, aesthetic, epistemic, deontological, virtue-based, contractual, etc.) that speaks in favor of the action.

•  Futility

= The probability that the action produces any non-negligible causal difference toward the end that the valid reason is aiming at is so low that, for practical purposes, we can treat it as ~0.

(Futility is not “zero probability”; it is “probability so small that spending attention & life-energy on it becomes a kind of category error”.)

•  Utility

= Net change in value (however you define value—hedonic, preference-satisfaction, objective-list, cosmic-scoreboard, virtue accrual, etc.) that actually flows from doing the action versus the best realistic alternative use of the same resources (time, attention, emotional energy, money, social capital, risk exposure…).

The central tension

You stand in front of an act A where:

valid(A) = very strong / almost unanswerable

futile(A) ≈ 1

utility(A) ∈ {slightly positive, near-zero, slightly negative, strongly negative}

The question is no longer “is it right?” — the validity already answered that.

The live questions become:

1.  Is the valid reason allowed to be trumped by futility itself?

2.  Even if futility does not trump validity, can utility cost trump both?

Four reasonably defensible positions

Position | Stance on “Should I do it?” | Core reasoning | Typical emotional tone

Pure deontologist / radical integrity | Yes, do it | A valid moral reason is categorical. Futility is irrelevant to obligation. Utility is secondary at best. | Dignified, sometimes tragic, occasionally self-righteous

Futility-absolutist / strong expected-utility view | No, don’t do it | If P(success) ≈ 0 then expected value ≈ 0 regardless of how large the payoff would be if success occurred. Resources should go to higher-leverage interventions. | Cold, pragmatic, sometimes accused of moral cowardice

Symbolic / identity-preserving view | Yes — but mostly for me, not for the world | The act keeps my soul / self-image / lineage-of-value intact. The primary “utility” is identity-integrity, not world-state change. | Quiet, sometimes melancholic, can drift toward performative

Threshold + lexical view (most philosophically subtle) | It depends on how bad the utility cost is | Validity creates a lexical priority or very strong defeasible reason → but futility lowers the effective strength of that reason → and at some point extreme disutility (burnout, destroyed relationships, sacrificed higher-impact opportunities) can defeat even a very strong valid reason. | Agonized but realistic

Practical heuristic table

Situation pattern | Most common reasonable answer | Examples

Valid reason extremely strong + futility near-total + utility cost low | Usually worth doing | Voting in a safe district with 0.0003% pivot probability, small acts of courtesy to strangers you will never meet again, keeping promises that no longer matter to anyone except you

Valid reason strong + futility near-total + utility cost high | Usually not worth doing | Spending 10–15 years of prime life on a political cause whose window has definitively closed, ruining health & family to protest something that will not move 1 mm

Valid reason moderate + futility near-total + utility ≈ 0 | Coin-flip territory, often yes if cheap | Writing the 18th strongly-argued essay against an already hegemonic position, adding yet another star to your private morality constellation

Valid reason weak–moderate + futility high + utility clearly negative | Almost never | Dying on every hill, performative outrage cycles, chronically signaling virtue at the price of actual capacity to do good later

One-sentence synthesis

The more valid the reason, the heavier the futility burden you are entitled to carry — but only up to the point where the utility cost starts eating into your ability to honor equally or more valid reasons in the future.

In other words:

Validity gives you permission to be futile.

Futility gives you no permission to be wasteful.

Utility is the final court of appeal.