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Disinterested posted:I think the thought experiment is actually supposed to imitate other situations that do highlight a real moral problem resolved in favour of the 'perpretator'. For example: African militias have been known to force captives to rape one another or be killed, but there both parties are properly regarded as victims. There are very palpable differences from that situation and the SS guard - I nonetheless think that is close to the moral dilemma Block is intending hamfistedly to demonstrate. That comes down to the coercive situation I was talking about, once you are threatening a person's life, their actions in that regard, regardless of how evil or immoral they are, can be seen as not entirely their own and that circumstances mitigate their responsibility. Some people say that it's better to die than let that happen, but that's real easy to say when you don't have a gun to your head. Anybody here also a huge sperg like me and read the Deegan mock thrrad when it was still around? Because this SS thing is 100% the 'heroic rapist' scenario. Makes me wonder if Mookie was/is libertarian. Ron Paul Atreides fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Feb 10, 2015 |
# ? Feb 10, 2015 16:20 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 23:48 |
Ron Paul Atreides posted:Some people say that it's better to die than let that happen, but that's real easy to say when you don't have a gun to your head. As I've said, this is the position of the law of England and Wales (my jurisdiction), which I've often thought is quite wrong.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 16:22 |
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Like I promised last night, I did a little digging and dug up two old TT threads: TobleroneTriangular is the gold standard of loving insane TobleroneTriangular: Conserve your seed, battle the Amero
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 16:23 |
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Disinterested posted:As I've said, this is the position of the law of England and Wales (my jurisdiction), which I've often thought is quite wrong. eesh, yeah, that's kinda brutal e: vv I guess that makes sense as a general stance but, like with your African Militias example, there are definitely situations where things are not as clear cut as that. Ron Paul Atreides fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Feb 10, 2015 |
# ? Feb 10, 2015 16:26 |
Ron Paul Atreides posted:eesh, yeah, that's kinda brutal It's intended, I think, as a discouragement against getting yourself put in that situation in the first place, since a lot of people who rely on the defence of duress are people in gangs or otherwise in situations that would be avoidable; or else with people who could have alerted the authorities to help them but did not.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 16:31 |
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:Anybody here also a huge sperg like me and read the Deegan mock thrrad when it was still around? Because this SS thing is 100% the 'heroic rapist' scenario. Makes me wonder if Mookie was/is libertarian. "People who kill other people aren’t always viewed as villains, hitmen make sexy characters, you never read stories about a sexy SS Officer. Rock on tee hee!"
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 16:38 |
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VitalSigns posted:I just looked up the Transplant Surgeon Objection and I've got to say I don't really understand the question. Yeah, there are some big holes in that scenario, which is why it isn't used as much as the trolley car, but the general thrust is still "is it okay to actively kill someone to save others?" I just wanted to show that there are plenty of ways to ask that question without asking us to sympathize with a loving SS member.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 16:47 |
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:Anybody here also a huge sperg like me and read the Deegan mock thrrad when it was still around? Because this SS thing is 100% the 'heroic rapist' scenario. Makes me wonder if Mookie was/is libertarian. I have a feeling if somebody proposed that scenario to Block he would jump into it with both feet.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 16:50 |
Ron Paul Atreides posted:eesh, yeah, that's kinda brutal Rape is excusable on the grounds of duress in this jurisdiction; just not murder (including attempt murder) and treason qua murder of the monarch (essentially, murder).
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 16:56 |
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Nolanar posted:Yeah, there are some big holes in that scenario, which is why it isn't used as much as the trolley car, but the general thrust is still "is it okay to actively kill someone to save others?" I just wanted to show that there are plenty of ways to ask that question without asking us to sympathize with a loving SS member. The thing with the trolley car one is that you also introduce the double effect. So, I change tracks to put the least amount of people in danger, and if somebody still dies, it's tragic. The transplant one is just pure murder anyway you slice it.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 18:20 |
Libertarians with much better intellectual character can deal with this problem really easily by just going via Rawls and Kant to the idea of the inviolability of the individual; the amazing thing is how Jrodefeld constantly eschews this much more solid tradition for the worst possible exponents of his own tendencies. It's probably because their abilities as thinkers are in an inverse proportion to their willingness to propagandise.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 18:27 |
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Cemetry Gator posted:The thing with the trolley car one is that you also introduce the double effect. So, I change tracks to put the least amount of people in danger, and if somebody still dies, it's tragic. Speaking of the Trolly Car, I am sure I am not alone in looking at the rationale of "you acted to kill that one man, so it's murder and therefore immoral. Better to let the five people die because they would have died anyway without your intervention" and saying that it's total bullshit. You're there, and it is in your power to save them. In consciously choosing to not pull the lever you have acted and thus are equally culpable for their deaths as you would be for the lone man. You don't just get to walk away and wash your hands of it like you didn't make the choice to have those five people die. Though I don't know a more concise way to express this idea, or even what philosophy it would fall under. Edit:I suppose I am railing against the idea that letting someone die is not as bad as killing them, so to speak. Rhjamiz fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Feb 10, 2015 |
# ? Feb 10, 2015 18:33 |
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I was introduced to the Trolley Problem via the "fat man" variant, where instead of being able to divert the trolley onto a different track and kill a sleeping man, your options are "watch five people die and do nothing" or "stop the trolley car by pushing a fat bystander in front of it." Utilitarian ethics still says the correct course of action is to kill that fat dude, but it feels viscerally different. Again, there's a reason I'm not a Utilitarian. Disinterested posted:Libertarians with much better intellectual character can deal with this problem really easily by just going via Rawls and Kant to the idea of the inviolability of the individual; the amazing thing is how Jrodefeld constantly eschews this much more solid tradition for the worst possible exponents of his own tendencies. It's probably because their abilities as thinkers are in an inverse proportion to their willingness to propagandise. Yeah, going with the "inviolability of the individual" route saves a lot of trouble by virtue of not being batshit crazy, but jrod is arguing from a central tenet of "humans are just property who own themselves," which isn't going to be compatible with that policy in a lot of cases.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 18:44 |
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Cemetry Gator posted:The thing with the trolley car one is that you also introduce the double effect. So, I change tracks to put the least amount of people in danger, and if somebody still dies, it's tragic. The trolley car never did it for me either, because the reasoning for not throwing the switch would also imply that if you lost control of your car or something on a downhill with a crowd of people at the bottom you'd have to take your hands off the wheel instead of trying to steer it away from the most densely-packed spot. I find jrod (and Block's) self-admitted but somehow entirely unaware inconsistency pretty funnr. Consider Block's alien scenario: where aliens threaten to blow up earth unless we kill an inno quote:Suppose the Martians beam down a message to usearthlings: “Kill innocent person Joe, or we blow up the entire earth.” (Stipulate that they have the power to do this, and we are unable to stop them.) One would hope that a hero would arise to murder Joe, so as to save the planet. We would then hold a ticker tape parade in his honor. Afterwards, the heirs of Joe would have the right to exact full punishment against our hero. Okay he doesn't want to go utilitarian and all get together and decide to kill Joe, we have to stick to our deontological morality...so we should just hope someone decides to be immoral? What the gently caress kind of principle is that? Stick to your principles everyone, don't worry, we can always count on some icky utilitarian to save us all to be honored with a parade and then lethal injection. That's his moral code? Hope that someone with a different moral code comes along to solve your problem? Which we will then discourage people from doing in the future by executing him anyway. Hey, anyone else want to save the human race next time? Any takers? Much like jrod's "Oh well it's okay if our laws as written have immoral outcomes, we'll just hope no one actually wants to benefit from that."
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 18:54 |
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Nolanar posted:I was introduced to the Trolley Problem via the "fat man" variant, where instead of being able to divert the trolley onto a different track and kill a sleeping man, your options are "watch five people die and do nothing" or "stop the trolley car by pushing a fat bystander in front of it." Utilitarian ethics still says the correct course of action is to kill that fat dude, but it feels viscerally different. The correct utilitarian answer here is not to do it because fat dudes don't stop trains and six deaths including a murder are worse than 5 accidental deaths. If you stipulate that it would work anyway because uh reasons then the correct answer is to throw yourself in front of it. When we're talking about the kinetic energy of a several thousand pound trolley care going fast enough to kill 5 people instantly, the one or two hundred pounds difference between you and fat man are not likely to make the difference, and a world with a heroic sacrifice is better than a world with a murder. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Feb 10, 2015 |
# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:01 |
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Literally The Worst posted:Like I promised last night, I did a little digging and dug up two old TT threads: ... You, sir and/or madam are a scholar and a gentleman/lady. I just want to go on the record with that. Also, while I've only glanced at some of this as of now, the thought occurs; "holy poo poo, does this look familiar at all to anyone else"? TobleroneTriangular (pbuh) posted:Actually I post some of the most in-depth arguments I've ever seen brought up; but there's a hardcore of people who would rather make up stuff I and other people on all sides in the Dr. Paul thread said and attack that than listening to my/any arguments and talking rationally. I've never attacked anyone personally outside this thread; the Ron Paul 2nd thread fell apart under the weight of the same few people basically offering baseless provocations that almost every Ron Paul supporter did'nt rise to that ended up choking debate and ruining it for everyone. If you've heard things all I'd say is judge me on what I've actually said and argued and backed up with reasonable logic; not what the same hardcore keep posting behind my back. That's the only thing I've ever asked of anyone and at least what I've given to everyone I've countered in an argument. Is this or is this not the exact same aggrieved, pretentious 'defense' that JRod has been throwing out whenever someone's been getting too close to nailing him down on the verbose bullshit he throws out? I mean, I've been around just long enough to know what TT did ( and it was brilliant ), even if I didn't actually see it until now, but the thought that he was that on the nose is just a tiny touch eerie.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:03 |
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This kind of poo poo happens alot with libertarian thinking on markets. "Oh, even if this business is horribly polluting this area, but they provide a service we are dependent on, in a true libertarian market, we'd have competitors popping up who aren't polluting and people would of course naturally base their decisions on the companies' reputations etc. etc." In their examples, it's always just a magical guarantee that someone, somewhere will be willing to break the mold and make things right, while simultaneously promoting a system of ethics that specifically pushes against the idea of duty or responsibility to the rest of society.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:06 |
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VitalSigns posted:The correct utilitarian answer here is not to do it because fat dudes don't stop trains and six deaths including a murder are worse than 5 accidental deaths. Yeah, the point of the thought experiment is to weigh in on the "push a dude or let others die" dilemma. I left out the normal paragraphs of "no it wouldn't stop if you jumped in front of it, it would stop if he did, no you don't have a penny to put on the tracks and derail the train" stuff that's basically there just to stop deflection. The idea is to boil it down to "is it moral to kill an innocent person in order to save others?" in a way that actually invokes an emotional response. TLM3101 posted:... You, sir and/or madam are a scholar and a gentleman/lady. I just want to go on the record with that. Also, while I've only glanced at some of this as of now, the thought occurs; "holy poo poo, does this look familiar at all to anyone else"? That's pretty spot on. TT clearly studied at the feet of the masters.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:29 |
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In a free market the entire world shuns BP for loving up the gulf coast with the largest accidental release of oil into marine waters in history, there's no way that they'll ever announce record profits ever again Oh, that didn't happen, and BP did announce record profits this morning? Must be because the market isn't free enough, surely it doesn't have anything to do with public perception having a short memory
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:34 |
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You have to remember TT came about at a time when SA was full of libertarian dipshits who spouted a million words and said nothing. The hidden ruins of Helldump are full of monuments to this fact. He really just had to watch what other people were doing and then fake it.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:37 |
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Nolanar posted:That's pretty spot on. TT clearly studied at the feet of the masters. If I remember right from his big reveal, a large part of why he stopped was he was starting to naturally think like the people he was parodying, and he found that worrisome. EDIT: Once he called me (and others) an "Anti-Paul," with the heavy implication that I'd among the first against the wall when the rution came. It's an odd mark of distinction, but one I appreciate.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:38 |
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QuarkJets posted:In a free market the entire world shuns BP for loving up the gulf coast with the largest accidental release of oil into marine waters in history, there's no way that they'll ever announce record profits ever again It isn't even that. When was the last time you went to a BP station? We don't have them at all in Canada (if they even exist) but we do have their subsidiary's, holding companies and tons of people who buy from them on a business level who aren't going to be able to make moral decisions more important than business ones.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:39 |
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Captain_Maclaine posted:If I remember right from his big reveal, a large part of why he stopped was he was starting to naturally think like the people he was parodying, and he found that worrisome. Yeah, he was having a harder and harder time separating his own beliefs from the character's and decided to tap out. That and he felt like he was out of material to work with without revealing the fact that he wasn't even an American. I like to think TT is still with us today, posting under a new name and smiling down at the insanity of this thread from his purestrain golden throne.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:42 |
QuarkJets posted:In a free market the entire world shuns BP for loving up the gulf coast with the largest accidental release of oil into marine waters in history, there's no way that they'll ever announce record profits ever again They aren't actually at record profits at all at the moment and are out of pocket ~$45bn for Deepwater Horizon (Sclumberger could use a similar drilling). They're just so overwhelmingly massive and sell such an unbelievably piss-easy-to-sell product that it doesn't even matter how much they get hosed by perception and regulatory action, they basically can't fail in the current market without oil prices continuing to fall to a radical new low or some other major technological change, because they control so much of a vital resource and still have such vast assets and cash supplies.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:46 |
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Nolanar posted:I was introduced to the Trolley Problem via the "fat man" variant, where instead of being able to divert the trolley onto a different track and kill a sleeping man, your options are "watch five people die and do nothing" or "stop the trolley car by pushing a fat bystander in front of it." Utilitarian ethics still says the correct course of action is to kill that fat dude, but it feels viscerally different. These thought exercises are pretty much exclusively rolled out in defense of just war doctrine in any case, so I don't think they merit too much serious consideration.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:46 |
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Disinterested posted:They aren't actually at record profits at all at the moment and are out of pocket ~$45bn for Deepwater Horizon (Sclumberger could use a similar drilling). They're just so overwhelmingly massive and sell such an unbelievably piss-easy-to-sell product that it doesn't even matter how much they get hosed by perception and regulatory action, they basically can't fail in the current market without oil prices continuing to fall to a radical new low or some other major technological change, because they control so much of a vital resource and still have such vast assets and cash supplies. Take the board room by force, Nationalize the company, and send James Cameron to go plug any of the holes they left in the seabed with the CEO and his immediate subordinates
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 19:51 |
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:Take the board room by force, Nationalize the company, and send James Cameron to go plug any of the holes they left in the seabed with the CEO and his immediate subordinates Junk shot indeed.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 20:08 |
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Literally The Worst posted:You have to remember TT came about at a time when SA was full of libertarian dipshits who spouted a million words and said nothing. The hidden ruins of Helldump are full of monuments to this fact. He really just had to watch what other people were doing and then fake it. I shudder to think that if the GOP wins in 2016 and a lot of us are banned for toxxing for the Dems that it'll revert to being just like this.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 20:17 |
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:I shudder to think that if the GOP wins in 2016 and a lot of us are banned for toxxing for the Dems that it'll revert to being just like this. Dehumanize your father adn face to bloodshed
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 20:40 |
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VitalSigns posted:The correct utilitarian answer here is not to do it because fat dudes don't stop trains and six deaths including a murder are worse than 5 accidental deaths. Or in the world of the hypothetical, you push the fat man and then tell everyone that he jumped and heroically sacrificed himself. Since for whatever reason you had no other choice. The alien hypothetical is strange, too. Since Joe dies regardless, either Joe is willingly murdered to save humanity and is a hero, or he's a spiteful prick and I've no issues sacrificing him for the fate of the world.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 21:18 |
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The problem with all those moral positions is, of course, they have little bearing in the real world because they're either impossible (Transplant Surgeon) or have plenty of other possible solutions (Trolley Car). By the time you get to a point where you've actually stipulated that every other eventuality is not possible, well, you're in a position so contrived it is utterly useless. But simply saying "Is it right to kill n people to save n +1" doesn't generate much that people tend to engage with. More interesting to me is that it highlights our strong innate understanding of a difference between taking an active role in something or being a passive observer. If you say "Dude X will die unless you murder Dude Y" most people will let Dude X die - even though the end result is the same and one person dies either way - unless there's some strong mitigating factor like he is your husband or son or something. And there's a difference in reaction between someone actively killing X versus him dying of a natural event that could be averted with Y's organs or whatever. And "Flip a switch to condemn one person and save five" is also different from "Shove a fat guy to murder him and save five" and so on and so forth. I'm not proposing that I have a lot of answers to all these questions, but it is something I've tried to think about. Libertarianism has not provided me with much in the way of guidance to such issues, funnily enough!
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 22:57 |
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Rhjamiz posted:The alien hypothetical is strange, too. Since Joe dies regardless, either Joe is willingly murdered to save humanity and is a hero, or he's a spiteful prick and I've no issues sacrificing him for the fate of the world. This is exactly the plot of Cabin in the Woods and while I agree with you, I remember the movie portraying the guy unwilling to take one for the team as being in the right, which I thought was an interesting choice.
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# ? Feb 10, 2015 23:28 |
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Wolfsheim posted:This is exactly the plot of Cabin in the Woods and while I agree with you, I remember the movie portraying the guy unwilling to take one for the team as being in the right, which I thought was an interesting choice. Huehueteotl agrees.
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 00:13 |
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Nolanar posted:Yeah, the point of the thought experiment is to weigh in on the "push a dude or let others die" dilemma. I left out the normal paragraphs of "no it wouldn't stop if you jumped in front of it, it would stop if he did, no you don't have a penny to put on the tracks and derail the train" stuff that's basically there just to stop deflection. The idea is to boil it down to "is it moral to kill an innocent person in order to save others?" in a way that actually invokes an emotional response. I understand the point of it. The issue I have with the thought experiment is that it's so contrived and impossible that it's not actually more accessible than the bare question. Part of the emotional response relies on the reaction to the cockamamie scheme of trying to derail a train with a fat dude's body. Even a person who did think it's okay to murder someone to save 5 would probably still look at that and be repulsed because killing someone for such a long-shot goal is totally irresponsible. That's why the hypothetical adds all this ridiculous stuff (you are 100% certain that the train will derail in time to miss the people, derailing a loving train is guaranteed not to kill anyone else on the train or around the tracks, nobody will ever find out, and you know the guy has no friends or family who will be sad, and there is a 0% chance of anything else working). Yeah okay, consequentialism comes to outrageous conclusions when you bar it from considering most of the consequences, good job. The transplant objection is similar. It apparently deals with the "people losing trust in the hospital is going to kill more people" argument by adding that the healthy patient has no friends and you can guarantee that no one will ever find out. In other words "what does consequentialism say about the morality of this action, and no fair looking at the consequences!"
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 00:58 |
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It's the same sort of bullshit hypothetical as "is it OK to yell 'fire' in a crowded theater?" Morons end up debating the insincere question itself, rather than the logical chasm which is then implicitly spanned. "You can't yell fire in a crowded theater, so of course we have to put people who speak against war in prison! Duh!" Q: "Wouldn't you deflect a train hurtling towards infants with a fat man's screaming body?" A: "Well no." Q: "But my autistic calculus says you should! And therefore, you should also throw the bodies of countless Iraqi civilians in front of the train as well!"
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 01:11 |
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VitalSigns posted:I understand the point of it. The issue I have with the thought experiment is that it's so contrived and impossible that it's not actually more accessible than the bare question. Part of the emotional response relies on the reaction to the cockamamie scheme of trying to derail a train with a fat dude's body. Even a person who did think it's okay to murder someone to save 5 would probably still look at that and be repulsed because killing someone for such a long-shot goal is totally irresponsible. That's why the hypothetical adds all this ridiculous stuff (you are 100% certain that the train will derail in time to miss the people, derailing a loving train is guaranteed not to kill anyone else on the train or around the tracks, nobody will ever find out, and you know the guy has no friends or family who will be sad, and there is a 0% chance of anything else working). Yeah okay, consequentialism comes to outrageous conclusions when you bar it from considering most of the consequences, good job. The contrivances I think are meant to make the rules of the game absolutely clear to stop people from weaseling out of the central issue. If I changed the hypothetical to a man waving a gun around with people nearby, and a police office with a bead on him, does that seem more in the realm of possibility? Only now it's all about potential risks rather than certainties, which undermines the central issue at hand. I know people here might reflexively argue against police, I know I would, but quite a few people I know would defend the police officer in this case due to the "risk of life and limb". It's effectively the same argument as the trolley car problem, but it's a scenario that many people don't question at all. If a police officer has the right to kill (still currently, and potentially always) an innocent person to safeguard the lives of others/themselves, does a person in the abstract have the right to kill someone for the same reasons?
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 01:14 |
The argument could be interpreted as a de facto an argument for obeisance to tyrannical government, since most resistance and removal of such governments involves the willingness to risk both a greater number of deaths, including your own (even if that risk may be near-certain), for the sake of the end of the tyranny on moral grounds. Which is funny because it's coming from a libertarian. Except that I think it doesn't purport to be utilitarian, instead resting itself on the consent of the victim to be treated brutally or killed, or, in the absence of their consent, the consent (or forgiveness) of someone with a locus standi for the victim. Of course, the problem with that is that the relationship between a concentration camp guard and his victim is such that no forgiveness or consent is entirely valid, since it itself is given under duress by simple fact of circumstance and relationship. That's putting aside the moral problems. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Feb 11, 2015 |
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 01:17 |
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SedanChair posted:Q: "But my autistic calculus says you should! And therefore, you should also throw the bodies of countless Iraqi civilians in front of the train as well!" Or: obviously if a captured terrorist says "Yes I know the code to defuse the bomb, but nothing short of waterboarding will get me to talk" then you would do it, and that's why I had to pour a chunky-blended mush of this guy's cafeteria food up his rear end. Political Whores posted:The contrivances I think are meant to make the rules of the game absolutely clear to stop people from weaseling out of the central issue. If I changed the hypothetical to a man waving a gun around with people nearby, and a police office with a bead on him, does that seem more in the realm of possibility? Only now it's all about potential risks rather than certainties, which undermines the central issue at hand. How about this. An adorable cherubic baby is turning the crank on a jack-in-the-box that's wired to blow up every high-rise building in the world right at peak occupancy time which is somehow occurring simultaneously around the globe because of a rare astronomical event. You are watching from a live video feed in geosynchronous orbit and your remote control is the only way of activating the baby's thermal detonator implant. If you activate it turn to page 6 If you say a sick one-liner then activate it, turn to page 19 If you remain true to your deontological moral code, turn to page 24 If you are a Libertarian, turn to page 3
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 01:38 |
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Page 3: "You are so great."
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 01:49 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 23:48 |
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VitalSigns posted:Or: obviously if a captured terrorist says "Yes I know the code to defuse the bomb, but nothing short of waterboarding will get me to talk" then you would do it, and that's why I had to pour a chunky-blended mush of this guy's cafeteria food up his rear end. *turns to page 19* Not today baby, not today. The surgeon question is funny to me because you can totally donate to a kidney and liver and come out fine (okay both at once would be dicey). Hell you have a good chance of your liver recovering completely. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that livers are cool as hell.
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# ? Feb 11, 2015 01:52 |