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It's not really an accident though if it's a likely outcome. The point is simply this: on the one hand people accept a substantial probability of killing innoce
by jules 11y ago
It's not really an accident though if it's a likely outcome. The point is simply this: on the one hand people accept a substantial probability of killing innocent people and intentionally killing guilty people if the upsides are good enough, but these same people are unwilling to accept mere torture of guilty people no matter the upsides.
- scotty79 11y agoMaybe it's something about drones being remote. Torture was shown so many times on tv that it's closer to home. Not many pictures of people blown to bits by invisible thing in the sky.
- jules 11y agoThe question why people are so bad at intuitively weighing harm is a different but interesting question. There have been some studies that suggest that there is an inverse relationship. When asked how much money they would give to save 2 lives people offer less than they do when asked to how much they would give to save 1 life. Not less per life, less total. As the number of lives goes up, what they offer goes down. This may have something to do with abstracting the harm. With torture it's easy to understand what's happening. With a single death it's harder to fathom how much is lost. The thousands that die in traffic each year hardly register. The incompetence of humans to intuitively make moral judgements is precisely why we should think rationally about morality rather than emotionally.