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The 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
by jules 11y ago
The 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.