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Imagine you witness a situation where a young man releases a heavy weight. The weight falls and crushes a child playing below. Your child. The young man happ
by catawbasam 10y ago
Imagine you witness a situation where a young man releases a heavy weight. The weight falls and crushes a child playing below. Your child.
The young man happens to be mute. If he could speak, he would tell you he did it on purpose, and was glad he killed your child. But he's mute. You will never know he meant to do it.
Does his (unobservable) intent make any difference to you?
- corecoder 10y agoBad example: "unobservable" and "we were looking the other way" are not the same thing. Have you scanned the young man's brain activity as you interrogate him? Have you done that with all future technology? By the way, any chances the young man can write? Here's a tricky one: did I ate spaghetti three years ago? You don't know and very probably you'll never know, but it's an empirical question nonetheless, and who knows, maybe tomorrow you'll think of a way to actually find out, or you'll stumble on some evidence you didn't know was there.
- naasking 10y ago> Does his (unobservable) intent make any difference to you? Only in so far as one's intent describes one's view of others. Malicious intent of the sort you describe entails danger towards others, which is observable.