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Hold up, "less bad" is not necessarily the same as "more good". Breaking my arm and breaking my neck are both bad, but one is worse than the other. It seems dif

Hold up, "less bad" is not necessarily the same as "more good". Breaking my arm and breaking my neck are both bad, but one is worse than the other. It seems difficult to justify that "breaking my arm is more good than breaking my neck". I don't necessarily agree that the onus is on me (you were the one to initially bring it up here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17717319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17717319 and I also gave my justification, which is that it feels intuitively different), but I can throw out some ideas as to why. I said it was interesting for a reason... 1) Perhaps it's a moral foundations (Haidt) difference: a state torturing its own citizens violates a moral "loyalty" principle as well as a moral "care" (harm avoidance) principle. Thus, it feels worse IF you ascribe to loyalty as a valid moral foundation. Haidt suggests modern liberals heavily elevate the "care" and "fairness" principles over the others, suggesting we might have a deep value difference causing our different opinions. 2) A more political perspective: the US constitution contains certain rights which all citizens are granted (note that US citizenship is defined as a "right to have rights"). See the passage (emphasis mine): "we hold these truths to be self-evident... that [all men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". One could argue that for the US government to torture its citizens would be additionally unjust, on the grounds that it violates these constitutional rights, specifically (I'd argue) that of Liberty. It's a violation of a social contract as well as a violation of an ethical principle, making it a worse injustice. Note that the authority here is granted to "[the] Creator", intensifying the ethical severity of violating this social contract. 3) Could also make some lower-Kohlberg-level arguments about this, but they're less fun and interesting.

StavrosK 8y ago
> It seems difficult to justify that "breaking my arm is more good than breaking my neck". I disagree, I think it is very easy to justify that breaking my arm is "more good", in that it is preferable. If one is -100 and the other is -50, then it is "more good" (i.e. the difference is positive). By "more good" I don't mean that it is good, mind you, just that it is better/preferable. > Haidt suggests modern liberals heavily elevate the "care" and "fairness" principles over the others I think this is our difference. I wouldn't want my country torturing anyone, enemy or not. Your second argument conflates legality with morality, so I don't really consider it especially valid. Unless you mean that the government has made a promise to the citizens to not torture them, and it would be additionally breaking that promise. Still, though, I consider the "torturing people" part much, much worse than the "you broke the promise" part, so much so that the latter seems like a rounding error to me, to use a somewhat utilitarian phrase.
- Nav_Panel 8y ago
  > breaking my arm is "more good", in that it is preferable Neither are preferable over "don't break any of my limbs", but I understand your point. I only nitpick because "having no bad things" is not equivalent to "having good things," in my mind. This is something I dealt with on a personal level relatively recently. > Your second argument conflates legality with morality, so I don't really consider it especially valid. The constitution speaks in terms of "god-given rights" and not "laws". The founding fathers were speaking the language of moral imperatives and not of legal imperatives. This is intentional. The conflation occurs when people consider the laws themselves as opposed to their motivating intentions to be moral imperatives. But my claim is that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are (some of) the motivating moral intentions that justify the laws, thus there is no conflation in my argument. > I consider the "torturing people" part much, much worse than the "you broke the promise" part, so much so that the latter seems like a rounding error to me, to use a somewhat utilitarian phrase. Ironically, I argue a utilitarian would disagree: it is likely that a government breaking their promises is harmful and perhaps terrifying to a much larger group of individuals than those who are directly harmed via torture. I figure there's a strong utilitarian argument that (a small harm * 150 million people) > (a large harm * 200 people), but then again, this is part of the horror embodied by stories like "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". I am no utilitarian myself, but I am also no orthodox Humanist either...

StavrosK 8y ago

> It seems difficult to justify that "breaking my arm is more good than breaking my neck". I disagree, I think it is very easy to justify that breaking my arm is "more good", in that it is preferable. If one is -100 and the other is -50, then it is "more good" (i.e. the difference is positive). By "more good" I don't mean that it is good, mind you, just that it is better/preferable. > Haidt suggests modern liberals heavily elevate the "care" and "fairness" principles over the others I think this is our difference. I wouldn't want my country torturing anyone, enemy or not. Your second argument conflates legality with morality, so I don't really consider it especially valid. Unless you mean that the government has made a promise to the citizens to not torture them, and it would be additionally breaking that promise. Still, though, I consider the "torturing people" part much, much worse than the "you broke the promise" part, so much so that the latter seems like a rounding error to me, to use a somewhat utilitarian phrase.

Nav_Panel 8y ago
> breaking my arm is "more good", in that it is preferable Neither are preferable over "don't break any of my limbs", but I understand your point. I only nitpick because "having no bad things" is not equivalent to "having good things," in my mind. This is something I dealt with on a personal level relatively recently. > Your second argument conflates legality with morality, so I don't really consider it especially valid. The constitution speaks in terms of "god-given rights" and not "laws". The founding fathers were speaking the language of moral imperatives and not of legal imperatives. This is intentional. The conflation occurs when people consider the laws themselves as opposed to their motivating intentions to be moral imperatives. But my claim is that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are (some of) the motivating moral intentions that justify the laws, thus there is no conflation in my argument. > I consider the "torturing people" part much, much worse than the "you broke the promise" part, so much so that the latter seems like a rounding error to me, to use a somewhat utilitarian phrase. Ironically, I argue a utilitarian would disagree: it is likely that a government breaking their promises is harmful and perhaps terrifying to a much larger group of individuals than those who are directly harmed via torture. I figure there's a strong utilitarian argument that (a small harm * 150 million people) > (a large harm * 200 people), but then again, this is part of the horror embodied by stories like "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". I am no utilitarian myself, but I am also no orthodox Humanist either...