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I don’t agree with the premise of applying numbers in these hypothetical trolly level like situations. Humans aren’t numbers, and you could never calculate a ut
by k2xl 5y ago
I don’t agree with the premise of applying numbers in these hypothetical trolly level like situations. Humans aren’t numbers, and you could never calculate a utility value or predict with certainty what would happen if you make a choice to make these hypotheticals useful in my opinion.
But playing along, while moving to the suburbs or city is a common decision to make for families, I would argue that the priority view is the same as utility. The priority raises the value/score itself.
Let’s say hypothetically you could go out to dinner to help talk a depressed friend out of suicide or you could go to a once in a lifetime meeting with an investor to pitch him on a startup idea about helping prevent suicides. Now i would argue the decision is a bit more murky. In one you have a probability of helping prevent one suicide in short term and in a other you have a probability of helping prevent multiple suicides in the long term.
- Ensorceled 5y agoThat is the whole point of moral philosophy, to try to both model how humans make moral decision and help us make better moral choices. To just wave away the work of hundreds of philosophers over hundreds of years with "it's murky" ... maybe philosophers already understand that.
- endisneigh 5y agoI don't understand what's murky about your hypothetical as proposed. Go help the depressed friend. Even if you successfully pitched the startup to the investor the utility gained ultimately is indeterminate vs. the very immediate and real utility gained from a successful suicide (presumably permanent) prevented. Your example though is good to illustrate the fallacy of "end justifies the means" type thinking. When you suppose the outcome (talking to the investor leads to the startup being created which then presumably prevents suicides) for one scenario but not for the other the entire thing is meaningless. With these types of scenarios you can see the error by applying one scenario and overlaying it on the other: 1. Talk a friend out of a suicide who does (2) 2. Engage in a once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity for suicide prevention. Clearly 1 includes 2, so 2 is the answer. You might say that's not the scenario you posed, which is true, but I'd counter and say that's the issue with contrived examples to begin with.