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I actually don't agree with this. Assume that the following premises are true: * action x is legal, but results in a worse world for everyone. * doing action x

I actually don't agree with this. Assume that the following premises are true: * action x is legal, but results in a worse world for everyone. * doing action x benefits the first 1000 people who do it. * much more than 1000 are capable of doing x, including me. * if I do it now, I will be one of the first 1000. If these are true, I think one should do action x. I believe one would be completely justified in doing it.

trashtester 4y ago
Basically prisoner's dilemma. I think the answer is inherent to the question of whether it's "justified", and the fact that you're being downvoted. If Prisoner's Dilemma is played once, the optimal strategy is to defect. If it's repeated an unknown number of times, the optimal strategy is tit-for-tat. Now, if you're an identifiable actor in a pool of tit-for-tat-players, and you have a history of defecting first, you're going to face opponents who normally play tit-for-tat start to defect against you first, too. In the end, you will end up as one of the worst peformers in the player pool. So when you're asking if it is "justifiable" to defect in a game like this, it is the same as asking "will I be treated worse if I defect in this game". The downvote confirms this, I think. It means that in this population pool, bad behavior is punished (or people pretend it is) Now, if defecting can either be done secretly or if you're in a popluation pool where everyone defects anyway, then always-defect is probably the nash equillibrium. In that case, defecting will be seen as justifiable.
- entropi 4y ago
  > Basically prisoner's dilemma > (...)In that case, defecting will be seen as justifiable. Exactly! My argument basically boiled down to this. In certain situations, defecting may be the way to go. I would not blame the defector for doing what is in their best interest. And “someone would have done this anyway” could very well be what's turning a situation into a prisoner's dilemma, so it could actually be a valid justification in some cases. But yeah, it could depend on what is meant by "justification" exactly.
  - harimau777 4y ago
    This assumes that there is no morality. That there is no merit in not doing something evil even if others will do it in your place.
    - entropi 4y ago
      Hmmm. Not necessarily. I mean if what you did does not change the outcome in any way, then is what you did even evil? If you have no marginal impact, can you ever do good or evil? I am not sure actually. I realize that this could also apply to lower rank soldiers involved in some war crimes, etc. so I guess it is not that clear cut. But would you blame a random soldier of lowest rank for carrying out terrible orders and not risking himself(or his family)? Well I don't know. I guess I would not. Of course, the stakes are rarely that high, but the harm done is also rarely that high also.
      - harimau777 4y ago
        I don't know that I'd blame them, but I would consider it an act of evil This is a bit of a tangent, but that's something I never liked about referring to evil things as "inhumane". It seems to me that hurting others in order to help friends, family, or self is very human. In that case, morality is choosing to act against human nature by doing the right thing at the expense of self or loved ones.
    - trashtester 4y ago
      For an atheist, moral absolutes are absurd (though still widely held). There are no more an absolute case for saying it's evil for a human child to play before a mouse before killing it, than it is for a kitten to do the same. Rather, one could argue, morality is a set of emotions, norms, beliefs and rules we have gained through culture and evolution in response to certain behavior patterns. And these can be seen as having a game-theoretical foundation. The rules that assigns the label Evil to someone tends to select people that we (or our ingroup) are in an existential conflict with, at a level where it's either us or them. For instance, we can have rules that define some patterns of behavior as Evil, and have different set of moral rules for treating people depending on whether they are classified as Evil or not.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Levitz 4y ago
Not only that, but if some people have ethical and moral considerations about the consequences of x, then those people have an ethical reason to actually do the thing, since the alternative is that the people doing it are those with no ethical or moral consideration. If a piece of technology is going to be 90% bad 10% good and you can push it to 80% bad then it is completely justifiable to go for it.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I could not disagree more.
jakelazaroff 4y ago
That logic is how every atrocity in human history was enabled: - If I catch this escaped slave, I can get the bounty instead of someone else! - One of us Auschwitz guards will shoot that escaping prisoner; why shouldn’t I get rewarded for it? So on and so forth.

trashtester 4y ago

Basically prisoner's dilemma. I think the answer is inherent to the question of whether it's "justified", and the fact that you're being downvoted. If Prisoner's Dilemma is played once, the optimal strategy is to defect. If it's repeated an unknown number of times, the optimal strategy is tit-for-tat. Now, if you're an identifiable actor in a pool of tit-for-tat-players, and you have a history of defecting first, you're going to face opponents who normally play tit-for-tat start to defect against you first, too. In the end, you will end up as one of the worst peformers in the player pool. So when you're asking if it is "justifiable" to defect in a game like this, it is the same as asking "will I be treated worse if I defect in this game". The downvote confirms this, I think. It means that in this population pool, bad behavior is punished (or people pretend it is) Now, if defecting can either be done secretly or if you're in a popluation pool where everyone defects anyway, then always-defect is probably the nash equillibrium. In that case, defecting will be seen as justifiable.

entropi 4y ago
> Basically prisoner's dilemma > (...)In that case, defecting will be seen as justifiable. Exactly! My argument basically boiled down to this. In certain situations, defecting may be the way to go. I would not blame the defector for doing what is in their best interest. And “someone would have done this anyway” could very well be what's turning a situation into a prisoner's dilemma, so it could actually be a valid justification in some cases. But yeah, it could depend on what is meant by "justification" exactly.
- harimau777 4y ago
  This assumes that there is no morality. That there is no merit in not doing something evil even if others will do it in your place.
  - entropi 4y ago
    Hmmm. Not necessarily. I mean if what you did does not change the outcome in any way, then is what you did even evil? If you have no marginal impact, can you ever do good or evil? I am not sure actually. I realize that this could also apply to lower rank soldiers involved in some war crimes, etc. so I guess it is not that clear cut. But would you blame a random soldier of lowest rank for carrying out terrible orders and not risking himself(or his family)? Well I don't know. I guess I would not. Of course, the stakes are rarely that high, but the harm done is also rarely that high also.
    - harimau777 4y ago
      I don't know that I'd blame them, but I would consider it an act of evil This is a bit of a tangent, but that's something I never liked about referring to evil things as "inhumane". It seems to me that hurting others in order to help friends, family, or self is very human. In that case, morality is choosing to act against human nature by doing the right thing at the expense of self or loved ones.
  - trashtester 4y ago
    For an atheist, moral absolutes are absurd (though still widely held). There are no more an absolute case for saying it's evil for a human child to play before a mouse before killing it, than it is for a kitten to do the same. Rather, one could argue, morality is a set of emotions, norms, beliefs and rules we have gained through culture and evolution in response to certain behavior patterns. And these can be seen as having a game-theoretical foundation. The rules that assigns the label Evil to someone tends to select people that we (or our ingroup) are in an existential conflict with, at a level where it's either us or them. For instance, we can have rules that define some patterns of behavior as Evil, and have different set of moral rules for treating people depending on whether they are classified as Evil or not.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Levitz 4y ago

Not only that, but if some people have ethical and moral considerations about the consequences of x, then those people have an ethical reason to actually do the thing, since the alternative is that the people doing it are those with no ethical or moral consideration. If a piece of technology is going to be 90% bad 10% good and you can push it to 80% bad then it is completely justifiable to go for it.

JohnFen 4y ago
I could not disagree more.

jakelazaroff 4y ago

That logic is how every atrocity in human history was enabled: - If I catch this escaped slave, I can get the bounty instead of someone else! - One of us Auschwitz guards will shoot that escaping prisoner; why shouldn’t I get rewarded for it? So on and so forth.