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I definitely agree with the humanist sentiment here. But an institutionalist would argue that the institutions, policies, procedures, systems have been set up t
by mustpax 17y ago
I definitely agree with the humanist sentiment here. But an institutionalist would argue that the institutions, policies, procedures, systems have been set up to prevent countless losses of human life and human dignity. Undermining them for the sake of accommodating a single outlier would result in much more harm overall.
I don't necessarily agree with this line of argument. But people will keep making it, so it's worth formulating a response to it if you want to win the debate. (Not that rational discourse wins any debates these days.)
- edw519 17y agoUndermining them for the sake of accommodating a single outlier would result in much more harm overall. The magnitude of "overall harm" is not an issue. I simply adopted the axiom of "nothing is more important than a single human life" and came up with one approach to make sure that axiom is never violated. There may be better approaches. Agreement on this axiom is a necessary first step. I'm not sure we have it. What a shame.
- khafra 17y agoThe most fundamental issue, I think, is where "two human lives" falls on your importance scale.
- khafra 17y agoEliezer Yudkowsky's dissolving of the consequentialist/deontologist divide can be applied here, I think: Nothing is more precious than a human life. But people die, so we have to make compromises to minimize the rate of unnecessary death; there's no use spending all your time and resources to build a completely death-proof car if you then die of untreated appendicitis you were too busy to have fixed. In addition to that opportunity cost concern, there's knock-on effects, like you touched on, mustpax. Letting a killer live saves one human life now, but a policy of letting killers live may end far more human lives in the future. Personally, I don't think the data supports that, but if it did that's a choice we'd have to make.