You’re talking about means and ends (which, in a consequentialist framework, are, of course, just “ends” and “other ends”).
(Your example may thus be translated as “punching people is negative ceteris paribus, as it has direct, immediate, negative effects; however, the knock-on effects, etc., may result in consequences which, when all aggregated and integrated over some suitable future period, are net positive”. Of course this gets us into the usual difficulties with aggregation, both intra-personally and interpersonally, but these may probably be safely bracketed… at least, provisionally.)
I’m talking about you and ESRogs zeroing in on where you disagree, because at least one of you is wrong and has a productive opportunity to update. Sorry if the example of punch bug was distracting, but I suspect fairly strongly that it is inappropriate and oversimplified to just have a pros-and-cons list in the case of these large evaluations you’re making—not least because in a black-or-white dichotomy, you lose resolution on the places where your assumptions actually differ.
Let’s not reinvent the wheel here.
You’re talking about means and ends (which, in a consequentialist framework, are, of course, just “ends” and “other ends”).
(Your example may thus be translated as “punching people is negative ceteris paribus, as it has direct, immediate, negative effects; however, the knock-on effects, etc., may result in consequences which, when all aggregated and integrated over some suitable future period, are net positive”. Of course this gets us into the usual difficulties with aggregation, both intra-personally and interpersonally, but these may probably be safely bracketed… at least, provisionally.)
I’m talking about you and ESRogs zeroing in on where you disagree, because at least one of you is wrong and has a productive opportunity to update. Sorry if the example of punch bug was distracting, but I suspect fairly strongly that it is inappropriate and oversimplified to just have a pros-and-cons list in the case of these large evaluations you’re making—not least because in a black-or-white dichotomy, you lose resolution on the places where your assumptions actually differ.