What’s going on in someone’s head when they encounter something like the trolley problem, and say “you can’t just place a value on a human life”?
Maybe: “Here is someone who is practicing excuses for killing people, using fictional scenarios. Is this some kind of wannabe killer, exploring the terrain to find out under which circumstances would his actions be socially acceptable? I’d better explain him that this approach wouldn’t work here.”
This seems plausible to me. Also compare “torture vs. dust specks” (intended as a thought experiment about aggregating disutility over hypothetical people) with “the ticking bomb scenario” (intended as an actual justification for actual societies developing torture practices for actually torturing actual people).
Maybe: “Here is someone who is practicing excuses for killing people, using fictional scenarios. Is this some kind of wannabe killer, exploring the terrain to find out under which circumstances would his actions be socially acceptable? I’d better explain him that this approach wouldn’t work here.”
This seems plausible to me. Also compare “torture vs. dust specks” (intended as a thought experiment about aggregating disutility over hypothetical people) with “the ticking bomb scenario” (intended as an actual justification for actual societies developing torture practices for actually torturing actual people).