Is the close relation actively killing people? I don’t think it’s an unreasonable standard to say you should attempt to kill your own child if they’re about to go on a spree killing and you definitely have exhausted all other options. I might fail it, but I’d definitely think I was a bad person for it(granted raising a spree killer in the first place is the bigger fault here).
How else are their lives trading so favourably? Organ transfers are pretty 1-1, tho maybe a more general policy encouraging people to donate spare kidneys wouldn’t be terrible. Also certainly people have encouraged their kids to go to war and so on, that’s a probabilistic sacrifice for the greater good.
Also killing/death tends to be a bit of a utility singularity so even the clumsy math of regular mode utilitarianism breaks down. How much utility do I lose by killing my child? Possibly infinite? Like I’m probably going to kill myself afterwards, surely that counts as a singularity.
Would I encourage myself or a relative to donate a kidney to save a life? Eh. Maybe, again there’s potential of death when donating an organ, so singularity type stuff slips in maybe.
Just because singularities exist in certain conditions of a theory doesn’t mean it’s unusable in finite number cases.
Is the close relation actively killing people? I don’t think it’s an unreasonable standard to say you should attempt to kill your own child if they’re about to go on a spree killing and you definitely have exhausted all other options. I might fail it, but I’d definitely think I was a bad person for it(granted raising a spree killer in the first place is the bigger fault here).
How else are their lives trading so favourably? Organ transfers are pretty 1-1, tho maybe a more general policy encouraging people to donate spare kidneys wouldn’t be terrible. Also certainly people have encouraged their kids to go to war and so on, that’s a probabilistic sacrifice for the greater good.
Also killing/death tends to be a bit of a utility singularity so even the clumsy math of regular mode utilitarianism breaks down. How much utility do I lose by killing my child? Possibly infinite? Like I’m probably going to kill myself afterwards, surely that counts as a singularity.
Would I encourage myself or a relative to donate a kidney to save a life? Eh. Maybe, again there’s potential of death when donating an organ, so singularity type stuff slips in maybe.
Just because singularities exist in certain conditions of a theory doesn’t mean it’s unusable in finite number cases.