I expect that one source of the problem is seen in equating these two situations. On one hand you have 100 copies of the same movie. On the other hand, you have 100 distinct humans you could pay to save. To draw a direct comparison you would need to treat these as 100 copies of some idealized stranger. In which case the scope insensitivity might (depending on how you aggregate the utility of a copy’s life) make more sense as a heuristic.
And this sort of simplification is likely one part of what is happening when we naively consider the questions:
How much would you pay to save a random stranger’s life? How much would you pay to save 100 strangers?
I wonder how this experiment would change if you presented lists of names? If you encouraged a different model for the 100 strangers.
To draw a direct comparison you would need to treat these as 100 copies of some idealized stranger.
Actually, I think a direct comparison would involve saving the same person 100 times (it was the same movie 100 times). I think at some point I’d begin to wonder if the gene pool wouldn’t be better off without someone that accident-prone (/suicidal)… or at the very least I’d suspect that his ability to need saving would probably outlast my finances, in which case I might as well accept his inevitable death and quit paying sooner rather than later!
I expect that one source of the problem is seen in equating these two situations. On one hand you have 100 copies of the same movie. On the other hand, you have 100 distinct humans you could pay to save. To draw a direct comparison you would need to treat these as 100 copies of some idealized stranger. In which case the scope insensitivity might (depending on how you aggregate the utility of a copy’s life) make more sense as a heuristic.
And this sort of simplification is likely one part of what is happening when we naively consider the questions:
I wonder how this experiment would change if you presented lists of names? If you encouraged a different model for the 100 strangers.
Actually, I think a direct comparison would involve saving the same person 100 times (it was the same movie 100 times). I think at some point I’d begin to wonder if the gene pool wouldn’t be better off without someone that accident-prone (/suicidal)… or at the very least I’d suspect that his ability to need saving would probably outlast my finances, in which case I might as well accept his inevitable death and quit paying sooner rather than later!