That doesn’t work unless you can make separate precommitments for switches that nobody knows about and switches that people might know about. You probably are unable to do that, for the same reason that you are unable to have separate precommitments for quantum fluctuations and normal trolleys.
Also, that assumption is not enough. Similarly to the reasoning behind superrationality, people can figure out what your reasoning is whether or not you tell them. You’d have to assume that nobody knows what your ethical system is, plus one wide scale assumption such as assuming that nobody knows about the existence of utilitarians (or of deontologists whose rules are modelled as utilitarian precommitment.)
Don’t know if this is “least convenient world” or “most convenient world” territory, but I think it fits in the spirit of the problem:
No one will know that a switch was pulled except you.
That doesn’t work unless you can make separate precommitments for switches that nobody knows about and switches that people might know about. You probably are unable to do that, for the same reason that you are unable to have separate precommitments for quantum fluctuations and normal trolleys.
Also, that assumption is not enough. Similarly to the reasoning behind superrationality, people can figure out what your reasoning is whether or not you tell them. You’d have to assume that nobody knows what your ethical system is, plus one wide scale assumption such as assuming that nobody knows about the existence of utilitarians (or of deontologists whose rules are modelled as utilitarian precommitment.)