it was just for Allied soldiers to kill Nazi soldiers in World War II
Killing anyone who hasn’t done anything to lose deontological protection is wrong and clearly violates deontology.
As a Nazi soldier, you lose deontological protection.
There are many humans who are not even customers of any of the AI labs; they clearly have not lost deontological protection, and it’s not okay to risk killing them without their consent.
I disagree with this as a statement about war, I’m sure a bunch of Nazi soldiers were conscripted, did not particularly support the regime, and were participating out of fear. Similarly, malicious governments have conscripted innocent civilians and kept them in line through fear in many unjust wars throughout history. And even people who volunteered may have done this due to being brainwashed by extensive propaganda that led to them believing they were doing the right thing. The real world is messy and strict deontological prohibitions break down in complex and high stakes situations, where inaction also has terrible consequences—I strongly disagree with a deontological rule that says countries are not about to defend themselves against innocent people forced to do terrible things
My deontology prescribes not to join a Nazi army regardless of how much fear you’re in. It’s impossible to demand of people to be HPMOR!Hermione, but I think this standard works fine for real-world situations.
(While I do not wish any Nazi soldiers death, regardless of their views or reasons for their actions. There’s a sense in which Nazi soldiers are innocent regardless of what they’ve done; none of them are grown up enough to be truly responsible for their actions. Every single death is very sad, and I’m not sure there has ever been even a single non-innocent human. At the same time, I think it’s okay to kill Nazi soldiers (unless they’re in a process of surrenderring, etc.) or lie to them, and they don’t have deontological protection.)
You’re arguing it’s okay to defend yourself against innocent people forced to do terrible things. I agree with that, and my deontology agrees with that.
At the same time, killing everyone because otherwise someone else could’ve killed them with a higher chance = killing many people who aren’t ever going to contribute to any terrible things. I think, and my deontology thinks, that this is not okay. Random civilians are not innocent Nazi soldiers; they’re simply random innocent people. I ask of Anthropic to please stop working towards killing them.
And do you feel this way because you believe that the general policy of obeying such deontological prohibitions will on net result in better outcomes? Or because you think that even if there were good reason to believe that following a different policy would lead to better empirical outcomes, your ethics say that you should be deontologically opposed regardless?
I think the general policy of obeying such deontological rules leads to better outcomes; this is the reason for having deontology in the first place. (I agree with that old post on what to do when it feels like there’s a good reason to believe that following a different policy would lead to better outcomes.)
(Just as a datapoint, while largely agreeing with Ben here, I really don’t buy this concept of deontological protection of individuals. I think there are principles we have about when it’s OK to kill someone, but I don’t think the lines we have here route through individuals losing deontological protection.
Killing a mass murderer while he is waiting for trial is IMO worse than killing a civilian in collateral damage as part of taking out an active combatant, because it violates and messes with different processes, which don’t generally route through individuals “losing deontological protection” but instead are more sensitive to the context the individuals are in)
Locally: can you give an example of when it’s okay to kill someone who didn’t lose deontological protection, where you want to kill them because of the causal impact of their death?
To me the issue goes the other way. The idea of “losing deontological protection” suggests I’m allowed to ignore deontological rules when interacting with someone. But that seems obviously crazy to me. For instance I think there’s a deontological injunction against lying, but just because someone lies doesn’t now mean I’m allowed to kill them. It doesn’t even mean I’m allowed to lie to them. I think lying to them would still be about as wrong as it was before, not a free action I can take whenever I feel like it.
I mean, a very classical example that I’ve seen a few times in media is shooting a civilian who is about to walk into a minefield in which multiple other civilians or military members are located. It seems tragic but obviously the right choice to shoot them if they don’t heed your warning.
IDK, I also think it’s the right choice to pull the lever in the trolley problem, though the choice becomes less obvious the more it involves active killing as opposed to literally pulling a lever.
Killing anyone who hasn’t done anything to lose deontological protection is wrong and clearly violates deontology.
As a Nazi soldier, you lose deontological protection.
There are many humans who are not even customers of any of the AI labs; they clearly have not lost deontological protection, and it’s not okay to risk killing them without their consent.
I disagree with this as a statement about war, I’m sure a bunch of Nazi soldiers were conscripted, did not particularly support the regime, and were participating out of fear. Similarly, malicious governments have conscripted innocent civilians and kept them in line through fear in many unjust wars throughout history. And even people who volunteered may have done this due to being brainwashed by extensive propaganda that led to them believing they were doing the right thing. The real world is messy and strict deontological prohibitions break down in complex and high stakes situations, where inaction also has terrible consequences—I strongly disagree with a deontological rule that says countries are not about to defend themselves against innocent people forced to do terrible things
My deontology prescribes not to join a Nazi army regardless of how much fear you’re in. It’s impossible to demand of people to be HPMOR!Hermione, but I think this standard works fine for real-world situations.
(While I do not wish any Nazi soldiers death, regardless of their views or reasons for their actions. There’s a sense in which Nazi soldiers are innocent regardless of what they’ve done; none of them are grown up enough to be truly responsible for their actions. Every single death is very sad, and I’m not sure there has ever been even a single non-innocent human. At the same time, I think it’s okay to kill Nazi soldiers (unless they’re in a process of surrenderring, etc.) or lie to them, and they don’t have deontological protection.)
You’re arguing it’s okay to defend yourself against innocent people forced to do terrible things. I agree with that, and my deontology agrees with that.
At the same time, killing everyone because otherwise someone else could’ve killed them with a higher chance = killing many people who aren’t ever going to contribute to any terrible things. I think, and my deontology thinks, that this is not okay. Random civilians are not innocent Nazi soldiers; they’re simply random innocent people. I ask of Anthropic to please stop working towards killing them.
And do you feel this way because you believe that the general policy of obeying such deontological prohibitions will on net result in better outcomes? Or because you think that even if there were good reason to believe that following a different policy would lead to better empirical outcomes, your ethics say that you should be deontologically opposed regardless?
I think the general policy of obeying such deontological rules leads to better outcomes; this is the reason for having deontology in the first place. (I agree with that old post on what to do when it feels like there’s a good reason to believe that following a different policy would lead to better outcomes.)
(Just as a datapoint, while largely agreeing with Ben here, I really don’t buy this concept of deontological protection of individuals. I think there are principles we have about when it’s OK to kill someone, but I don’t think the lines we have here route through individuals losing deontological protection.
Killing a mass murderer while he is waiting for trial is IMO worse than killing a civilian in collateral damage as part of taking out an active combatant, because it violates and messes with different processes, which don’t generally route through individuals “losing deontological protection” but instead are more sensitive to the context the individuals are in)
Locally: can you give an example of when it’s okay to kill someone who didn’t lose deontological protection, where you want to kill them because of the causal impact of their death?
To me the issue goes the other way. The idea of “losing deontological protection” suggests I’m allowed to ignore deontological rules when interacting with someone. But that seems obviously crazy to me. For instance I think there’s a deontological injunction against lying, but just because someone lies doesn’t now mean I’m allowed to kill them. It doesn’t even mean I’m allowed to lie to them. I think lying to them would still be about as wrong as it was before, not a free action I can take whenever I feel like it.
I mean, a very classical example that I’ve seen a few times in media is shooting a civilian who is about to walk into a minefield in which multiple other civilians or military members are located. It seems tragic but obviously the right choice to shoot them if they don’t heed your warning.
IDK, I also think it’s the right choice to pull the lever in the trolley problem, though the choice becomes less obvious the more it involves active killing as opposed to literally pulling a lever.