I’d give the psychopath button question a similar answer that I would to the smoking lesion question: what’s the mechanism that correlates being a psychopath with willingness to press the button?
If being a psychopath (or not being a psychopath) affects your answer because it affects your ability to reason, then based on your psychopath status, you may not even have the ability to reason correctly and choose an outcome. The problem is ill-defined, because it asks you to do something that you may be incapable, by stipulation, of doing.
If it affects your answer in another manner, then pressing the button because of the outcome of a reasoning process won’t be correlated with psychopathy even though pressing the button in general is. (Unless the button uses your decision as a criterion of psychopathy, in which case we get into halting problem considerations.)
Also, note that in everyday language, “only a psychopath would press the button” strongly implies that it affects your decision because it affects your values about killing people, which is the second scenario. It’s also inconsistent because the problem statement implies that both psychopaths and non-psychopaths would consider pressing the button and would reject pressing the button only after figuring out the logic, but if a non-psychopath would always refuse because of his values, this implication isn’t correct.
(Edit: Edited this lots of times. Phrasing my objection correctly is actually quite hard.)
If being a psychopath (or not being a psychopath) affects your answer because it affects your ability to reason, then based on your psychopath status, you may not even have the ability to reason correctly and choose an outcome. The problem is ill-defined, because it asks you to do something that you may be incapable, by stipulation, of doing.
Ah… but it’s the meta-you (the reader), not the story-you (the arguable psychopath), who is tasked with saying whether the story-you should press the button. Maybe the story-you is incapable of reasoning. But given his values and the setup of the story, it should be either better for him to press, or not to press, regardless of whether he can choose or not (and it’s that answer we’re tasked with giving).
I’m not convinced that “it’s impossible for him to press the button, but it’s better for him to press the button” is a meaningful concept.
It’s tempting to think “pressing the button results in X and X is good/bad”, but that cuts off the chain of reasoning early. Continuing the chain of reasoning past that will lead you to further conclusions that result in not-X after all, and you just got a contradiction.
If you need to consider the possibility of pressing the button involuntarily, that affects the meaning of the original problem statement. Does “only a psychopath will press the button” include involuntary presses? If yes, then it’s still impossible for a non-psychopath to press the button. If no, then whether it’s better to involuntarily press the button may have a different answer from whether it’s better to voluntarily press the button.
I’d give the psychopath button question a similar answer that I would to the smoking lesion question: what’s the mechanism that correlates being a psychopath with willingness to press the button?
If being a psychopath (or not being a psychopath) affects your answer because it affects your ability to reason, then based on your psychopath status, you may not even have the ability to reason correctly and choose an outcome. The problem is ill-defined, because it asks you to do something that you may be incapable, by stipulation, of doing.
If it affects your answer in another manner, then pressing the button because of the outcome of a reasoning process won’t be correlated with psychopathy even though pressing the button in general is. (Unless the button uses your decision as a criterion of psychopathy, in which case we get into halting problem considerations.)
Also, note that in everyday language, “only a psychopath would press the button” strongly implies that it affects your decision because it affects your values about killing people, which is the second scenario. It’s also inconsistent because the problem statement implies that both psychopaths and non-psychopaths would consider pressing the button and would reject pressing the button only after figuring out the logic, but if a non-psychopath would always refuse because of his values, this implication isn’t correct.
(Edit: Edited this lots of times. Phrasing my objection correctly is actually quite hard.)
Ah… but it’s the meta-you (the reader), not the story-you (the arguable psychopath), who is tasked with saying whether the story-you should press the button. Maybe the story-you is incapable of reasoning. But given his values and the setup of the story, it should be either better for him to press, or not to press, regardless of whether he can choose or not (and it’s that answer we’re tasked with giving).
I’m not convinced that “it’s impossible for him to press the button, but it’s better for him to press the button” is a meaningful concept.
It’s tempting to think “pressing the button results in X and X is good/bad”, but that cuts off the chain of reasoning early. Continuing the chain of reasoning past that will lead you to further conclusions that result in not-X after all, and you just got a contradiction.
Nothing suggests it’s impossible for him to press the button, even if we grant that it’s possible he can’t reason. Maybe he can stumble into it.
If you need to consider the possibility of pressing the button involuntarily, that affects the meaning of the original problem statement. Does “only a psychopath will press the button” include involuntary presses? If yes, then it’s still impossible for a non-psychopath to press the button. If no, then whether it’s better to involuntarily press the button may have a different answer from whether it’s better to voluntarily press the button.
I’d interpret it that way.
The intended interpretation is that if the person presses the button, they’re a psychopath.
If I press the button, I have always been a psychopath, and I die along with all other psychopaths.
If I don’t press the button, I may or may not be a psychopath, and I live along with all other psychopaths.
All the details you’re writing seem to me to go against the Occam’s razor’s interpretation of the problem.