Not at all, if we started out by wanting to arrive in the same city.
And we did exactly that (metaphorically speaking). I said:
We will arrive at superficially similar answers much of the time because “appeal to intuition” is considered a legitimate move in ethics and we have some similar intuitions about the kinds of answers we want to arrive at.
It seems to me that you and I ask dissimilar questions and arrive at superficially similar answers. (I say “superficially similar” because I consider the “because” clause in an ethical statement to be important—if you think you should pull the six-year-old off the train tracks because that maximizes your utility function and I think you should do it because the six-year-old is entitled to your protection on account of being a person, those are different answers, even if the six-year-old lives either way.) The babyeaters get more non-matching results in the “does the six-year-old live” department, but their questions—just about as important in comparing theories—are not (it seems to me) so much more different than yours and mine.
Everybody, in seeking a principled ethical theory, has to bite some bullets (or go on an endless Easter-epicycle hunt).
To me, this doesn’t seem like superficial similarity at all. I should sooner call the differences of verbal “because” superficial, and focus on that which actually produces the answer.
I think you should do it because the six-year-old is valuable and precious and irreplaceable, and if I had a utility function it would describe that. I’m not sure how this differs from what you’re doing, but I think it differs from what you think I’m doing.
And we did exactly that (metaphorically speaking). I said:
It seems to me that you and I ask dissimilar questions and arrive at superficially similar answers. (I say “superficially similar” because I consider the “because” clause in an ethical statement to be important—if you think you should pull the six-year-old off the train tracks because that maximizes your utility function and I think you should do it because the six-year-old is entitled to your protection on account of being a person, those are different answers, even if the six-year-old lives either way.) The babyeaters get more non-matching results in the “does the six-year-old live” department, but their questions—just about as important in comparing theories—are not (it seems to me) so much more different than yours and mine.
Everybody, in seeking a principled ethical theory, has to bite some bullets (or go on an endless Easter-epicycle hunt).
To me, this doesn’t seem like superficial similarity at all. I should sooner call the differences of verbal “because” superficial, and focus on that which actually produces the answer.
I think you should do it because the six-year-old is valuable and precious and irreplaceable, and if I had a utility function it would describe that. I’m not sure how this differs from what you’re doing, but I think it differs from what you think I’m doing.