HA, that’s exactly the sort of argument I’m talking about. It is too easy to convince oneself by some bit of reasoning that doing an evil act is OK—maybe it reduces some other evil, maybe it gets rid of the Jews who you have convinced yourself are a source of evil. Maybe you can convince yourself that implementing some torture will reduce the total amount of suffering in the world. I would be extremely dubious. Reasoning from first principles about practical affairs is extremely unreliable, and has to be augmented with heuristics, intuition, and gut feelings. You have to be extremely suspicious when supposedly rational arguments lead you to morally revolting conclusions. (BTW, Ursula Leguin wrote a short story on these themes which is worth reading).
Now, “trusting your gut” is something of a metaheuristic, and not a very reliable one. For example, one of my least favorite philosphers, Leon Kass, uses similar arguments to argue against homosexuality, assissted reproduction, and eating ice-cream in public. His gut is apparently very sensitive to things like that; mine isn’t. How do we reconcile our positions?
The answer is, we don’t. Such disagreements can’t be resolved by pure reason and thus enter the realm of politics. I know politics isn’t popular around here, but that’s how things work. Pro-torture and anti-torture factions will have to fight it out politically, just as the pro- and anti-homosexuality factions do. Which side are you on?
HA, that’s exactly the sort of argument I’m talking about. It is too easy to convince oneself by some bit of reasoning that doing an evil act is OK—maybe it reduces some other evil, maybe it gets rid of the Jews who you have convinced yourself are a source of evil. Maybe you can convince yourself that implementing some torture will reduce the total amount of suffering in the world. I would be extremely dubious. Reasoning from first principles about practical affairs is extremely unreliable, and has to be augmented with heuristics, intuition, and gut feelings. You have to be extremely suspicious when supposedly rational arguments lead you to morally revolting conclusions. (BTW, Ursula Leguin wrote a short story on these themes which is worth reading).
Now, “trusting your gut” is something of a metaheuristic, and not a very reliable one. For example, one of my least favorite philosphers, Leon Kass, uses similar arguments to argue against homosexuality, assissted reproduction, and eating ice-cream in public. His gut is apparently very sensitive to things like that; mine isn’t. How do we reconcile our positions?
The answer is, we don’t. Such disagreements can’t be resolved by pure reason and thus enter the realm of politics. I know politics isn’t popular around here, but that’s how things work. Pro-torture and anti-torture factions will have to fight it out politically, just as the pro- and anti-homosexuality factions do. Which side are you on?