Of course, if you have the option of lying, the problem becomes trivial and uninteresting, regardless of your model of the Nazi psyche. It’s when your choice requires to improve the life of one group at the expense of another one suffering, you tend to face a repugnant conclusion.
Of course, if you have the option of lying, the problem becomes trivial and uninteresting, regardless of your model of the Nazi psyche.
In the original framing of the thought experiment the reason lying wasn’t an option was because the Nazis didn’t want to believe that all the Jews were dead, they wanted the Jews to really be dead. So if you lied to them you wouldn’t really be improving their lives because they wouldn’t really be getting what they wanted.
By contrast, if the Nazis simply feel intense emotional pain at the knowledge that Jews exist, and killing Jews is an instrumental goal towards preventing that pain, then lying is the best option.
You’re right that that makes the problem trivial. The reason I addressed it at all was that my original thesis was “satisfying malicious preferences is not moral.” I was afraid someone might challenge this by emphasizing the psychological pain and distress the Nazis might feel. However, if that is the case then the problem changes from “Is it good to kill people to satisfy a malicious preference?” to “Is it good to kill people to prevent psychological pain and distress.
I still think that “malicious preferences are morally worthless” is a good possible solution to this problem, providing one has a sufficiently rigorous definition of “malicious.”
In the original framing of the thought experiment the reason lying wasn’t an option was because the Nazis didn’t want to believe that all the Jews were dead, they wanted the Jews to really be dead. So if you lied to them you wouldn’t really be improving their lives because they wouldn’t really be getting what they wanted.
Maybe you misunderstand the concept of lying. They would really believe that all Jews are dead if successfully lied to, so their stress would decrease just as much as as if they all were indeed dead.
I still think that “malicious preferences are morally worthless” is a good possible solution to this problem, providing one has a sufficiently rigorous definition of “malicious.”
This is more interesting. Here we go, the definitions:
Assumption: we assume that it is possible to separate overall personal happiness level into components (factors), which could be additive, multiplicative (or separable in some other way). This does not seem overly restrictive.
Definition 1: A component of personal happiness resulting from others being unhappy is called “malicious”.
Definition 2: A component of personal happiness resulting from others being happy is called “virtuous”.
Definition 3: A component of personal happiness that is neither malicious nor virtuous is called “neutral”.
Now your suggestion is that malicious components do not count toward global decision making at all. (Virtuous components possibly count more than neutral ones, though this could already be accounted for.) Thus we ignore any suffering inflicted on Nazis due to Jews existing/prospering.
They would really believe that all Jews are dead if successfully lied to, so their stress would decrease just as much as as if they all were indeed dead.
If this is the case then the Nazis do not really want to kill the Jews. What they really want to do is decrease their stress, killing Jews is just an instrumental goal to achieve that end. My understanding of the original thought experiment was that killing Jews was a terminal value for the Nazis, something they valued for its own sake regardless of whether it helped them achieve any other goals. In other words, even if you were able to modify the Nazi brains so they didn’t feel stress at the knowledge that Jews existed, they would still desire to kill them.
Does this sound right?
Yes, that’s exactly the point I was trying to make, although I prefer the term “personal satisfaction” rather than “personal happiness” to reflect the possibility that there are other values then happiness.
Of course, if you have the option of lying, the problem becomes trivial and uninteresting, regardless of your model of the Nazi psyche. It’s when your choice requires to improve the life of one group at the expense of another one suffering, you tend to face a repugnant conclusion.
In the original framing of the thought experiment the reason lying wasn’t an option was because the Nazis didn’t want to believe that all the Jews were dead, they wanted the Jews to really be dead. So if you lied to them you wouldn’t really be improving their lives because they wouldn’t really be getting what they wanted.
By contrast, if the Nazis simply feel intense emotional pain at the knowledge that Jews exist, and killing Jews is an instrumental goal towards preventing that pain, then lying is the best option.
You’re right that that makes the problem trivial. The reason I addressed it at all was that my original thesis was “satisfying malicious preferences is not moral.” I was afraid someone might challenge this by emphasizing the psychological pain and distress the Nazis might feel. However, if that is the case then the problem changes from “Is it good to kill people to satisfy a malicious preference?” to “Is it good to kill people to prevent psychological pain and distress.
I still think that “malicious preferences are morally worthless” is a good possible solution to this problem, providing one has a sufficiently rigorous definition of “malicious.”
Maybe you misunderstand the concept of lying. They would really believe that all Jews are dead if successfully lied to, so their stress would decrease just as much as as if they all were indeed dead.
This is more interesting. Here we go, the definitions:
Assumption: we assume that it is possible to separate overall personal happiness level into components (factors), which could be additive, multiplicative (or separable in some other way). This does not seem overly restrictive.
Definition 1: A component of personal happiness resulting from others being unhappy is called “malicious”.
Definition 2: A component of personal happiness resulting from others being happy is called “virtuous”.
Definition 3: A component of personal happiness that is neither malicious nor virtuous is called “neutral”.
Now your suggestion is that malicious components do not count toward global decision making at all. (Virtuous components possibly count more than neutral ones, though this could already be accounted for.) Thus we ignore any suffering inflicted on Nazis due to Jews existing/prospering.
Does this sound right?
If this is the case then the Nazis do not really want to kill the Jews. What they really want to do is decrease their stress, killing Jews is just an instrumental goal to achieve that end. My understanding of the original thought experiment was that killing Jews was a terminal value for the Nazis, something they valued for its own sake regardless of whether it helped them achieve any other goals. In other words, even if you were able to modify the Nazi brains so they didn’t feel stress at the knowledge that Jews existed, they would still desire to kill them.
Yes, that’s exactly the point I was trying to make, although I prefer the term “personal satisfaction” rather than “personal happiness” to reflect the possibility that there are other values then happiness.