About the slugs, there is nothing strange in asserting that the utility of the existence of something depends partly on what else exists. Consider chapters in a book: one chapter might be useless without the others, and one chapter repeated several times would actually add disutility.
So I agree that a world with human beings in it is better than one with only slugs: but this says nothing about the torture and dust specks.
Eisegetes, we had that discussion previously in regard to the difference between comparing actions and comparing outcomes. I am fairly sure I would not torture someone to save New York (at least not for 50 years), but this doesn’t mean I think that the fact of someone being tortured, even for 50 years, outweighs the lives of everyone in New York. I might simply accept Paul’s original statement on the matter, “Torture is wicked. Period.”
It does matter how it is done, though. In my lever case, if the lever were set to cause the dust specks, I would definitely move it over to the 50 year torture side.
Another factor that no one has yet considered (to make things more realistic). If there were 3^^^3 people, googleplexes of them would certainly be tortured for 50 years (because the probability of someone being tortured for 50 years is certainly high enough to ensure this). So given an asymptote utility function (which I don’t accept), it shouldn’t matter if one more person is tortured for 50 years.
About the slugs, there is nothing strange in asserting that the utility of the existence of something depends partly on what else exists. Consider chapters in a book: one chapter might be useless without the others, and one chapter repeated several times would actually add disutility.
So I agree that a world with human beings in it is better than one with only slugs: but this says nothing about the torture and dust specks.
Eisegetes, we had that discussion previously in regard to the difference between comparing actions and comparing outcomes. I am fairly sure I would not torture someone to save New York (at least not for 50 years), but this doesn’t mean I think that the fact of someone being tortured, even for 50 years, outweighs the lives of everyone in New York. I might simply accept Paul’s original statement on the matter, “Torture is wicked. Period.”
It does matter how it is done, though. In my lever case, if the lever were set to cause the dust specks, I would definitely move it over to the 50 year torture side.
Another factor that no one has yet considered (to make things more realistic). If there were 3^^^3 people, googleplexes of them would certainly be tortured for 50 years (because the probability of someone being tortured for 50 years is certainly high enough to ensure this). So given an asymptote utility function (which I don’t accept), it shouldn’t matter if one more person is tortured for 50 years.