I understand that choosing specks theoretically leads to an overall decrease in happiness in the universe. One (irrational, given my previous conclusion) thought, however, always seems to dominate my interior monologue about specks vrs. torture—if someone were to ask me whether or not I would take a dust speck in the eye to save someone from 50 years of torture, I would do it (as I would expect most people to). I realize that I would have to take 3^^^3 dust specks for the problem to match the original question (and I wouldn’t be willing to get 3^^^3 dust specks in my eyes to stop 50 years of torture, as my pain would exceed that of the tortured), but my brain always goes back to thinking ”...but I wouldn’t mind getting a dust speck in my eye to keep someone from getting tortured...” I can’t seem to be able to dismiss that thought as illogical, even though I know that it theoretically is. Substitute “dust speck” for “punch to the face” and I would still be willing, however, substitute one year of torture and I can see that the pain of 3^^^3 would outweigh the pain of one. Should I just force my brain to accept what I see as intuitively illogical but know is not?
I understand that choosing specks theoretically leads to an overall decrease in happiness in the universe. One (irrational, given my previous conclusion) thought, however, always seems to dominate my interior monologue about specks vrs. torture—if someone were to ask me whether or not I would take a dust speck in the eye to save someone from 50 years of torture, I would do it (as I would expect most people to). I realize that I would have to take 3^^^3 dust specks for the problem to match the original question (and I wouldn’t be willing to get 3^^^3 dust specks in my eyes to stop 50 years of torture, as my pain would exceed that of the tortured), but my brain always goes back to thinking ”...but I wouldn’t mind getting a dust speck in my eye to keep someone from getting tortured...” I can’t seem to be able to dismiss that thought as illogical, even though I know that it theoretically is. Substitute “dust speck” for “punch to the face” and I would still be willing, however, substitute one year of torture and I can see that the pain of 3^^^3 would outweigh the pain of one. Should I just force my brain to accept what I see as intuitively illogical but know is not?