Now, for a change of pace, something that I figure might actually be an absolute denial macro in most people:
You do not actually care about other people at all. The only reason you believe this is that believing it is the only way you can convince other people of it (after all, people are good lie detectors). Whenever it’s truly advantageous for you to do something harmful (i.e. you know you won’t get caught and you’re willing to forego reciprocation), you do it and then rationalize it as being okay.
Luckily, it’s instrumentally rational for you to continue to believe that you’re a moral person, and because it’s so easy for you to do so, you may.
So deniable that even after you come to believe it you don’t believe it!
I think that this may be true about the average person’s supposed caring for most others, but that there are in many cases one or more individuals for whom a person genuinely cares. Mothers caring for their children seems like the obvious example.
See, I’d believe this, except that I’m wrestling with a bit of a moral dilemma myself, and I haven’t done it yet. Your hypothesis is testable, being tested right now, and thus far false.
(If anyone’s interested, the positive utility is me never having to work again, and the negative utility is that some people would probably die. Oh, and they’re awful people.)
I… honestly can’t tell you. Sorry. Realistically, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, even somewhat anonymously.
EDIT: Also for the record, the only reason it’s still a consideration is because it occurred to me that I could donate the proceeds to charity, and have it come out positive, from a strictly utilitarian standpoint. But I gave up on naive utilitarianism a while ago. So now I just don’t know.
EDIT #2: Either way, still contradictory evidence to the original hypothesis.
Well… for people who say they don’t anticipate ever actually finding themselves in trolley problems, I’d say I don’t think it’s that hard to find someone willing to give you $10,000 to murder someone and then give the money to the Against Malaria Foundation.
(No, I wouldn’t do that, even if I think the (CDT) expected utility of that would be positive: ethical injunctions and all that, plus a suspect that the net RDT consequences of precommitting to never do contract killing would be positive.)
Okay, now how about you’re not directly involved in the killing in any way? You just make it easier for other people to do the killing. I guess a good analogy is that you invent a firearm or a poison that cannot be used in self-defense, and can only be used for murder. What do the ethics of selling it openly look like?
Now, for a change of pace, something that I figure might actually be an absolute denial macro in most people:
You do not actually care about other people at all. The only reason you believe this is that believing it is the only way you can convince other people of it (after all, people are good lie detectors). Whenever it’s truly advantageous for you to do something harmful (i.e. you know you won’t get caught and you’re willing to forego reciprocation), you do it and then rationalize it as being okay.
Luckily, it’s instrumentally rational for you to continue to believe that you’re a moral person, and because it’s so easy for you to do so, you may.
So deniable that even after you come to believe it you don’t believe it!
(topynate posted something similar.)
I think that this may be true about the average person’s supposed caring for most others, but that there are in many cases one or more individuals for whom a person genuinely cares. Mothers caring for their children seems like the obvious example.
See, I’d believe this, except that I’m wrestling with a bit of a moral dilemma myself, and I haven’t done it yet. Your hypothesis is testable, being tested right now, and thus far false.
(If anyone’s interested, the positive utility is me never having to work again, and the negative utility is that some people would probably die. Oh, and they’re awful people.)
I am inappropriately curious for more details.
I… honestly can’t tell you. Sorry. Realistically, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, even somewhat anonymously.
EDIT: Also for the record, the only reason it’s still a consideration is because it occurred to me that I could donate the proceeds to charity, and have it come out positive, from a strictly utilitarian standpoint. But I gave up on naive utilitarianism a while ago. So now I just don’t know.
EDIT #2: Either way, still contradictory evidence to the original hypothesis.
Well… for people who say they don’t anticipate ever actually finding themselves in trolley problems, I’d say I don’t think it’s that hard to find someone willing to give you $10,000 to murder someone and then give the money to the Against Malaria Foundation.
(No, I wouldn’t do that, even if I think the (CDT) expected utility of that would be positive: ethical injunctions and all that, plus a suspect that the net RDT consequences of precommitting to never do contract killing would be positive.)
Okay, now how about you’re not directly involved in the killing in any way? You just make it easier for other people to do the killing. I guess a good analogy is that you invent a firearm or a poison that cannot be used in self-defense, and can only be used for murder. What do the ethics of selling it openly look like?
A military-industrial complex. That’s what it looks like.