I think this is more due to diminishing marginal returns for the amount of sparrows in existence, to be honest...
Jokes aside, you are offering a very persuasive argument; I’d be curious to know how you figure out what tier certain values are and whether you ever have reason to (a) change your mind about said tier or (b) create new tiers altogether?
TGGP3 clearly does not share your definition for the word ‘moral/ethical’ otherwise he would not have made such a comment.
Well then, arguably, no-one actually believes in “God” at all.
Plus one for even being willing to break with habit and consciously adapt your sleeping habit though. I mean, isn’t your recent thing at 10 AM just like the equivalent of having to wake up at 6 AM on a normal schedule? This still seems like a viable strategy.
Any agent capable of simulating you would know about your precommitment, and present you with the evidence before making the claim.
Reading more about the circumstances of Aaron’s suicide has led me to be quite upset with certain individuals who decided to prosecute him anyway, despite JSTOR dropping their suit and convincing others to do the same. For shame.
However, its still worth distinguishing this sharply from deontology, because if you ever did calculate and find a situation in which your rule resulted in lesser utility – like pushing the fat man in front of the train – you’d break the rule.
But the moment you allow sub-rules as exceptions to the general rules like in the quoted part above, you set the ground for Rule-consequentialism to collapse into Act-consequentialism via an unending chain of sub-rules. See Lyons, 1965.
Further, as a consequentialist, you have to think about the effects of accepting a decision-theory which lets you push the fat man onto the train tracks and what that means for the decision processes of other agents as well.
Would you say that “humans aren’t capable of evil. Evolution makes them that way”?
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I might, if I was a god talking to other gods.
I feel like a strange loop is now formed when humans say things like: “God isn’t capable of evil. Our definition makes him that way.”
Not true for every religion.
Judaism has certain specific instances where it is accepted that it would be better for one to die than commit a sin.
Also, martyrdom would not be such a large aspect in Christianity (or, at least, in early Christianity) if dying for God wasn’t considered a good thing.
Coincidences are funny: my name happens to be Asher.
I’ll put this on my reading list.
This is exactly what I was trying to describe, and this happens to me as well. If you ever do write such a figure, be sure to let me know, I’d like to read about them. :)
When I admit my ignorance on a certain topic, upfront and clearly, it usually works for me and gets the other person to trust that my intent is to learn and not to challenge them.
OK, I cannot bring myself to add philosophy to the list of “don’t argue with the experts, learn from them” topics, but maybe it’s because I don’t know anything about philosophy.
Could this be because we have fewer philosophy experts (although there are a few notable ones) than science experts?
Harry seems more awesome to me because he has a strong drive to get to the bottom of things—not the same thing as intelligence, though it might be a trait that wouldn’t be as interesting in an unintelligent character. (Or would it be? I can’t think of an author who’s tried to portray that.)
I would be fascinated to read a character who can Get Curious and think skeptically and reflectively about competing ideas, but is only of average intelligence.
Trying to model this character in my head has resulted in some sort of error though, so there’s that...
This reminds me a lot of Spinoza’s proof of God in Ethics, although I recognize that is probably partially due to personal biases of mine.
It was. I can’t get the ‘show help’ menu to pop-up, so I feel frustratingly inept right now. :)
To see the word used spectacularly, check out this paper: www.es.ele.tue.nl/~tbasten/fun/rhetoric_logic.pdf
This is a result of screwy reasoning within Deontology, not within nyan_sandwich’s post.
If anyone still has a hard time believing that this is not an unorthodox position among Philosophers, I’d like to recommend Shelly Kagan’s excellent The Limits of Morality, which discusses ‘radical consequentialism’ and defends a similar conclusion.
Although, if you believe it always tells the truth, then you should follow whatever counterintuitive claim it makes about your own preferences and values, no? So if God were to tell you that sacrificing your son is what CEV_(Kawoomba) would do, would you do it?