wedrifid comments on Deontology for Consequentialists - Less Wrong
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I feel like I've summarized it somewhere, but can't find it, so here it is again (it is not finished, I know there are issues left to deal with):
Persons (which includes but may not be limited to paradigmatic adult humans) have rights, which it is wrong to violate. For example, one I'm pretty sure we've got is the right not to be killed. This means that any person who kills another person commits a wrong act, with the following exceptions: 1) a rights-holder may, at eir option, waive any and all rights ey has, so uncoerced suicide or assisted suicide is not wrong; 2) someone who has committed a contextually relevant wrong act, in so doing, forfeits eir contextually relevant rights. I don't yet have a full account of "contextual relevance", but basically what that's there for is to make sure that if somebody is trying to kill me, this might permit me to kill him, but would not grant me license to break into his house and steal his television.
However, even once a right has been waived or forfeited or (via non-personhood) not had in the first place, a secondary principle can kick in to offer some measure of moral protection. I'm calling it "the principle of needless destruction", but I'm probably going to re-name it later because "destruction" isn't quite what I'm trying to capture. Basically, it means you shouldn't go around "destroying" stuff without an adequate reason. Protecting a non-waived, non-forfeited right is always an adequate reason, but apart from that I don't have a full explanation; how good the reason has to be depends on how severe the act it justifies is. ("I was bored" might be an adequate reason to pluck and shred a blade of grass, but not to set a tree on fire, for instance.) This principle has the effect, among others, of ruling out revenge/retribution/punishment for their own sakes, although deterrence and preventing recurrence of wrong acts are still valid reasons to punish or exact revenge/retribution.
In cases where rights conflict, and there's no alternative that doesn't violate at least one, I privilege the null action. (I considered denying ought-implies-can, instead, but decided that committed me to the existence of moral luck and wasn't okay.) "The null action" is the one where you don't do anything. This is because I uphold the doing-allowing distinction very firmly. Letting something happen might be bad, but it is never as bad as doing the same something, and is virtually never as bad as performing even a much more minor (but still bad) act.
I hold agents responsible for their culpable ignorance and anything they should have known not to do, as though they knew they shouldn't have done it. Non-culpable ignorance and its results is exculpatory. Culpability of ignorance is determined by the exercise of epistemic virtues like being attentive to evidence etc. (Epistemologically, I'm an externalist; this is just for ethical purposes.) Ignorance of any kind that prevents something bad from happening is not exculpatory - this is the case of the would-be murderer who doesn't know his gun is unloaded. No out for him. I've been saying "acts", but in point of fact, I hold agents responsible for intentions, not completed acts per se. This lets my morality work even if solipsism is true, or we are brains in vats, or an agent fails to do bad things through sheer incompetence, or what have you.
Wow. You would try to stop me from saving the world. You are evil. How curious.
Why, what wrong acts do you plan to commit in attempting to save the world?
Do you believe that the world's inhabitants have a right to your protection? Because if they do, that'll excuse some things.
Evil and cunning. No! I'll shall not be revealing my secret anti-diabolical plans. Now is the time for me to assert with the utmost sincerity my devotion to a compatible deontological system of rights (and then go ahead and act like a consequentialist anyway).
Absolutely!
Ok, give me some perspective here. Just how many babies worth of excuse? Consider this counterfactual:
Robin has been working in secret with a crack team of biomedical scientists in his basement. He has fully functioning brain uploading and emulating technology at his fingertips. He believes wholeheartedly that releasing em technology into the world will bring about some kind of economist utopia, a 'subsistence paradise'. The only chance I have to prevent the release is to beat him to death with a cute little puppy. Would that be wrong?
Perhaps a more interesting question is would it be wrong for you not to intervene and stop me from beating Robin to death with a puppy?
Does it matter whether you have been warned of my intent? Assume that all you knew was that I assign a low utility to the future Robin seeks, Robin has a puppy weakness and I have just discovered that Robin has completed his research. Would you be morally obliged to intervene?
Now, Robin is standing with his hand poised over the button, about to turn the future of our species into a hardscrapple dystopia. I'm standing right behind him wielding a puppy in a two handed grip and you are right there with me. Would you kill the puppy to save Robin?
Aw, thanks...?
If there in fact something morally wrong about releasing the tech (your summary doesn't indicate it clearly, but I'd expect it from most drastic actions Robin seems like he would be disposed to take), you can prevent it by, if necessary, murderously wielding a puppy, since attempting to release the tech would be a contextually relevant wrong act. Even if I thought it was obligatory to stop you, I might not do it. I'm imperfect.
I don't know about morals, but I hope it was clear that the consequences were assigned a low expected utility. The potential concern would be that your morals interfered with me seeking desirable future outcomes for the planet.
That is promising. Would you let me kill Dave too?
If you're in the room with Dave, why wouldn't you just push the AI's reset button yourself?
See link. Depends on how I think he would update. I would kill him too if necessary.