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Nick_Tarleton comments on Shut Up and Divide? - Less Wrong
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Possibly that "killing people" is connotationally a horrible unforgivable thing, but you (correctly) perceive that it's a bad idea to regard letting people die as always a horrible unforgivable thing. Certainly that you're disputing mere definitions.
I don't understand a morality system can look at someone who is dying receive aid and blame them for the deaths of the people next to them when the aid ran out. Why in the world should they be given any moral responsibility in the situation?
Agreed. This is part of what I meant by "it's a bad idea to regard letting people die as always a horrible unforgivable thing"; I also meant that even comfortable First Worlders wouldn't necessarily do the most good by regarding themselves, or other comfortable First Worlders, as horrible people for acting suboptimally.
(In contexts like this, I see "moral responsibility" as purely instrumental: A's moral responsibilities are just those things it would be expected-utility-maximizing to hold A responsible for. Ditto praise/blameworthiness and which actions to label as "killing".)
Fair enough.
I have not convinced myself that "drinking lattes is killing people" necessarily leads to "accepting aid is killing people." I followed a path there, but I am assuming that people who believe "drinking lattes is killing people" don't believe "accepting aid is killing people." Where did I step differently?
Others are probably just not willing to bite the bullet of blaming people (if only connotationally) for accepting aid. Or they may be thinking about it instrumentally, like me, in which case the different reasonableness of the demands actually is relevant.
Also, there's what Nisan said.