NancyLebovitz comments on Virtue Ethics for Consequentialists - Less Wrong

33 Post author: Will_Newsome 04 June 2010 04:08PM

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Comment author: NancyLebovitz 09 June 2010 03:57:48PM 0 points [-]

First, no one actually has that skill - if you steal, eventually you will be caught.

How is it possible to know that with certainty?

Comment author: thomblake 09 June 2010 05:03:46PM 0 points [-]

How is it possible to know that with certainty?

Should I understand this question as "What experimental result would cause you to update the probability of that belief to above a particular threshold"? Because my prior for it is pretty high at this point. Or are you looking for the opposite / falsification criteria?

Comment author: Blueberry 09 June 2010 05:18:35PM 1 point [-]

If you're a good enough driver, there's a decent chance you'll never get in a car crash. If you study stealing and security systems enough, and carefully plan, I don't see why you would be likely to be caught eventually. Why is your prior high?

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 09 June 2010 05:50:32PM *  1 point [-]

Agreed, with the addition that car crashes are public while stealing is covert, so it's harder to know how much stealing is going on.