candyfromastranger comments on So you say you're an altruist... - Less Wrong

11 Post author: John_Maxwell_IV 12 March 2009 10:15PM

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Comment author: candyfromastranger 26 July 2012 08:24:01PM 0 points [-]

I don't agree that the selfish option on the third choice is murder. There's a difference between killing people because you're being coerced using your money and killing people of your own free will in order to take their money.

If the facts about poverty there are true and one agrees that being unwilling to make the third sacrifice is murder (which I don't), then yes, his conclusion that most of the people there were being hypocritical would be logical. If you consider yourself altruistic but put your own comfort before the lives of others, I don't think that your actions logically follow from your morals. I didn't feel conflicted by his conclusion, though, because I'm not an altruist.