taw comments on Open Thread June 2010, Part 2 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: komponisto 07 June 2010 08:37AM

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Comment author: cousin_it 08 June 2010 06:24:24AM *  9 points [-]

As an old quote from DanielLC says, consequentialism is "the belief that doing the right thing makes the world a better place". I now present some finger exercises on the topic:

  1. Is it okay to cheat on your spouse as long as (s)he never knows?

  2. If you have already cheated and managed to conceal it perfectly, is it right to stay silent?

  3. If your spouse asks you to give a solemn promise to never cheat, and you know you will cheat perfectly discreetly, is it right to give the promise to make them happy?

  4. If your wife loves you, but you only stay in the marriage because of the child, is it right to assure the wife you still love her?

  5. If your husband loves you, but doesn't know the child isn't his, is it right to stay silent?

  6. The people from #4 and #5 are actually married to each other. They seem to be caught in an uncomfortable equilibrium of lies. Would they have been better off as deontologists?

While you're thinking about these puzzles, be extra careful to not write the bottom line in advance and shoehorn the "right" conclusion into a consequentialist frame. For example, eliminating lies doesn't "make the world a better place" unless it actually makes people happier; claiming so is just concealed deontologism.

Comment author: taw 11 June 2010 12:39:29PM 2 points [-]

It is a common failure of moral analysis (invented by deontologists undoubtedly) that they assume idealized moral situation. Proper consequentialism deals with the real world, not this fantasy.

  • #1/#2/#3 - "never knows" fails far too often, so you need to include a very large chance of failure in your analysis.
  • #4 - it's pretty safe to make stuff like that up
  • #5 - in the past, undoubtedly yes; in the future this will be nearly certain to leak with everyone undergoing routine genetic testing for medical purposes, so no. (future is relevant because situation will last decades)
  • #6 - consequentialism assumes probabilistic analysis (% that child is not yours, % chance that husband is making stuff up) - and you weight costs and benefits of different situations proportionally to their likelihood. Here they are in unlikely situation that consequentialism doesn't weight highly. They might be better off with some other value system, but only at cost of being worse off in more likely situations.
Comment author: ciphergoth 11 June 2010 03:44:37PM *  1 point [-]

#4 - it's pretty safe to make stuff like that up

You seem to make the error here that you rightly criticize. Your feelings have involuntary, detectable consequences; lying about them can have a real personal cost.

Comment author: taw 11 June 2010 06:20:39PM 0 points [-]

It is my estimate that this leakage is very low, compared to other examples. I'm not claiming it doesn't exist, and for some people it might conceivably be much higher.