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dclayh comments on Contrived infinite-torture scenarios: July 2010 - Less Wrong
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Not to mention the scenario in the infamous Ethics Final from Hell.
Oh, the brain in a vat on a trolley! A true classic of the genre.
Jokes aside, is that a common criticism of consequentialist ethics? How do we determine the "morality" of an act by its consequences if the consequences extend into time infinitely and are unknown to us beyond the most temporally immediate?
Expected values and priors.
Saving someone from being eaten by bears might lead them to conceive the next Hitler, but it probably won't (saith my subjective prior). Even with an infinite future, I assign a substantial probability to hypotheses like:
And so forth. I won't be very confident about the relevant causal connections, but I have betting odds to offer on lots of possibilities, and those let me figure out general directions to go.
I briefly considered trying to calculate out the utilitarian value of the left and right branches, but decided it's probably a bit long for a comment and that people wouldn't enjoy it very much. Would I be wrong?