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Perplexed comments on The Trolley Problem: Dodging moral questions - Less Wrong
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Comments (129)
There may be other explanations I haven't adequately considered, but the impression I get from the people with whom I've discussed the matter, and on whom I based the post, is that they haven't internalized the idea that the world is inconvenient enough to call for a systematic way of dealing with problems that lack ideal solutions.
In consequentialist terms, I don't suppose that this is actually worse than constructing an ethical system that simply justifies natural non utilitarian inclinations post hoc, but it strikes me as sigificantly more naive.
Perhaps they have had bad experience with "a systematic way of dealing with problems that lack ideal solutions."
Hard cases make bad law is a well known legal adage. There is, I think, some wisdom exhibited in resisting systematizers armed with trolley problems.
Nicely put.
This seems to me a special case of the "bar bet" rule: if someone offers to bet me $20 that they can demonstrate something, I should confidently expect to lose the bet, no matter how low my priors are on expecting the thing itself. (That said, in many contexts I should take the bet anyway.)
I realize that this is off topic, but why?
It has to do with the social exchange of "bar bets" (I don't actually hang out at bars, but that's the trope; similar things happen in a lot of contexts). If I'm among friends (that is, it's an iterated arrangement) and I flatly refuse to participate just on the grounds that there has to be a catch somewhere, without being able to articulate a good theory for what the catch is, I lose status that may well be worth more to me than the bet was.
Also, if someone says to you "I'll bet you $20 I can <whatever>", what they're really saying is "I'm going to do <whatever>, and it'll be super interesting and fun for all involved, especially if you put in $20 so as to add an element of risk to the proceedings".
The expectation is that some other night, you can bet them $20 about some interesting thing you can do.
Agreed. I think we're kind of saying the same thing here, though your explanation is a lot more accessible. (I really should know better than to try to talk about social patterns when my head has been recently repatterned by software requirements specification.)