In general, the ethical theory that prevails here on Less Wrong is preference utilitarianism.
What is your evidence for this? In The Preference Utilitarian’s Time Inconsistency Problem, the top voted comments didn't try to solve the problem posed for preference utilitarians, but instead made general arguments against preference utilitarianism.
The real answer to torture vs. dust specks is to recognize that the answer to the scenario is torture, but the scenario itself has a prior probability so astronomically low that no evidence could ever convince you that you were in it, since at most k/3^^^3 people can affect the fate of 3^^^3 people at once (where k is the number of times a person's fate is affected). However, there are higher-probability scenarios that look like torture vs. 3^^^3 dust specks, but are actually torture vs. nothing or torture vs. not-enough-specks-to-care. In philosophical pr...
I've been thinking about this on and off for half a year or so, and I have come to the conclusion that I cannot agree with any proposed moral system that answers "torture" to dust specks and torture. If this means my morality is scope-insensitive, then so be it.
(I don't think it is; I just don't think utilitarianism with an aggregation function of summation over all individuals is correct; I think the correct aggregation function should probably be different. I am not sure what the correct aggregation function is, but maximizing the minimum ind...
I think Torture vs Dust Specks makes a hidden assumption that the two things are comparable. It appears that people don't actually think like that; even an infinite amount of dust specks are worse than a single person being tortured or dying. People arbitrarily place some bad things into a category that's infinitely worse than another category.
So, I'd say that you aren't preferring morality; you are simply placing 50 years of torture as infinitely worse than a dust speck; no number people getting dust specks can possibly be worse than 50 years of torture.
Really? Preference utilitarianism prevails on Less Wrong? I haven't been around too long, but I would have guessed that moral anti-realism (in several forms) prevailed.
Isn't this a confusion of levels, with preference utilitarianism being an ethical theory, and moral anti-realism being a metaethical theory?
Namely, do other people's moral intuitions constitute a preference that we should factor into a utilitarian calculation?
If we feel like it. I personally would say yes. What would you say?
I find it impossible to engage thoughtfully with philosophical questions about morality because I remain unconvinced of the soundness of the first principles that are applied in moral judgments. I am not interested in a moral claim that does not have a basis in some fundamental idea with demonstrable validity. I will try to contain my critique to those claims that do attempt at least what I think to be this basic level of intellectual rigor.
Note 1: I recognize that I introduced many terms in the above statement that are open to challenge as loaded and...
I would predict, based on human nature, that a if the 3^^^3 people were asked if they wanted to inflict a dust speck in each one of their eyes, in exchange for not torturing another individual for 50 years, they would probably vote for dust specks.
Each one with probability of order 1/3^^^3? Well that's what I call overconfidence.
I think the answer is that morality has to be counted, but we also have to count changes to morality. If moral preferences were entirely a matter of intellectual commitment, this might lead to double counting, but in fact people really do experience pride, guilt, and so on - and I doubt that morality could have any effect on their behavior if it didn't.
Counting the changes to morality can cut both ways. For instance: some people have a strong inclination to have sex with people of the same sex, while many people (sometimes the same ones) are deeply morally...
I would predict, based on human nature, that a if the 3^^^3 people were asked if they wanted to inflict a dust speck in each one of their eyes, in exchange for not torturing another individual for 50 years, they would probably vote for dust specks.
I think you've nailed my problem with this scenario: anyone who wouldn't go for this, I would be disinclined to listen to.
I find it impossible to engage thoughtfully with philosophical questions about morality because I remain unconvinced of the soundness of the first principles that are applied in moral judgments. I am not interested in a moral claim that does not have a basis in some fundamental idea with demonstrable validity. I will try to contain my critique to those claims that do attempt at least what I think to be this basic level of intellectual rigor.
Note 1: I recognize that I introduced many terms in the above statement that are open to challenge as loaded and biased. I hope this will not distract from my real concern, as stated below.
Note 2: I recognize that I am likely ignorant of the thought of philosophers who have dug into this question. If you can present to me any of these ideas, if they respond clearly and directly to my objections, please do.
I find moral problems intractable and even ridiculous because I have not managed to find foundations for moral judgment through my own inquiry and those foundations proposed by others have all proven specious, at least in my judgment. Examples of the latter include religious ethical systems that claim basis in the mind of a deity, ethical systems based on an individual's emotional response to X scenario, and pragmatic claims, such as X is moral because it is useful. I admit that the latter is the argument that comes nearest to intriguing me.
Overall, I am frustrated with the a priori assumption that morality must exist (an assumption seemingly based on the fact that the word exists), so let us set out to FIND it. Perhaps it should be found first, and assumptions can come later. Until it is, I have to be neutral and frustrated.
I have not yet had a conversation in which my interlocutor, while making moral claims, could provide convincing definitions of fundamental principies, including justice, duty, the good, vice, etc., though the speaker will have readily made use of these terms. It is not helpful that the population of individuals in society who have attempted to understand and establish such principles on their own, and done so carefully and analytically, is near zero.
As for scenarios resembling the Torture vs. Dust Specks problem: My response is to reject the premise. No, I do not need to make that choice! Morality, at least as that word seems to be applied in non-academic fashion (meaning in daily use), has nothing to do with such abstraction. Moral choices involve actual theft, actual death, actual starvation, actual inequality, etc. etc. The Torture vs. Dust Specks choice is one that no one will ever need to make, so while it might be an intriguing question, I think it avoids the actual subject of morality, or what you might want to call "applied morality". I feel the same about psychological studies that ask questions about pushing people in front of trains. This is a field built only of theory with no area that actually touches human experience.
Moral intuitions demonstrably exist.
That is, many people demonstrably do endorse and reject certain kinds of situations in a way that we are inclined to categorize as a moral (rather than an aesthetic or arbitrary or pragmatic) judgment, and demonstrably do signal those endorsements and rejections to one another.
All of that behavior has demonstrable influences on how people are born and live and die, suffer and thrive, are educated and remain ignorant, discover truths and believe falsehoods, are happy and sad, etc.
I believe all of that stuff matters, so ...
In general, the ethical theory that prevails here on Less Wrong is preference utilitarianism. The fundamental idea is that the correct moral action is the one that satisfies the strongest preferences of the most people. Preferences are discussed with units such as fun, pain, death, torture, etc. One of the biggest dilemmas posed on this site is the Torture vs. Dust Specks problem. I should say, up front, that I would go with dust specks, for some of the reasons I mentioned here. I mention this because it may be biasing my judgments about my question here.
I had a thought recently about another aspect of Torture vs. Dust Specks, and wanted to submit it to some Less Wrong Discussion. Namely, do other people's moral intuitions constitute a preference that we should factor into a utilitarian calculation? I would predict, based on human nature, that a if the 3^^^3 people were asked if they wanted to inflict a dust speck in each one of their eyes, in exchange for not torturing another individual for 50 years, they would probably vote for dust specks.
Should we assign weight to other people's moral intuitions, and how much weight should it have?