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Eugine_Nier comments on Consequentialism FAQ - Less Wrong
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Comments (117)
Well, we have Christianity to blame for the decline of gladiatorial games.
Incidentally, now that we know Christianity to be false and thus gladiatorial games were banned under false pretenses, does recursive consistency require us to re-examine whether they are a good idea?
I hear that there already are voluntary, secretive leagues of people fighting to the death, even though the sport is banned. I don't know whether most fighters are enthusiastic or desperate for cash, though. But considering that becoming a Formula One pilot was a common dream even when several pilot deaths per year were the rule, I wouldn't be surprised if it were the former.
Notwithstanding NihilCredo's point, the lack of gladiatorial combat today is most likely due to a genuine change in taste, probably related to secular decline in social violence and availability of increasingly varied entertainment (movie theaters, TV, video games etc.). The popularity of blood sports in general is decreasing. We also know that folks used to entertain themselves in ways that would be unthinkable today, such as gathering scores of cats and burning them in a fire.
It makes me suspicious when some phenomenon is claimed to be general, but in practice is always supported using the same example.
There's no shortage of well-documented blood sports both before and during the Christian era. I know of few as shocking as bogus's example (which was, incidentally, new to me), but one that comes close might be the medieval French practice of players tying a cat to a tree, restraining their own hands, and proceeding to batter the animal to death with their heads. This was mentioned in Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror; Google also turns up a reference here.
I suppose there's something about cats that lends itself to shock value.
For gladiatorial games specifically, their decline was caused by Christian objections. Sorry, you don't get to redefine historical facts just because they don't fit your narrative.
Wait, that sounds like fun.
Can you shed any light on why, or what would be fun about it? This confuses me.
I would say yes, we should re-examine it.
The entertainment value of forced gladiatorial games on randomly-selected civilians... I personally would vote against them because I probably wouldn't watch them anyway, so it would be a clear loss for me. Still, for other people voting in favor of them... I'm having trouble coming up with a really full refutation of the idea in the Least Convenient Possible World hypothetical where there's no other way to provide gladiatorial games, but there are some obvious practical alternatives.
It seems to me that voluntary gladiatorial games where the participants understand the risks and whatnot would be just fine to a consequentialst. It's especially obvious if you consider the case of poor people going into the games for money. There are plenty of people currently who die because of factors relating to lack of money. If we allowed such people to voluntarily enter gladiatorial games for money, then the gladiators would be quite clearly better off. If we ever enter a post-scarcity society but still have demand for gladiatorial games, then we can obviously ask for volunteers and get people who want the glory/social status/whatnot of it.
If for some reason that source of volunteers dried up, yet we still have massive demand, then we can have everyone who wants to watch gladiatorial games sign up for a lottery in exchange for the right to watch them, thus allowing their Rawlsian rights to be maintained while keeping the rest of the population free from worry.