PhilGoetz comments on Not By Empathy Alone - Less Wrong

19 Post author: gwern 05 October 2011 12:36AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (108)
Tags: prosociality metaethics empathy

Comments (108)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 05 October 2011 11:57:13PM *  2 points [-]

I agree with many things Prinz says, but it dismays me that, yet again, the conclusion under moral system X that it is moral to kill one innocent person to save 5 innocent people, is used as evidence against moral system X:

For example, one might judge that it is bad to kill an innocent person even if his vital organs could be used to save five others who desperately need transplants. Here, arguably, we feel cumulatively more empathy for the five people in need than for the one healthy person, but our moral judgment does not track that empathetic response.

Eventually, after enough moral systems founder on this "bug", it's time to consider the possibility that it is a feature.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 06 October 2011 12:02:01AM 4 points [-]

Your remark sort of made me go click about something. If one is conflicted about a moral or ethical dilemma, then one method of getting a not insane answer is to look at what a bunch of different systems. would say. This is like how in electronics that are needed to have an extremely low rate of failure they sometimes use a few slightly different systems and then go with what the majority says if there's a conflict. Similarly, there are some attempts to make predictive systems by weighing what a variety of different predictive rules say. The same approach might work for the tough moral cases.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit