If you think that torture is worse than dust specks, at what step do you not go along with the reasoning?
When I first read Eliezer's post on this subject, I was confused by this transitivity argument. It seems reasonable. But even at that point, I questioned the idea that if all of the steps as you outline them seem individually reasonable, but torture instead of dust specks seems unreasonable, it is "obvious" that I should privilege the former output of my value computation over the latter.
My position now is that in fact, thinking carefully about the steps of gradually increasing pain, there will be at least one that I object to (but it's easy to miss because the step isn't actually written down). There is a degree of pain that I experience that is tolerable. Ouch! That's painful. There is an infinitesimally greater degree of pain (although the precise point at which this occurs, in terms of physical causes, depends on my mood or brain state at that particular time) that is just too much. Curses to this pain! I cannot bear this pain!
This seems like a reasonable candidate for the step at which I stop you and say no, actually I would prefer any number of people to experience the former pain, rather than one having to bear the latter - that difference just barely exceeded my basic tolerance for pain. Of course we are talking about the same subjective level of pain in different people - not necessarily caused by the same severity of physical incident.
This doesn't seem ideal. However, it is more compatible with my value computation than the idea of torturing someone for the sake of 3^^^3 people with dust specks in their eyes.
I can somewhat sympathise, in that when removing a plaster I prefer to remove it slowly, for a longer bearable pain, than quickly for a brief unbearable pain. However, this can only be extended so far: there is a set (expected) length of continuing bearable pain over which one would choose to eliminate the entire thing with brief unbearable pain, as with tooth disease and (hypothetical) dentistry, or unpleasant-but-survival-illness and (phobic) vaccination.
'prefer any number of people to experience the former pain, rather than one having to bear the latt...
Today's post, Torture vs. Dust Specks was originally published on 30 October 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).
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