The point clearly was to compare the utilities of X and Y, so it is assumed that all other things are equal.
You have said that you choose Y, [...] But the society would not be changed in the original experiment (assume, for example, that nobody except you would know about the tortured person).
This privileges the hypothesis. You're claiming that there will be no secondary consequences and therefore secondary consequences need not be considered. This is directly antithetical to the notion of treating these questions in an "all other things being equal" state: of course if you arbitrarily eliminate the potential results of decision X as compared to decision Y, that's going to affect the outcome of which decision is preferable. But that, then, isn't answering the question asked of us. THAT question is asked agnostic of the conditions in which it would be implemented. So we don't get to impose special conditions on how it would occur. Indeed, rather than me adding things the original hypothesis excludes, it seems to me that you are doing the exact opposite of this: you are excluding things the original hypothesis does not.
In other words; to my current understanding of that hypothetical, I am the one closest to answering it without imposed additional conditions.
You have effectively added another effect Z: society would permit torture, and now you are comparing u(Y) against u(X and Z), not against u(X) alone.
I see. There is an error in your reasoning here, but I can understand why it would be non-obvious. You are assuming that u(n) != n + Z(n) in my formulation. The reason why this would be non-obvious is because I listed no value for Z(Y). The reason why I did not list such a value is because I am not at this time aware that said value is non-zero.So the equation remains a question of whether u(Y) is greater or lesser than u(X). The point we disagree on is not the hypothesis itself -- the comparison of u(Y) to u(X), but rather the terms of the utility function.
In other words, exactly what I explicitly stated: I argue that the discussion on this topic thus far uses an insufficient definition of "utility", especially for consequentialistic utilitarianism, and therefore "misses the point".
(In order not to be evasive, I admit believing that you reject the "torture" conclusion intuitively and then rationalise it. But this belief is based purely on the fact that this is what most people do.
Fair enough. Thank you.
there is nothing in your arguments (apart from them being unconvincing) that further supports this belief.
I find no reason to accept the notion that my arguments are unconvincing. This, then, is the crux of the matter: What is your argument for supporting the notion that ONLY primary consequences are a valid form of consequences for a utilitarian to consider in making a decision?
Now, do you admit that the "torture" variant is repugnant to you?
Not at all. I have addressed this purely in terms of quantity. My argument is phrased in terms of utilon quantity. I reject the condonement of torture because of the utilitarian consequences of accepting it. (If it's any help, please be aware that I am a diagnosed autist, so my empathy to others is primarily intellectual in others. I am fully able to compartmentalize that trait when useful to dialogue.)
Examples?
Of what?
"But I haven't seen anybody propose a coherent general decision algorithm which returns "specks" for this dilemma and doesn't return repugnant or even paradoxical answers to different questions."
This privileges the hypothesis. You're claiming that there will be no secondary consequences and therefore secondary consequences need not be considered. This is directly antithetical to the notion of treating these questions in an "all other things being equal" state.
What? Which hypothesis do I privilege? How does assuming no secondary consequences of either variant contradict treating the other things as being equal?
...There is an error in your reasoning here, but I can understand why it would be non-obvious. You are assuming that u(n) != n +
For those not familiar with the topic, Torture vs. Dustspecks asks the question: "Would you prefer that one person be horribly tortured for fifty years without hope or rest, or that 3^^^3 people get dust specks in their eyes?"
Most of the discussion that I have noted on the topic takes one of two assumptions in deriving their answer to that question: I think of one as the 'linear additive' answer, which says that torture is the proper choice for the utilitarian consequentialist, because a single person can only suffer so much over a fifty year window, as compared to the incomprehensible number of individuals who suffer only minutely; the other I think of as the 'logarithmically additive' answer, which inverts the answer on the grounds that forms of suffering are not equal, and cannot be added as simple 'units'.
What I have never yet seen is something akin to the notion expressed in Ursula K LeGuin's The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.If you haven't read it, I won't spoil it for you.
I believe that any metric of consequence which takes into account only suffering when making the choice of "torture" vs. "dust specks" misses the point. There are consequences to such a choice that extend beyond the suffering inflicted; moral responsibility, standards of behavior that either choice makes acceptable, and so on. Any solution to the question which ignores these elements in making its decision might be useful in revealing one's views about the nature of cumulative suffering, but beyond that are of no value in making practical decisions -- they cannot be, as 'consequence' extends beyond the mere instantiation of a given choice -- the exact pain inflicted by either scenario -- into the kind of society that such a choice would result in.
While I myself tend towards the 'logarithmic' than the 'linear' additive view of suffering, even if I stipulate the linear additive view, I still cannot agree with the conclusion of torture over the dust speck, for the same reason why I do not condone torture even in the "ticking time bomb" scenario: I cannot accept the culture/society that would permit such a torture to exist. To arbitrarily select out one individual for maximal suffering in order to spare others a negligible amount would require a legal or moral framework that accepted such choices, and this violates the principle of individual self-determination -- a principle I have seen Less Wrong's community spend a great deal of time trying to consider how to incorporate into Friendliness solutions for AGI. We as a society already implement something similar to this, economically: we accept taxing everyone, even according to a graduated scheme. What we do not accept is enslaving 20% of the population to provide for the needs of the State.
If there is a flaw in my reasoning here, please enlighten me.