Do I correctly understand you to believe that I was including the right of individual self-determination as an independent valuative norm, rather than for its utility? (Also, please note that I did not originally use the term "right" but rather "principle".)
Just that you were applying it to torture while not applying it to dust specks - a qualitative difference.
I never even intimated that "only the secondary consequences should be considered". Please discontinue the use of this strawman view of my argument.
You never said, it, and yet in your argument only the secondary factors mattered to your decision.
Considering secondary consequences of a choice is not "looking at worlds where ceteris isn't paribus". I am quite frankly at a total loss as to understanding why you should be possessed of such a belief in the first place.
If you don't think you can judge how much you'd like two worlds to exist independent of there being someone in those worlds to make a "choice," then you reject utilitarianism.
Where did I go wrong in getting you to understand that my argument is in alignment with the ceteris paribus principle?
My guess would be when your argument wasn't in alignment with the ceteris paribus principle.
Why do you continue to feel it appropriate do decide that only some consequences "actually count" as consequences?
Because the consequences that "actually count" were the ones that make up the original problem. "Secondary consequences" that are not logically equivalent (this does not mean causally related) to the original consequences merely mean that you're answering a different question than the one that was asked.
Just that you were applying [the principle of self-determination] to torture while not applying it to dust specks - a qualitative difference.
Not even remotely. I applied it to both; it simply does not alter the anti-utility of dust specks. Receiving a dust-speck in one's eye does not alter in any measurable way the capacity for self-determination of an arbitrary individual.
You never said, it, and yet in your argument only the secondary factors mattered to your decision.
False. The secondary consequences when added to the primary caused torture, even...
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.