dclayh comments on Open Thread: May 2009 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: steven0461 01 May 2009 04:16PM

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Comment author: MrHen 07 May 2009 12:23:43AM 1 point [-]

I was poking around the older posts and found So you say you're an altruist.... Without intending to open the whole discussion up again, I want to talk about the first example.

So please now imagine yourself to be in an ancient country which is ruled over by an evil king who has absolute power of life or death over all his subjects—including yourself. Now this king is very bored, and so for his amusement he picks 10 of his subjects, men, women, and children, at random as well as an eleventh man who is separate from the rest. Now the king gives the eleventh man a choice: he will either hang the 10 people picked at random and let the eleventh go free, or he will hang the eleventh man and let the other 10 go free. And the eleventh man must decide which it is to be.

My instinctive response is that the eleventh man is not at all responsible for the deaths of anyone, regardless of his choice. He is not murdering or saving anyone. The evil king is doing the murdering (and no saving). Why, in this scenario, do people place moral responsibility on the eleventh man?

This example could be rephrased into a hostage situation. If the evil king was holding ten people hostage and demanded $100 or he would kill them all, I wouldn't give him a dime. Does that make me an evil person? Even if I was absolutely sure that the king was not lying, why should I pay him?

This all changes if I have a more personal investment in the people. If my loved ones were at risk I would probably pay the $100 and sacrifice my life, even though I believe I am not morally responsible for the result. I apparently have more investment in the outcome.

Does this mean I am a terrible person? In my opinion the eleventh man should choose himself. When the other ten die, anyone who blames the eleventh is foolish.

Comment author: dclayh 11 May 2009 09:46:40PM 0 points [-]

In my opinion the eleventh man should choose himself.

Do you really mean "should" in the sense that it's morally better to choose oneself? If so, could you provide some justification for that? My view would be that saving the 10 isn't morally required but would be virtuous in a supererogatory sense.

Comment author: MrHen 12 May 2009 03:33:34AM *  1 point [-]

Do you really mean "should" in the sense that it's morally better to choose oneself? If so, could you provide some justification for that? My view would be that saving the 10 isn't morally required but would be virtuous in a supererogatory sense.

In quick bullet points:

  • The eleventh man is not morally responsible for anyone dying, regardless of what he chooses
  • It is better to live than die
  • I see the king's question as simple as "do you want to live?"
  • The answer is as simple as, "yes."

The cost of the eleventh man living is not paid by himself, it is paid by the king in the form of a moral choice.

Also, to be clear, the man cannot sacrifice himself. He does not kill himself; he is not sacrificing anything; his life is not actually his to sacrifice. The king can kill him no matter what the answer is. The way I look at it, this scenario is exactly the same as the king making the eleventh guess a random number correctly or everyone dies. The man has no power over the situation. Any power is an illusion because all of the power is the king's.

Likewise, the man cannot save anyone. The ten are not his to save. The king decides who lives and dies.

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