Rationality Quotes September 2012

Jayson_Virissimo

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Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself
Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Depends on what you mean by “undecidable”.

So, for example, suppose a situation where a (true) moral system demands both A and B, yet in this situation A and B are incomposssible. Or it forbids both A and B, yet in this situation doing neither is impossible. Those examples have a pretty deontological air to them...could we come up with examples of such dilemmas within consequentialism?

could we come up with examples of such dilemmas within consequentialism?

Well, the consequentialist version of a situation that demands A and B is one in which A and B provide equally positive expected consequences and no other option provides consequences that are as good. If A and B are incompossible, I suppose we can call this a moral dilemma if we like.

And, sure, consequentialism provides no tools for choosing between A and B, it merely endorses (A OR B). Which makes it undecidable using just consequentialism.

There are a number of mechanisms for resolving the dilemma that are compatible with a consequentialist perspective, though (e.g., picking one at random).

1A1987dM14y

Then, either the demand/forbiddance is not absolute or the moral system is broken.