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TheOtherDave comments on Cleaning up the "Worst Argument" essay - Less Wrong
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Can you clarify why feelings of guilt are important here?
I mean, I have no idea how much guilt executioners feel. Ditto soldiers, police, commuters, doctors, and other people whose activities sometimes result in innocent deaths.
But how much guilt they feel or don't feel doesn't play much of a role in my decision to support or not support medicine, commuting, law enforcement, military action, or capital punishment.
They aren't particularly, but
I thought we were talking about feelings, my mistake. I suppose the point was that I do care if innocent people die, so by extrapolation I assume other people do too.
Please, pardon my rhetoric.
Also, I think got carried away with the whole "guilt" theme - feeling guilt, guilt by assocation...
Only one of those things has the explicit goal of killing people, and it's the only one I'm arguing against here. I'm not too sure what you're arguing for or against or if you're just stimulating conversation, but regardless, thank you for responding to my first comments on LW :)
You're equivocating between "killing innocents" and "killing people". Stop it.
The equivocation is also false as stated; the military frequently has the explicit goal of killing people.
I was going to give military an honourable mention but I didn't want to make my comment any longer than it already was. Yes the military frequently does aim to kill people, but not always. Capital punishment is defined as putting someone to death.
OK.
If you don't kill any people, you won't kill innocent people. If you do kill some people, you might kill innocent people. Where is the equivocation?
If you don't drive cars, you won't kill innocent people in auto-accidents. If you do drive cars, you might kill innocent people in auto-accidents.
Well, I can cause fatal auto-accidents even if I'm not driving. But certainly my odds of killing an innocent person in an auto accident go up quite a lot if I drive a car.
I am neither arguing for capital punishment, nor against it. I was exploring a claim I found remarkable, but I realize now was meant merely as rhetoric. Tapping out now.