Alicorn comments on Essay-Question Poll: Dietary Choices - Less Wrong

12 Post author: Alicorn 03 May 2009 03:27PM

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Comment author: Alicorn 05 May 2009 12:37:26AM 3 points [-]

Not at all! Consequentialists can get doing-allowing distinctions via self-other asymmetries or agent relativization, and non-consequentialists don't have to embrace the distinction.

Comment author: conchis 05 May 2009 12:47:11AM *  1 point [-]

Fair enough. I tend to code self-other asymmetry and agent-relativization as non-consequentialist, even though they can be formally treated as such; but that's admittedly a matter of (potentially idiosyncratic) taste. (I worry that otherwise consequentialism doesn't uniquely identify anything; perhaps such fears are unwarranted.) Your second point is of course valid either way.