FluffyC comments on How minimal is our intelligence? - Less Wrong

55 Post author: Douglas_Reay 25 November 2012 11:34PM

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Comment author: Salemicus 20 November 2012 10:06:50PM *  6 points [-]

A consequentialist would ask, with an open mind, whether burning the libraries lead to good or bad consequences. A virtue ethicist would express disgust at the profanity of burning books. Your comment closely resembles the latter, whereas most discussion here on other topics tries to approximate the former.

I think it is no coincidence that this switch occurs in this context. Oh no, some dusty old tomes got destroyed! Compared to other events of the time, piddling for human "utility." But burning books lowers the status of academics, which is why it is considered (in Haidt-ian terms) a taboo by some - including, I would suggest, most on this site.

Comment author: FluffyC 24 November 2012 01:00:16AM *  6 points [-]

Surely a consequentialist could come to a conclusion about book-burning being bad and then write an outraged comment about it--the potential negatives in the long-term of the burning of such a library are debatable but the potential positives in the long-term are AFAICT non-existent. Such a catastrophic failure of cost-benefit analysis would be something a consequentialist could in fact be quite outraged about.

Incidentally,

Compared to other events of the time, piddling for human "utility."

...it seems self-evident to me that this is not in any way an interesting or meaningful comparison to ask people to make (ETA: in light of the above, anyway). It's "good" rhetoric but seems to be abysmal rationality; it's a "there are starving children in Africa, eat your peas" argument.