Kaj_Sotala comments on Ritual 2012: A Moment of Darkness - Less Wrong

35 Post author: Raemon 28 December 2012 09:09AM

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 31 December 2012 10:09:06AM 0 points [-]

Everyone who voluntarily joins the military is a psychopath?

Comment author: MugaSofer comment score below threshold [+] (7 children)

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 31 December 2012 09:17:57PM * 1 point [-]

I think they have many different justifications depending on the person, ranging from "it's a necessary evil" to "I need to pay for college and can hopefully avoid getting into battle" to "only the lives of my own countrymen matter", just like people can have many different justifications for why they'd approve modifying the terminal values of others.

Comment author: MugaSofer 01 January 2013 01:24:11PM -2 points [-]

So, despite the downvotes that bought me ...

I said "non-psychopaths consider killing a Bad Thing."
You said "But what about people who join the army?"
I said "What do you think?"
You said "I think they justify it as saving more lives than it kills, or come up with reasons it's not really killing people"

I think this conversation is over, don't you?

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 01 January 2013 01:55:27PM 1 point [-]

Do you see my point that there are plenty of ways by which somebody can consider killing as not-so-bad, without needing to be a psychopath?

Comment author: MugaSofer 01 January 2013 02:30:18PM 2 points [-]

No. Something can be bad without being worse than the other options, and people can be mistaken about whether something an action will kill people. This is quite separate from actually having no term for human life in their utility function.

Comment author: Peterdjones 01 January 2013 02:14:36PM * 1 point [-]

There's an important difference between "not bad" and "bad but justifiable under some circumstances". I don't think believers in abortion, execution or war believe that killing per se is morally neutral. Each of those three has its justification.

Comment author: Raemon 01 January 2013 03:24:14PM -1 points [-]

I believe abortion is morally neutral, at least for the first few months and probably more.

Comment author: Peterdjones 01 January 2013 03:32:12PM 1 point [-]

But I said "killing per se".

Kaj_Sotala comments on Ritual 2012: A Moment of Darkness - Less Wrong

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