whowhowho comments on Philosophical Landmines - Less Wrong

84 [deleted] 08 February 2013 09:22PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 09 February 2013 02:38:22AM *  3 points [-]

I find that small-c consequentialism is a huge step up from operating on impulse, but "deontological injuctions" are good to special case expensive and tricky situations.

However, most of the good deontological injunctions that I know of are phrased like "don't do X, because Z will happen instead of the naive Y", which is explicitly about consequences and expectations. Likewise for "don't do X, because the conclusion that X is right is most likely caused by an error".

The difference is more between cacheing and recomputing than between deontology and consequentialism.

Actually, I don't even know what the moral theory "Consequentialism" means...

Comment author: whowhowho 11 February 2013 11:13:40AM 1 point [-]

"deontological injuctions" are good to special case expensive and tricky situations.

Are there any non tricky situations? Stepping on a butterfly could have vast consequences.