ygert comments on Philosophical Landmines - Less Wrong

84 [deleted] 08 February 2013 09:22PM

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Comment author: ygert 11 February 2013 10:51:06PM *  0 points [-]

Exactly. I am not advocating dentology, just clarifying what it means. A true deontologist who thought that torture is bad would not torture anyone, no matter what the circumstances. Obviously, this is silly, and again, I do not advocate this as a good moral system.

Comment author: whowhowho 12 February 2013 02:02:42AM *  0 points [-]

A true deontologists who thought that torture is bad would not torture anyone, no matter what the circumstances.Obviously, this is silly

No. That is not obvious. You are probably being misled by thought experiments where it is stipulated that so-and-so really does have life-saving information and really would yield it under torture. In real life, things are not so simple. You might have the wrong person. They might be capable of resisiting torture. They might die under torture. They might go insane under torture They might lie and give you disonformation that harms your cause. Your cause might be wrong..you might be the bad guy...

Real life is always much more complex and messy than maths.

Comment author: wedrifid 12 February 2013 02:27:05AM -2 points [-]

Real life is always much more complex and messy than maths.

No it isn't. It's just more complex and messy than trivial maths.

Comment author: whowhowho 12 February 2013 02:42:03AM *  1 point [-]

No it isn't. It's just more complex and messy than trivial maths.

If its too non-trivial for your brain to handle as maths, it might as well not be maths