kalium comments on Some reservations about Singer's child-in-the-pond argument - Less Wrong

21 Post author: JonahSinick 19 June 2013 11:54PM

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Comment author: kalium 20 June 2013 04:10:31PM 0 points [-]

Fair enough, I haven't either and I definitely didn't choose the best example there, but my reply to JonahSinick downthread addresses this:

There are many other possible examples. Perhaps instead I am wearing a watch that my mother gave to me before she died and it has great sentimental value, or perhaps I have some document, hidden away in an inner pocket, that would be expensive to replace or whose destruction risks getting me fired. The exact details don't seem that important. I don't happen to have either of these items, any more than I have shoes worth over $20, but it is not too hard to imagine.

Comment author: [deleted] 21 June 2013 07:12:36PM 0 points [-]

Yes, I could imagine some weird situation where I can dive into a pond but only by destroying $2300's worth of value in the process -- but such a situation would be so far removed from the situations I usually deal with in my daily life that I'm not at all confident about whether I would feel obligated to save the child.

(Yes, I know in principle I could say this about any thought experiment, but...)