peter_hurford comments on Torture vs Dust Specks Yet Again - Less Wrong

-2 Post author: sentientplatypus 20 August 2013 12:06PM

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Comment author: peter_hurford 20 August 2013 08:46:39AM 7 points [-]

This seems to me to be the kind of thing that would belong in discussion, not main.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what you're getting at. Do you think math trumps moral intuition or not? If you think math trumps moral intuitions in some cases but not others, how do you formalize that?

Also, I think "would you really do X? Really?" is a bad argument. People generally suffer from akrasia and it's well known that utilitarianism doesn't accord perfectly with people's evolved moral beliefs and motivations.

Thirdly, there may be practical considerations at play, like the ends not justifying the means (among humans) or morality being short-sighted.