Alicorn comments on White Lies - Less Wrong

38 Post author: ChrisHallquist 08 February 2014 01:20AM

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Comment author: Vulture 08 February 2014 07:26:00PM *  2 points [-]

It upset me. I don't like to see lying defended. I would react about the same way to an equally cogent "Defense of Pickpocketing" or "Defense of Throwing Paint On People", though I imagine those would be much more difficult to construct.

I knew you were a deontologist (I am a cosequentialist), but I had sort of assumed implicitly that our moralities would line up pretty well in non-extreme situations. I realized after reading this how thoroughly alien your morality is to me. You would respond with outrage and hurt if you discovered that someone had written a defense of throwing paint on people? Or pickpocketing? Although I have never practiced either of those activities and do not plan to ever do so, my reaction is totally different.

Pickpocketing is a perfectly practical technique which, like lockpicking, might be used for unsavory purposes by shortsighted or malicious people, but is probably worth knowing how to do and makes a great party trick. And throwing paint on people? Hilarious. It's not a terribly nice thing to do, especially if the person is wearing nice clothes or is emotionally fragile, but I think most people who can compose a cogent philosophical essay can also target their prankstering semi-competently.

Comment author: Alicorn 08 February 2014 07:29:58PM *  7 points [-]

Pickpocketing-as-theft is to lying-in-general as pickpocketing-as-consensual-performance-art is to, say, storytelling, I suppose I should clarify. I think we legitimately disagree about throwing paint on people unless you are being facetious.

Comment author: Vulture 08 February 2014 07:35:17PM *  2 points [-]

In terms of pickpocketing, I agree that we seem to pretty much agree; I think that pickpocketing for the purposes of stealing what doesn't belong to you is rarely justified. I was not being facetious about the paint part, though.