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RichardKennaway comments on Ethicality of Denying Agency - Less Wrong
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Comments (32)
Why would this be a problem?
I didn't make it clear, but in the scenario she doesn't know.
He deliberately got himself into an awkward situation, for nothing more than the pleasure of drinking a couple of beers. No-brainers don't get much simpler, and for him to get this wrong suggests there's something more going on.
Another BTW: I didn't make that up arbitrarily, just reasonable conjecture from the ways of the world, and of mothers.
You can add as many hypotheses as you like (as could I: "what if she asks point-blank?"), but as I said in my reply to shminux, it doesn't help. This scenario does not work as an illustration of the ethical problem. To scale the example up, it's like asking if a murderer should confess, when what he should have done is not do the murder.
Yes, the way I wrote the scenario makes it seem like he deliberately got himself into an awkward situation for little benefit in return. And I see how this weakens the scenario as an illustration of the problem. So let me try improving the scenario:
Imagine he determined that refraining from disclosing the information to his mother was ethical. A week later, he finds himself in a similar situation. He wants to drink a couple of beers, but knows that by the time he'll finish, he'll need to drive his mother. This time he has no qualms about drinking, making the beer-drinking pleasure worth the consequences.
Then his foot is set upon the road to ruin. Is that the implication you intended?