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Lumifer comments on Rationality Quotes September 2014 - Less Wrong
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I read the story as asserting three facts about the physical reality: the ship was old, the ship was not overhauled, the ship sank in the middle of the ocean. I don't think these facts lead to the conclusion of negligence.
But we don't. We're talking about the world in which we live. I would presume that the morality in the world of telepaths would be quite different. Don't do this.
When judging this story, we do.
We know what was going on in this shipowner's mind, because the story tells us.
I'm not generalizing. I'm making a claim about my judgment of this specific case, based on the facts we're given about it, which include facts about the shipowner's thoughts.
What's wrong with that?
As I said initially... I can see arguing that if we allow ourselves to judge this (fictional) situation based on the facts presented, we might then be tempted to judge other (importantly different) situations as if we knew analogous facts, when we don't. And I agree that doing so would be silly.
But to ignore the data we're given in this case because in a similar real-world situation we wouldn't have that data seems equally silly.