ericyu3 comments on Integral versus differential ethics - Less Wrong

9 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 01 December 2014 06:04PM

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Comment author: ericyu3 01 December 2014 10:22:44PM *  2 points [-]

I don't see how you can distinguish the two? For a ethical belief that has direct practical implications (e.g. "eating animals is bad"), you can accuse someone of being hypocritical by pointing out that they don't actually act that way (e.g. they eat a lot of meat). But the repugnant conclusion isn't directly applicable to practical decisions - nothing an individual can do will change the world enough to bring it about, and the repugnant conclusion doesn't directly imply anything about the marginal value of quality vs. quantity of lives.