I reject the notion that hypotheticals are actually a powerful tool, let alone a useful one. Or, at least, hypotheticals of the 'very simplified thought experiment' sort you seem to be talking about. Take the Trolley Problem, for example. The moral intuition we're supposed to be examining is when and if it is right to sacrifice the wellbeing of smaller groups for larger groups. The scenario is set up in such a way that you cannot "dodge" the question here, and you have to choose whether you'd rather be
But someone might answer: "In the hypothetical, yes, you should obviously pull the lever because that leads to less deaths. But the problem assumes many premises which would not be true in real life, and changing those counterfactual premises to match reality would change my answer. In particular, humans in real life cannot be trusted to make life or death choices like this one fairly and accurately without their natural biases rendering their judgement unsound. It follows that a moral person should take precautions to prevent such temptations from arising and that, in practice, such precautions might take the form of seemingly dentological injunctions against hurting one person to help another, even when it appears to the actor that the greater good would be served."
Or they might answer: "In the hypothetical, no, you should obviously not pull the lever, because killing is wrong. But the problem assumes many premises which would not be true in real life, and changing those counterfactual premises to match reality would change my answer. In particular, it seems implausible that there is no other possible action which could save anyone on the tracks. Although it may seem callous to do nothing when helping others is within your power, the principle of 'do no harm' must come first. It follows, then, that a wise and moral person would prepare themselves in advance to take effective and decisive action even in cases where they are morally constrained from taking the most expedient option."
Both of these are contrary to the spirit of the hypothetical, but they also constitute more nuanced and useful moral stances than "yes, always save the largest number of people possible" or "no, never take an action which would hurt others"
Neither of them dodge the hypothetical, as they answer the hypothetical and then move on from there. That said, if you don't consider hypotheticals useful, you won't give them due consideration.
Hypotheticals are a powerful tool for testing intuitions. However, many people believe that it is problematic a hypothetical does not represent a realistic situation. On the contrary, it is only problematic if it is represented as being realistic when it is not realistic. Realism isn’t required if the aim is simply to show that there is *some* situation where the proposed principle breaks. We may still choose to utilise an imperfect principle, but when we know about the potential for breakage, we are much less likely to be tripped up if we find a situation where the principle is invalid.
It is instructive to look at physics. In physics, we model balls by perfect spherical objects. Nobody believes that a perfectly spherical object exists in real life. However, they provide a baseline theory from which further ideas can be explored. Bumps or ellipticity can be added later. Indeed, they probably *should* be added later. Unless a budding physicist can demonstrate their competence with the simple case, they probably should not be trusted with dealing with the much more complicated real world situation.
If you are doubting a hypothetical, then you haven’t accepted the hypothetical. You can doubt that a hypothetical will have any relevance from outside the hypothetical, but once you step inside the hypothetical you cannot doubt the hypothetical or you never stepped inside in the first place.
This topic has been discussed previously on LessWrong, but a single explanation won't prove compelling to everyone, so it is useful to have different explanations that explain the same topic in a different way.
TimS states similar thoughts in Please Don’t Fight the Hypothetical:
In, The Least Convenient World, Yvain recommends limiting your responses as follows:
You may also want to check out A note on hypotheticals by PhilGoetz