ArisKatsaris comments on Circular Altruism - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 January 2008 06:00PM

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Comment author: ArisKatsaris 18 March 2012 03:26:49PM 1 point [-]

But prisons can be justified from a pragmatic point of view.

What's the difference between the "pragmatic point of view" (which it seems you justify) and the "benefit of the many" (which I understand you don't justify)? This seems to me a meaningless distinction.

Certainly we detain these people for the benefit of the many, but we do not torture them

Well, most people don't perceive enough benefit for society to hurting prisoners more than they currently are being hurt. So that's rather besides the point, isn't it? The point is we detain and oppress the few for the benefit of the many.

and lately there is a trend to give them more opportunities to work and create.

Even assuming I accept such a trend exists (not sure about it), again we don't consider such opportunities to be against the benefit of the many. So it's besides the point.

So it will indeed become possible to convince the majority of population to willingly cooperate and oppress the few.

As I already said we already cooperate in order to oppress the few. We call those few "prisoners", which we're oppressing for the benefit of the many.

And when such a Master of rationality as Eliezer himself argued in favour of torturing some hapless chap for 50 years just so many people would be spared an inconvenience of blinking once, you can see where this will go.

No, I'm sorry, but I really REALLY don't see where it's supposed to be going. In the current world people are tortured to death for much less reason than that. Not even for the small benefit of 3^^^^3 people, but for no benefit or even for negative benefit.

I'd rather argue with someone about torture on the terms of expected utility and disutility for the whole of humanity, rather than with someone who just repeats the mantra "If you oppose torture, then you're just a terrorist-lover who hates our freedoms" or for that matter the opposite "If you support torture for any reason whatsoever, even in extreme hypothetical scenarios, you're just as bad as the terrorists".

And currently it's the latter practice that seems dominant in actual discussions (and defenses also) of torture, not any utilitarian tactic of assigning utilities to expected outcomes.