Bob3 comments on The "Intuitions" Behind "Utilitarianism" - Less Wrong

29 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 28 January 2008 04:29PM

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Comment author: Bob3 29 January 2008 04:17:52PM 1 point [-]

Joseph et al, I appreciate your thoughts. I think, though, that your objections keep coming back to "it's more complicated." And in reality it would be. But the simple thought experiment suggests that any realistic derivative of the specks question would likely get answered wrong because our (OUR!) intuition is heavily biased toward large (in aggregate) distributed harm. It appears that we personalize individual harm but not group harm.

Ben, I assume that we would all vote that way, if only because the thought of having sentenced someone to torture would be more painful than the punch. But you've changed the question. How would you choose if faced with deciding that either 1) every person on earth receives a painful but nonfatal punch in the face or 2) one random person is chosen to be tortured? That's the specks question.