Joseph_Knecht comments on The Bedrock of Fairness - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 03 July 2008 06:00AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (102)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Joseph_Knecht 03 July 2008 05:23:32PM 3 points [-]

Optimistically, I would say that if the murderer perfectly knew all the relevant facts, including the victim's experience, ve wouldn't do it

The murderer may have all the facts, understand exactly what ve is doing and what the experience of the other will be, and just decide that ve doesn't care. Which fact is ve not aware of? Ve may understand all the pain and suffering it will cause, ve may understand that ve is wiping out a future for the other person and doing something that ve would prefer not to be on the receiving end of, may realize that it is behavior that if universalized would destroy society, may realize that it lessens the sum total of happiness or whatever else, may even *know* that "ve *should* feel compelled not to murder" etc. But at the end of the day, ve still might say, "regardless of all that, I don't care, and this is what I want to do and what I will do".

There is a conflict of desire (and of values) here, not a difference of fact. Having all the facts is one thing. Caring about the facts is something altogether different.

--

On the question of the bedrock of fairness, at the end of the day it seems to me that one of the two scenarios will occur:

(1) all parties happen to agree on what the bedrock is, or they are able to come to an agreement.

(2) all parties cannot agree on what the bedrock is. The matter is resolved by force with some party or coalition of parties saying "this is our bedrock, and we will punish you if you do not obey it".

And the universe itself doesn't care one way or the other.