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timtyler comments on People neglect small probability events - Less Wrong Discussion

11 Post author: XiXiDu 02 July 2011 10:54AM

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Comment author: timtyler 04 July 2011 12:39:06AM 0 points [-]

Does your utility function treat "a life saved by Perplexed" differently from just "a life"? I could understand an egoist who does not terminally value other lives at all (as opposed to instrumentally valuing saving lives as a way to obtain positive emotions or other benefits for oneself), but a utility function that treats "a life saved by me" differently from just "a life" seems counterintuitive.

Surely we expect natural selection to build organisms that value the lives of their relatives. If you save a life, it is surely more likely to be that of a relative than a randomly-selected life - so organisms valuing "local" lives seems only natural to me.