Open Thread, November 23-30, 2013

passive_fist

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Imagine that you find $1000 on the street. How much would you feel tempted to take it?

Imagine that you meet a person who has $1000 in their pocket. Assuming that you feel absolutely no empathy, how much would you feel tempted to kill the person and take their money? Let's assume that you believe there is almost zero chance someone would connect you with the crime -- either because you are in a highly anonymous situation, or because you are simply too bad at estimating risk.

It's possible to steelman that hypothetical to the threshold that yeah, killing someone for their money would be tempting. It wouldn't have much resemblance to real life after that however.

There are several other reasons not to kill someone for their money than empathy, so I'm not sure how your hypothetical illustrates anything relevant.

7Nate_Gabriel12y

Not very tempted, actually. In this hypothetical, since I'm not feeling empathy the murder wouldn't make me feel bad and I get money. But who says I have to decide based on how stuff makes me feel? I might feel absolutely nothing for this stranger and still think "Having the money would be nice, but I guess that would lower net utility. I'll forego the money because utilitarianism says so." That's pretty much exactly what I think when donating to the AMF, and I don't see why a psychopath couldn't have that same thought. I guess the question I'm getting at is, can you care about someone else and their utility function without feeling empathy for them? I think you can, and saying you can't just boils down to saying that ethics are determined by emotions.

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Open Thread, November 23-30, 2013

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Open Thread, November 23-30, 2013

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