= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Kyrorh comments on Value ethics vs. agency ethics - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (60)
Then I guess we actually agree.
We agree on this point. But suppose that the fat man is a stranger to you, and the five people tied to the tracks are strangers as well. If you assign a positive value to strangers' lives, the five people have a greater value than the one person. So in this case you should push the fat stranger, even though you shouldn't push your friend.
So if the fat man was not my friend but just as much a stranger as the five you would call me a murderer? Because if not, I guess on some level you acknowledge that I operate under a different moral framework that I tried to explicate as agency ethics.
Whether you're a murderer depends on whether you caused the situation, i.e. tied the five to the tracks. If you discover the situation (not having caused it) and then do nothing and don't save the five, you're not a murderer. Once you discover the situation, you should save whomever you value more. If the fat man is your friend, you should save him, if everyone is a stranger, then you should save the five and kill the fat man.
What if there are no five people on the track but a cat and I just happen to value the cat more than the fat man? Should I push him? If not, what makes that scenario different, i.e. why does it matter if a human life is at stake?
You should save whatever you value more, whether it's a human, a cat, a loaf of bread (if you're a kind of being who really really likes bread and/or doesn't care about human life), or whatever.