Thank you! I'll see if I can start compiling resources like this. If you think of any more, I'd appreciate it if you could message me.

It doesn't have to be well-known. Morally there's a threshold. Everyone who is trying to act morally is trying to ascertain where it should be

So, are you assuming moral realism? That moral threshold which "is", does it objectively exist? Is is the same for everyone, all times and all cultures?

This does not change the fact that, in fact, there's a place to put the threshold that balances the risk

Why do you think there is one specific place? That threshold depends on, among other things, risk tolerance. Are you saying that everyone does (or should have) the same risk tolerance?

Assume there's a threshold at which sending the ship for repairs is morally obligatory.

Sorry, I am unwilling to assume any such thing. I would prefer a bit more realistic scenario where there is no well-known and universally accepted threshold. The condition of ships is uncertain, different people can give different estimates of that condition, and different people would choose different actions even on the basis of the same estimate.

In particular,

Mr. Doc looks at this probability and deems it acceptable (so, presumably, below our action threshold)

Mr.Doc has his own threshold which does not necessarily match yours or anyone else's or even whatever passes for the society's consensus.

This post and the ensuing discussion led me to construct the following hypothetical scenario.

In the port there are three old ships which are magically exactly the same. One is owned by Mr.Grumpy, one is owned by Mr.Happy, and one is owned by Mr.Doc. The three ships are about to go on (yet another) transatlantic voyage and the owners are considering whether to send for a refit instead.

Mr.Grumpy is a worrywart and the question of his ship's seaworthiness has been at the forefront of his thoughts for a while. His imagination drew him awful pictures of his ship breaking up in the waves and more than once he woke up in cold sweat in the middle of the night. However Mr.Grumpy is capable of self-reflection and knows that he's prone to excessive worrying. He decides to compensate for his bias and is successful at manipulating his mind to quell his doubts. His ship sails off.

Mr.Happy is an optimist. He does not dwell on the possibilities of failure and is sure that concentrating on the positive is the right way to go. He is not reckless but understands that life includes risks and useless worrying just leads to ulcers and not much else. His ship sails off.

Mr.Doc is a nerd. He very carefully calculates the probability that his ship will not make it across the ocean this time. The probability is, of course, non-zero. He looks at this probability and deems it acceptable. His ship sails off.

And now I wonder what W.J.Clifford would say about Mr.Grumpy, Mr.Happy, and Mr.Doc. Is any of them guilty of anything? Are some more (or less) guilty than others?

He had doubts, he extinguished them, and that's what makes him guilty.

This is not the whole story. In the quote

He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts.

you're paying too much heed to the final clause and not enough to the clause that precedes it. The shipowner had doubts that, we are to understand, were reasonable on the available information. The key to the shipowner's... I prefer not to use the word "guilt", with its connotations of legal or celestial judgment -- let us say, blameworthiness, is that he allowed the way he desired the world to be to influence his assessment of the actual state of the world.

In your "optimistic fellow" scenario, the shipowner would be as blameworthy, but in that case, the blame would attach to his failure to give serious consideration to the doubts that had been expressed to him.

And going beyond what is in the passage, in my view, he would be equally blameworthy if the ship had survived the voyage! Shitty decision-making is shitty-decision-making, regardless of outcome. (This is part of why I avoided the word "guilt" -- too outcome-dependent.)

A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He know that she was old, and not over-well built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and refitted, even though this should put him to great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely though so many voyages and weathered so many storms, that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such a way he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her depature with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.

What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of the death of those men. It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship, but the sincerity of his conviction can in nowise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts.

• W.J. Clifford, the Ethics of Belief

I think it would be a good idea for a post, not just for the specifics but also because it would relate to making decisions which involve long range predictions.

Question, only for teenagers: Is there a topic, somehow relevant to your age group, which you would like to see rationally discussed on LW?

Please, be specific.

This is a copy paste of a recent facebook update, but I think it is strongly related to the post: Here is a diet plan that worked for me for 5 kilos so far (in about 15 days): Commit to lose 6 kilos in 1,5 months. Agree with a friend (who will do the same for as many kilos as she'd like) that if you don't reach thos 6 by the end of two months, you'll give 300 bucks to the Against Malaria Foundation, saving the lives of 1-3 children. This is the motivational part. Now, continue by 1) weight yourself 3 times a day 2)eat in teacups, not plates, one at a time. 3)Exercise average 2hours a day 4)no high glicemic intake 5)Don't eat after 21:00 6)Ignore all that once a week. People say that dieting is simple. No, it is ridiculously, unimaginably, unbearably complicated. It is fucking hard! And by the way, I'm very hungry at the moment! I also let myself one indulgence (Chai Latte). If I were a chocolate person, for intance, chocolate would be my choice. As a final provision, I'll keep going until I'm two kilos below target weight, so that if motivation or metabolism fluctuate over the course of next month, I won't go above it!