I'm sorry I don't know what you mean here.

Do you think utilitarianism is an ethical system that ignores certain consequences and if so what consequences are they?

Right but I don't know what this means for your objection to utilitarianism. You consider failing to save the child morally wrong?

Okay this answers the question above but utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory I would like you to clarify what consequences the utilitarian ignores.

Hopefully none.

'naive' utilitarianism however ignore anything but the local consequences and we used to have endless threads on it. It relies on acts of omission equaling acts of commission.

Can you then explain what consequences, preferably with examples, the naive utilitarian ignores. I don't know how you are defining local consequences.

I suspect you consider the naive utilitarian one who doesn't distinguish the consequences of the act from the blameworthiness of the actor. If so, then I would agree it is naive, I just don't think it's a popular account in contemporary utilitarianism.

An extreme example is someone arguing we should kill a healthy person if we can use the organs to save the lives of 2+ other people.

Locally it adds up fine, 2 > 1, might have to make it 3 or more to account for the costs.


Doesn't have to include blame but naive utilitarianism isn't close to contemporary utilitarianism.

My joke argument against contemporary utilitarianism is that in practice it probably becomes naive utilitarianism which has bad consequences. Therefore contemporary utilitarianism has expected bad consequences and is self-defeating.

Maybe later we can do a field trip to planet Murflap and visit with the Perfligians and talk to Fezlaw. They equate omission with commission and he makes a similar argument.

^ Fair nuff, but Lefty still ain't right etc.

Yes of course, this is like the most basic of ethics.

However, there's no good reason for it. If our Hero Mr PairtheBoard is prepared to take major damage to save the life of some clown pressing a button to hurt him, but is not prepared to do a damn thing let alone take far lesser damage to actually save many lives, something is amiss with his morality, no?
Um it's like the first line out of textbook ethics (most of the things that Brian posts are textbook knowledge). I'd hope we're beyond that, and assume that everyone understands that.

[quote]Overthinking can make people forget about this. Killing is different from not saving.

So you're ethically responsible for taking immense damage from a button presser you don't even know, but you're not required to lift a finger or spend a cent to help purely innocent children in the third world.

That doesn't strike you as an odd juxtaposition? One of pure convenience?

No need, the argument is universal. I'll stay here.

It doesn't preclude the possibility that some life forms equate omission and commission or even the possibility that naive utilitarianism is also optimal globally.

It is a form of puddle thinking. The reason why we have thumbs is so we can operate our IPhones.

No it wasn't.

It's difficult to disprove that benevolent intent is anything but innate.

Still, plenty of thought experiments yield mechanical results in glass houses.

Night, guys.

If we equated comission and omission and everyone helped everyone else out all the time, things would just be too good. Disastrously good.

Basic moral sentiment/intuition, not ethics.

Assuming that the sentiment/intuition is like everything else we do, it is the brain doing an end-around to predict and control the future. Someone who tends to push kids into wells is a different risk than someone who fails to lift them out.

Now you are being unreasonable just so that you can keep debating a losing position. It is in fact trolling again.

You didnt cause the attack. The fact this moron was driving so close caused it if you want to start from the very first level of blame locally seen. Everything you did after that was not aggressive or violent. The victim started hitting after a point and you asked to stop and he didnt and you have the injuries to show. It is at this point that you are scared for your life. If a cop gets hit that way its self defense, why isnt the same for a random citizen? If i have a gun on me and a guy is hitting me and is winning there is a chance they will find my gun also and so my last chance to avoid serious brain injury that might be lethal is to stop this scumbag. This is going to be the defense. You have all the pieces together.

I of course explained how you still have the ethical responsibility because you exploited the brutal nature of the victim and the original usage of brakes was intentional to get him to hit you. But only you know that.

It doesnt get any more clear self defense than this. At no point you are hitting the guy or insulting him while things are still at a verbal exchange level (the recording proves that). The physical aggression is all his choice. The fact he hit your car was also his error for not keeping proper distance.

If this is not all overwhelming evidence for self defense then all the cases in recent news that didnt get a conviction are jokes in comparison.

It was the "maybe it is something something the goals of the group" bit.

If our moral fuzzy-wuzzies were different the goals would quite quickly get into line.

You've changed your scenario.

Saying that the water takes the form it does because of the shape of the hole isn't contradicting the claim that if the hole took a different shape then so would the puddle.

It's only a theory of course but it's possible that our morality is the shape it is because of the fitness function of our genes and how we evolved. That's not contradicting the claim that if was different on another planet then the morality would also be different. It may even be different on this planet one day.

Are you sure you have read from the start all the final edits of my posts in this thread that relate to this side issue? Read the first 2 posts only (earlier this morning that is now evening here) after the first response to you on this and see that i haven't added anything more to it, i simply described the example. I had from the start injuries, screams to stop that were never respected, a full recording of the event , cameras at intersections (nighttime to make claim of why you used brakes easier to defend) and brake traces in the street. The guy was escalating all verbal exchanges until he started hitting. Posts #45,#47 first described the situation. You of course kept not seeing it well after that. I didnt change anything after 47. Any sensible (but unethical in the end) person that wants to trap and eliminate the other guy always uses a smartphone as backup source of evidence.

No. I am absolutely sure that I haven't read all the final edits of your posts.

I read your posts with the same quantity of care as you use when you write them. Only fair, I am sure you will agree.

It will never be the same to save a child that is drowning in a river next to you and selling your goods like computers etc to save distant children and care for them for a while (or emptying your reserve bank account if you have any and most people live month to month anyway in most western countries these days).

Those that support its the same are naive.


First of all who said that saving children is an ethical choice? That is not all what is happening. Maybe not saving a child is better than the life they will have after that for the child and the system. Are you sure your own life is a net positive for the system for example? You can imagine how this is true and its a sad statement about the world not about me making it. I question my existence every day. This is why i try to not do harm to other people and to not provoke situations and why i believe in cooperation, education and of course the concept of scientific society that will safeguard all these great things and make it less likely that a random life is a net negative for the system.

Now you go ahead and let me save a child in a poor country in a way that will allow this child to be educated properly and have a chance to get a job and be a happy positive person in the world and then it is getting there (even ask me to keep donating 1$ per day for the rest of my life for this kid and follow their life from a distance, ask me even to devote 10 min per day to talk to them) .

When you save a child nearby you that is in danger you do it because you locally affect the kind of world this child will continue to live in. It is typically a world that is worth it. If in fact i was in the middle of a war that every human that survives and is very young is tortured and experimented with and there is no escape then saving the child to be slowly tortured later is the wrong choice. But our local world here is not like that. So you save the child because you know its the best choice for all.

Saving a population that grows at 3% per year and who has ridiculous poverty and corruption and war tendencies and extremist religious bs etc is not doing good to the world. Just saving people that are multiplying super fast without regard for quality of life and who when they grow up replicate this nightmare system by having kids recklessly is a net crime actually.

So by all means show me a charity that tries to solve the problem at the root and i will then be responsible for not doing it. Until then all i can do is donate 2% of my groceries every time i pay my bill here (or research on my own carefully any charity i support or make my daily life a charity in many ways). I say yes to the question (at the cashier) not no, regardless of my own needs. If i had an option to not buy ice cream and use that money to buy a bag of rice that will go to a poor family in this country (where there is no over population and people can get a chance for proper education etc and there are still plenty of people that are poor and not well educated and the chance to save them is a lot greater if you care to do it ) then i will always say yes please do it, remove the ice cream from my groceries.

So feel free to introduce a random check at the cashier asking you if you want to donate any of your bought items or donate in your bill a value equal to it to buy that food item for the charity in place. Feel free to also provide a link that describes the program in detail or have big posted note in the entrance of every store you visit about how they operate within that charity. In other worlds force the person to face the problem in a local manner at this point and watch how many do not say no to it. As a reward offer this person that says frequently yes various discount offers during the month. Create positive interactions that force people to locally experience empathy (in a locally very cheap manner that is not prohibitive) and explain to them what happens to their money and watch what their reaction is instead of the typical apathy.

Create a world that charities are attacking the root of the problem. Until then a charity can be great and the fact you do not see exactly what is going on makes it very different than the local case that you instantly see the effect. It will never be the same to help abstract entities you do not follow their evolution and the true consequences of your help vs real people next to you. It may be the same depending on the details or it may be even worse to neglect the distant problem. But it cannot be determined with incomplete information locally. And saving the person next to you is all so much more straightforward and intuitive because the world you live in is not a horrible existence and you plan to make sure that remains true around you!

The best that can happen to poor countries worldwide is to revolt and establish scientific societies. Help make them sustainable, force population control and establish scientific society there and you are doing the best thing ever. And all the other charities that maintain the system and its problems are only contributing to the nightmare because the kids will grow up and be irresponsible and eventually your enemy too if we do not also care for their world. It is that sad and simple.

In the end it may even be more effective to just stay where you are secure yourself surviving properly, succeed in science or make money in legitimate ways and use that wealth of education or scientific innovation or material power to change the world.

I did my own duty to not have kids at a period in my life that i couldn't properly care for them.

Why is "what's best for the system overall" more important than "reducing suffering now"?

Let me elaborate:

People's experience of 'the system' (if it even exists) is limited, by death.

"What's best for the system" ought be balanced against "what's best for the individual in their short time experiencing the system".

No?

Perhaps 'the system' should take minimal priority? Sound arguments can be made in favour of that too.

Apparently you didnt read 47 or even the next one (summary objection to your criticism) because you kept replying many hours later where you had the chance to see all the final edits (edits that were done anyway within minutes of posting and not influenced by your replies by the way as i can faithfully state). You kept asking so i gave you details but i was done giving you details at 47 and you kept objecting hours later from any edit.

I am not nitty here, we can close the matter, but you do enjoy saying no to others in a variety of ways/opportunities and rejecting positions more than it is sensible for someone that genuinely cares for the integrity of a discussion. You seem to care for the friction more than the substance of arguing.

My posts, before editing and pressing send, are nearly all the same length as the one I am responding to. Most of them quite a bit longer.

Not this one though, because it is extremely excessive in length.

It could contain the entirety of its meaning with: 'choose your words wisely' doesn't mean choose to use all of them.

The "system" is the world and its nearly predictable future evolution of core properties (only short time frames as best you can).

What is also best for this individual is that i leave the world in a state that i find better than the one i received it through the way i influenced it. It is very important to me that the world will continue after i die. It makes my death a smaller source of personal concern and sadness to know that the game continues for others and its even more interesting, not worse. I win through them.

The system must not be a minimal priority. If we care for the system the system will care back for us and the future generations.

The source of our power is our institutions and ideals that these institutions safeguard and expand. Strengthening them is how we experience personal joy that is improving in time and how the future generations will continue to do so.

In a world of uncertainty and constant failures originating from poor socials structures, climate change, overpopulation and fighting over resources it is irresponsible to ask a person to be charitable for distant obscure causes they have limited control of (unless you properly educate how the charities function and offer evidence to these arguments) and consider it is the same as asking them to react on things that happen around them right now.

If we all cared at least for the things that happen locally even if we didnt care that much for distant societies, the world would be a much better place. It is very naive to equate the 2 (distant and local care). In my opinion a great deal of the problems of failing societies stem from the fact they do not adequately care for themselves at a level they can do so moreover their limited resources.

People like to follow what they influence and it proves to them their choice was correct instead of having an obscure fuzzy idea. This is why empathy experienced locally is superior always. It is in your face and very immediate and depends on you as the nearest agent that can influence the system.