tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post1896811398681133580..comments2024-02-29T00:21:52.794-08:00Comments on Measuring Shadows: Utilitarianism, part 6: To do, or not to doAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-86505563653410282702014-02-07T16:21:57.943-08:002014-02-07T16:21:57.943-08:00"From the perspective of a society, though, n..."From the perspective of a society, though, non-actors are less harmful than actors after the fact. "<br /><br />I think I disagree with this. I bet there are some really good arguments to be made that there is much more 'not-good' done in the world than 'evil'.<br /><br />If one really tried, perhaps they could kill 5,10, maybe 20 people? Meanwhile, an altruist trying hard seems like he or she could save hundreds if not thousands. So on the net, I'd prefer a world of one marginal 'very good' person and one marginal 'very bad' person than two marginal 'average' people.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-80207193652340269222013-09-20T21:37:04.322-07:002013-09-20T21:37:04.322-07:00I think what I mean is that acting consumes resour...I think what I mean is that acting consumes resources and presents opportunity costs where omission does not. Sure, you can say that utilitarianism already counts that. But I think it's important to note in the context of why people make the distinction (there is, of course, also laziness and selfishness).<br /><br />As for a concrete example, well, I'm sure you'd agree that much of the population of the third world is well below your level of utility, and locally the right thing to do (in the interest of going out of your way to help others), for you and each other student at your school, might well be to contribute your wealth and labor in whatever way directly benefits them. But if the whole school did this, I'd wager the world as a whole would be worse off in a generation or two. In that sense, I think your utilitarian calculation might be shortsighted -- it needs to include the resources consumed by acting. If you're a skilled surgeon, then helping people out that you see on the street may cause more people to die in the hospital. I'm not saying saving the drowning man is going to be wrong, just that you need to decide whether it's right using the full balance of utility on either side.<br /><br />I realize "but if you did this ALL THE TIME it would be bad" is something of a fallacy, but I'm just trying to make the signs on my examples clearer. Again, I'm not arguing that you're wrong in your conclusions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-70110418019463818162013-09-20T20:34:31.033-07:002013-09-20T20:34:31.033-07:00Re-reading that line of mine, I wish I worded it d...Re-reading that line of mine, I wish I worded it differently; it sounds a bit condescending.<br /><br />But I still think it's roughly right. It's true that there are lots of things where something is the right thing for one person to do but not another, but I think that most of the important issues most people (or at least I) think about don't fall into that category. You could image that it was correct for me to be vegan, but not for most people, but I don't think that's the case.<br /><br />But maybe I'm just seeing problems through that lens and not recognizing lots of important ones... Could you give some examples?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-3875437554417774582013-09-20T17:22:52.271-07:002013-09-20T17:22:52.271-07:00> But here you see the issue--everyone agrees t...> But here you see the issue--everyone agrees that going out of your way to do good things is the right thing to do, they just don't feel like they have to do it.<br /><br />So, you may be *right*, but I think you're being somewhat disingenuous in simplifying things this far. Just because something is (locally) the right thing to do doesn't mean everyone should be doing it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-14966694751235653322012-08-07T22:58:39.347-07:002012-08-07T22:58:39.347-07:00It's certainly true that society isn't uti...It's certainly true that society isn't utilitarian and that society does make an act/omission distinction, and so e.g. killing someone comes with a prison sentence that failing to save them doesn't; that's another practicle consideration to take into account. I'm arguing from a normative perspective and arguing that there is no inherent difference between act and omission other than the practical ones that are built into society--that is, that utilitarianism doesn't have to have some sort of adjustment factor for acts and omissions because it's already built in to peoples' utilities.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12614851964932880398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4611337934716691498.post-11628849402993869312012-08-07T22:42:27.946-07:002012-08-07T22:42:27.946-07:00From the perspective of a society, though, non-act...From the perspective of a society, though, non-actors are less harmful than actors after the fact. Someone who doesn't jump into a lake to save someone, disregarding the danger of doing so, is less of a hazard than someone who shoots a person about to push them into a lake. Ultimately, a lot of examples are going to incorporate things society tries to do to aid good decision-making, and prevent people who tend to decrease utility from doing so or punish people who tend to decrease utility. That's the idea, anyway. Being in a world of irrational actors changes how society judges your actions, which changes how you, as a rational or irrational actor, see the act of letting someone die vs killing them. Killing someone not only has a bigger impact on you than killing someone else, making a Monkeysphere-utilitarian more likely to care about killing someone else than letting someone else die. I know you're arguing against Monkeysphere-utilitarianism (which is what I will call the philosophy that personal utility, and that of your friends and family, is more important) but we are, at best, Monkeysphere-utilitarians by instinct. In a world full of Monkeysphere-utilitarians, too, the action of an outsider is a threat to you, and suddenly this person is important and dangerous, whereas the inaction of an outsider is ... meh, that person's not really important, you can't protect your family or friends from lakes and ambivalence. They don't expect more than ambivalence, either, because they're Monkeysphere-utilitarians, too, and they expect most people are more or less like them. <br /><br />In a world of actors with these priorities, some of the utilities of inaction break down.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com