EPTOn May 27 2011 02:36 tofucake wrote:
Here's a graph
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/tofucake/graphs/complexity.png)
ROFL couldn't be more clear, thanks for the graph Here's a graph
Utilitarian Questions - Page 2
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VIB
Brazil3567 Posts
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ieatkids5
United States4628 Posts
On May 27 2011 02:37 tofucake wrote: I said nothing about the good of the people, and moral fiber of those in the scenario plays no part in utilitarianism (again, that's virtue ethics). The simple fact is that by killing 1 person, 5 live. 5 > 1. Therefore you should kill 1. Another way to look at this is the following: Death is defined as 1 bad (-1 good) Life is defined as 1 good Kill 1 to save 5 is now: 5 good + 1 bad = 5 good - 1 good = 4 good Let 5 die to save 1 is now: 5 bad + 1 good = -5 good + 1 good = -4 good = 4 bad QED, Killing 1 to save 5 is the obviously better choice. It's a matter of either maximizing good or minimizing bad. no, utilitarianism does not define life and death that way. life and death are defined by the utility of that life or that death. if killing 5 to save 1 ends up maximizing the utility of the people as a whole, then killing 5 to save one is the better choice. the scenario of those 6 lives is not independent of everything else going on in the world. you need to consider the effects of those deaths/lives in order to judge their utility. | ||
tofucake
Hyrule19150 Posts
On May 27 2011 03:06 ieatkids5 wrote: no, utilitarianism does not define life and death that way. life and death are defined by the utility of that life or that death. if killing 5 to save 1 ends up maximizing the utility of the people as a whole, then killing 5 to save one is the better choice. the scenario of those 6 lives is not independent of everything else going on in the world. you need to consider the effects of those deaths/lives in order to judge their utility. Nope. Those are unobserved actions in the future, and thus have absolutely no bearing on the decision now of kill 5/save 1 or kill 1/ save 5. | ||
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lOvOlUNiMEDiA
United States643 Posts
Why should we care about this question at all? This is because the first question of ethics isn't "What is the ethical thing to do?" but "Why do I need a code of ethics." | ||
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VIB
Brazil3567 Posts
On May 27 2011 03:20 lOvOlUNiMEDiA wrote: It's not the first question, it's ANOTHER question First question you need to answer is: Why should we care about this question at all? This is because the first question of ethics isn't "What is the ethical thing to do?" but "Why do I need a code of ethics."  No one is trying to solve the world here, they're just talking specifically about utilitarism. | ||
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tofucake
Hyrule19150 Posts
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ieatkids5
United States4628 Posts
On May 27 2011 03:15 tofucake wrote: Nope. Those are unobserved actions in the future, and thus have absolutely no bearing on the decision now of kill 5/save 1 or kill 1/ save 5. ... that's not utilitarianism then... the decision to kill 5 save 1 or kill 1 save 5, if viewed through utilitarianism, must be decided through how well the action provides utility for the collective good of the people, eg how the people value the kill 5 save 1 and the kill 1 save 5. those "unobserved actions in the future" you referred to are how people value these 6 lives, which is what determines utility. | ||
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IVFearless
United States165 Posts
On May 27 2011 03:29 ieatkids5 wrote: ... that's not utilitarianism then... the decision to kill 5 save 1 or kill 1 save 5, if viewed through utilitarianism, must be decided through how well the action provides utility for the collective good of the people, eg how the people value the kill 5 save 1 and the kill 1 save 5. those "unobserved actions in the future" you referred to are how people value these 6 lives, which is what determines utility. You just highlighted one of the problems with utilitarianism. According to the standard you set action is impossible as we cannot actually determine the future effect of our actions, and so cannot know your choice is correct. This leaves us with tofucake's correct statements that a utilitarian makes choices based on current information known. Which brings us to the problem you identified. As to the OP, tofucake is right, kill the one person in every case to be purely utilitarian. However, even a utilitarian will protest if given this question. There simply isn't enough information for it to be applicable to real life. | ||
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yoshi_yoshi
United States440 Posts
Would I be OK living in a world where... For the train example, I would switch and kill the 1 person that is tied down, but not the fat guy. That is because I am OK with a world where if I am tied down to train tracks, then I may very well die. I am not OK with a world where people will push me into train tracks just because I am walking near them and can save lives. For the organs, I would let the 5 people die unless the 1 person was very old or sick himself. Again, I do not want to live in a world where I am healthy and others will randomly come in and harvest my organs to let others live. But I'm OK with it if I am near death myself. The common thing is that I don't want to live in a world where I am fine and someone can randomly take my life to save others. In that case I'd be scared shitless of everyone all of the time. | ||
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ieatkids5
United States4628 Posts
On May 27 2011 04:25 IV.Fearless wrote: You just highlighted one of the problems with utilitarianism. According to the standard you set action is impossible as we cannot actually determine the future effect of our actions, and so cannot know your choice is correct. This leaves us with tofucake's correct statements that a utilitarian makes choices based on current information known. Which brings us to the problem you identified. As to the OP, tofucake is right, kill the one person in every case to be purely utilitarian. However, even a utilitarian will protest if given this question. There simply isn't enough information for it to be applicable to real life. we must be talking about different kinds of utilitarianism here. current information known is that if there are 5 terrible people and one good person. you can make a decision based on that information, as well as the information you have about whether people will value the lives of the 5 terrible people more or the one good person more. you have enough information to say that killing 5 terrible people and saving 1 good person grants more utility to society than killing 1 good person and saving 5 terrible people. | ||
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tofucake
Hyrule19150 Posts
On May 27 2011 04:49 ieatkids5 wrote: we must be talking about different kinds of utilitarianism here. current information known is that if there are 5 terrible people and one good person. you can make a decision based on that information, as well as the information you have about whether people will value the lives of the 5 terrible people more or the one good person more. you have enough information to say that killing 5 terrible people and saving 1 good person grants more utility to society than killing 1 good person and saving 5 terrible people. But can we really go with that? If this incident were to occur around...say...1920, then we have 1 old guy (Gandhi) who we know has done plenty of good, and 5 Hitlers, who at this point are just war vets. We don't know that one day each of them will go on to commit (directly or indirectly) millions of murders. We just know that there's 1 old guy and 5 younger guys. We are talking about the same philosophy. The issues you are raising are ones that everyone raises with utilitarianism, but as soon as you start considering things you can't know about, you're no longer in a utilitarian mindset, you're in more of a virtue ethics system. If you start basing decisions on things you can't immediately know (where someone has volunteered, criminal records, etc) by direct observation in the moment you need to make the decision, you're also delving into a virtue ethics system. | ||
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ieatkids5
United States4628 Posts
On May 27 2011 05:48 tofucake wrote: But can we really go with that? If this incident were to occur around...say...1920, then we have 1 old guy (Gandhi) who we know has done plenty of good, and 5 Hitlers, who at this point are just war vets. We don't know that one day each of them will go on to commit (directly or indirectly) millions of murders. We just know that there's 1 old guy and 5 younger guys. We are talking about the same philosophy. The issues you are raising are ones that everyone raises with utilitarianism, but as soon as you start considering things you can't know about, you're no longer in a utilitarian mindset, you're in more of a virtue ethics system. If you start basing decisions on things you can't immediately know (where someone has volunteered, criminal records, etc) by direct observation in the moment you need to make the decision, you're also delving into a virtue ethics system. ok i guess my interpretation of utilitarianism is just wrong then. i've always thought utilitarianism is how i described it to be, but i guess not. hmm so let me get this straight: if a utilitarian sees a person he knows is a good person and contributes to society, and sees 5 criminals who have only done bad to the world, and he had to pick who to save, he would pick the 5 criminals? i seriously always thought the utilitarian mindset would be to save the one good guy because saving 5 criminals would decrease utility among the people. | ||
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VIB
Brazil3567 Posts
On May 27 2011 07:21 ieatkids5 wrote: I'm no expert, but I'd guess you got your ethics mixed up when you started eating kids.ok i guess my interpretation of utilitarianism is just wrong then. i've always thought utilitarianism is how i described it to be, but i guess not. | ||
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ieatkids5
United States4628 Posts
On May 27 2011 07:35 VIB wrote: I'm no expert, but I'd guess you got your ethics mixed up when you started eating kids. i do what i gotta do | ||
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numLoCK
Canada1416 Posts
The first response seems to provide a good solution: one must not intentionally commit an evil act, even to produce a good result. | ||
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Ilikestarcraft
Korea (South)17731 Posts
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tofucake
Hyrule19150 Posts
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Ilikestarcraft
Korea (South)17731 Posts
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palanq
United States761 Posts
my preferences are to flip the switch, not push the fat dude onto the tracks, not harvest organs of the young innocent person, but kill the condemned criminal, but I won't pretend to be able to justify them. tofu: can you explain your graph a bit? | ||
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Pangpootata
1838 Posts
The third one differs the most because the 5 people with organ failure are less fit to survive and naturally selected against, so it makes no sense to kill a healthy person to save them. Comparing the first and second one, in the first situation, the 5 people and 1 other person are all on the tracks, so they are in the same position. Thus, killing less is preferred. But for the second one, the 5 people somehow managed to get themselves tied to the tracks while the other fat person is in a safe position. Hence taking away the life of somebody in a safe position to save people in a dangerous position would seem to be an injustice. | ||
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