this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
167 points (94.2% liked)
Asklemmy
43803 readers
931 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What? The point is to demonstrate different approaches. Yes a utilitarian will answer a predictable way. You can answer a different way. That's fine. That's the point. There's no right answer, it's a thought experiment.
That's the point. The "thought experiment" is constructed in a way that makes only utilitarian ethics have a clear right answer. Deontologists and virtue ethicists have to argue their positions and are still in a grey area, making their arguments appear dubious. It's structural favoritism.
Okay? So? A utilitarian having an easy answer doesn't actually mean there's 'structural favoritism.' First of all, utilitarians always have an easy answer to most thought experiments that don't address the prediction problem. The value in a thought experiment isn't in the ease of your answer. That's just stupid. The value in the thought experiment is stepping in and evaluating a stance, philosophy, belief, or lack thereof, and in getting one step towards applying and comparing them.
If you think the idea of a thought experiment is to score points by answering quickly and feeling smug, then I think you've missed the point dreadfully.
Half the interest in a given thought experiment is changing or adding nuance and seeing how that changes answers! Your position just feels angry, and not for any good reason, but because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of a thought experiment and how you should navigate them, combined with feeling outrage preferentially because the internet just does that.