I’ve struggled in the past to say why I find permissibility an unintuitive framing, so thanks for addressing this subject! The asteroid is a good example of a situation where there’s no way to set up permissibility rules that feel intuitive.
Seems to me your argument in “Importance is more important (authoritative)” will miss the point fo…
I’ve struggled in the past to say why I find permissibility an unintuitive framing, so thanks for addressing this subject! The asteroid is a good example of a situation where there’s no way to set up permissibility rules that feel intuitive.
Seems to me your argument in “Importance is more important (authoritative)” will miss the point for most people. If I'm understanding right, your argument would be persuasive to a demographic with the intuitions that (1) the reasons to save five are more important than the reasons to avoid wrong, but (2) we should prioritize wrongness-type reasons, even when they’re less important than other reasons. It’s hard for me to imagine people holding the second intuition. Surely most disagreements happen over the first intuition (which reasons are more important)?
fwiw, I think many deontologists have neglected the question of what they should most want/hope to happen in trolley cases and the like. So my main hope for progress here is just to get them addressing that question at all. Once it's considered squarely, my hope is that at least some of them will then agree that "the reasons to save five are more important than the reasons to avoid wrong". Of course, others will no doubt continue to disagree. But I think it makes sense to begin by addressing the most persuadable.
Clear cut thought experiments, where all else is held equal. In more realistic cases, the instrumental effects of the wrongdoing are likely to give even utilitarians strong reasons to oppose it: https://rychappell.substack.com/p/ethical-theory-and-practice
I’ve struggled in the past to say why I find permissibility an unintuitive framing, so thanks for addressing this subject! The asteroid is a good example of a situation where there’s no way to set up permissibility rules that feel intuitive.
Seems to me your argument in “Importance is more important (authoritative)” will miss the point for most people. If I'm understanding right, your argument would be persuasive to a demographic with the intuitions that (1) the reasons to save five are more important than the reasons to avoid wrong, but (2) we should prioritize wrongness-type reasons, even when they’re less important than other reasons. It’s hard for me to imagine people holding the second intuition. Surely most disagreements happen over the first intuition (which reasons are more important)?
fwiw, I think many deontologists have neglected the question of what they should most want/hope to happen in trolley cases and the like. So my main hope for progress here is just to get them addressing that question at all. Once it's considered squarely, my hope is that at least some of them will then agree that "the reasons to save five are more important than the reasons to avoid wrong". Of course, others will no doubt continue to disagree. But I think it makes sense to begin by addressing the most persuadable.
Clear cut trolley cases, or realistic trolley cases?
Clear cut thought experiments, where all else is held equal. In more realistic cases, the instrumental effects of the wrongdoing are likely to give even utilitarians strong reasons to oppose it: https://rychappell.substack.com/p/ethical-theory-and-practice