If attempting to avoid the question will also elicit a negative response, and the person really only wants to optimize their social standing, then they would be better off simply providing an answer calibrated to please whoever they most desired to avoid disapproval from.
You appear to be saying “but they could give a perfect zinger of an answer!” Yes, they could. But refusing the question—“Homey don’t play that”—is quite a sensible answer in most practical circumstances, and may discourage people from continuing to try to entrap them, which may be better than answering with a perfect zinger.
They could, for example, give an answer that at the same time signaled their deep and profound compassion for people who are run over by trolleys and their willingness to… reluctantly… after exploring all available third alternatives to the extent that time allowed… and assuming as a personal favor to the questioner that they somehow were certain of all the facts that the problem asserts, even though that state isn’t epistemically reachable… and with the understanding that they’d probably be in expensive therapy for years afterwards to repair the damage to their compliant-with-social-norms-really-honest-no-fooling psyches… throw one person under the train to save five people.
Wincing visibly while saying it would help, also.
This both signals their alliance with the “don’t throw people under trains!” social norm and their moral sophistication. This is a general truth of political answers… the most useful answer is the one that lets everyone hear what they want to hear while eliciting disapproval from nobody. (Of course, in the long term that creates a community that disapproves of ambivalence. Politics is a semantic arms race, after all.)
In this vein, my usual answer to trolley questions and the like starts with “It depends: are you asking me what I think I would actually do in that setting? Or are you asking me what I think is the right thing to do in that setting? Because they’re different.”
But, yeah, I agree that refusing to answer the question can often be more practical, especially if you don’t have an artful dodge ready to hand and aren’t good at creating them on-the-fly.
In this vein, my usual answer to trolley questions and the like starts with “It depends: are you asking me what I think I would actually do in that setting? Or are you asking me what I think is the right thing to do in that setting? Because they’re different.”
A non-answer is still safer. That parry, in and of itself, could be twisted into an admission that you routinely and knowingly violate your own moral code.
Not even twisted, really; it is such an admission. But entirely agreed that a non-answer is safer than such an admission. (I suppose “In this vein” is a mis-statement, then.)
You appear to be saying “but they could give a perfect zinger of an answer!” Yes, they could. But refusing the question—“Homey don’t play that”—is quite a sensible answer in most practical circumstances, and may discourage people from continuing to try to entrap them, which may be better than answering with a perfect zinger.
Well, it needn’t be a zinger, per se.
They could, for example, give an answer that at the same time signaled their deep and profound compassion for people who are run over by trolleys and their willingness to… reluctantly… after exploring all available third alternatives to the extent that time allowed… and assuming as a personal favor to the questioner that they somehow were certain of all the facts that the problem asserts, even though that state isn’t epistemically reachable… and with the understanding that they’d probably be in expensive therapy for years afterwards to repair the damage to their compliant-with-social-norms-really-honest-no-fooling psyches… throw one person under the train to save five people.
Wincing visibly while saying it would help, also.
This both signals their alliance with the “don’t throw people under trains!” social norm and their moral sophistication. This is a general truth of political answers… the most useful answer is the one that lets everyone hear what they want to hear while eliciting disapproval from nobody. (Of course, in the long term that creates a community that disapproves of ambivalence. Politics is a semantic arms race, after all.)
In this vein, my usual answer to trolley questions and the like starts with “It depends: are you asking me what I think I would actually do in that setting? Or are you asking me what I think is the right thing to do in that setting? Because they’re different.”
But, yeah, I agree that refusing to answer the question can often be more practical, especially if you don’t have an artful dodge ready to hand and aren’t good at creating them on-the-fly.
A non-answer is still safer. That parry, in and of itself, could be twisted into an admission that you routinely and knowingly violate your own moral code.
Not even twisted, really; it is such an admission. But entirely agreed that a non-answer is safer than such an admission. (I suppose “In this vein” is a mis-statement, then.)