There is so much wrong with this example that I don’t know where to start.
You make up a hypothetical person who dies because she doesn’t heed an explicit warning that says “if you do this, you will die”. Then you make several ridiculous claims about this hypothetical person:
1) You claim this event will happen, with absolute certainty.
2) You claim this event occurs because this individual has low intelligence, and that it is unfair because a person does not choose to be born intelligent.
3) You claim this event is a tragedy.
I disagree with all of these, and I will challenge them individually. But first, the meta-claim of this argument is that I am supposed to consider compromises that I don’t even believe in. Why would I ever do that? Suppose that the downside of a policy decision is “less people will go to heaven”. If you are not religious, this sounds like a ridiculous nonsensical downside, and thus no downside at all. And where do you draw the line on perceived downsides anyway? Do you allow people to just make up metaphysical superstitious downsides, and then proceed to weigh those as well? Because that seems like a waste of time to me. Perhaps you do weigh those possibilities, but you assign them so low a probability that they effectively disappear, but clearly your opponent doesn’t assign the same probabilities to them as you do. So you have to take the argument to the place where the real disagreements occur. Which leads me to these three claims.
1) You claim this event will happen, with absolute certainty.
1 is not a probability. Besides, the original article mentions safeguards that should reduce the probability that this event ever happens. The type of safeguards depend on your hypothetical person, of course. Lets say your hypothetical person is drunk. The clerk could give a breathalyzer test. Maybe your hypothetical person isn’t aware of the warnings. The clerk could read them off at the checkout. Maybe the person doesn’t listen or understand. The clerk could quiz them on the content he just read to ensure it sinks in.
But then, I guess the real point of the article is that the hypothetical person doesn’t believe the warnings, which brings us to:
2) You claim this event occurs because this individual has low intelligence, and that it is unfair because a person does not choose to be born intelligent.
Receiving a warning explicitly stating “if you do this, you will die” is hardly a mental puzzle. Is this really even a measure of intelligence? This seems like a stretch.
Bleach is sold at normal stores, without any restrictions. If you drink it, you could die. Many people have heard this warning. Do people disbelieve it? Do they risk testing the hypothesis on theirself? Why would anyone risk death like this? I am genuinely curious as to how this can be related to intelligence. Someone please explain this to me.
Generally if someone drinks bleach, it is because they believed the warning and wanted to die. Is this a tragedy? Should we ban bleach? This brings me to:
3) You claim this event is a tragedy.
Is it really?
People are hardly a valuable resource right now. In fact, there are either too many of us, or there will be soon. If one person dies, everyone else gets more space and resources. It’s kind of like your article on dust specs vs torture, except that a suicidal person selects theirself, rather than being randomly selected. Unless you apply some argument about determinism and say that a person doesn’t choose to be born suicidal (or choose to lead a life whose circumstances would lead anyone to be suicidal, etc).
Should a person be allowed to commit suicide? If we prevent them from doing so, are we infringing on their rights? Or are they infringing on their own rights? I don’t really know. I do know and love some amazing people who have committed suicide, and I wish I could have prevented them. This is a real complication to this issue for me, because I value different people differently: I’d gladly allow many people I’ve never met to die if it would save one person I love. But I understand that other people don’t value the same people I do, so this feeling is not easy to transfer into general policies.
Is evolution not fair? If we decide to prop up every unfit individual and prevent every suicide, genetic evolution becomes severely neutered. We can’t really adapt to our environment if we don’t let it select from us. Thus it would be to our genetic benefit to allow people to die, as it would eventually select out whatever genes caused them to do this. But then, some safety nets seem reasonable. We wouldn’t consider banning glasses in order to select for better vision. We need to strike some sort of balance here though, and not waste too many resources propping up individuals who will only multiply their cost to everyone with future generations of their genes and memes. I think that, currently, the point at which this balance is set is when it simply costs too much cash to keep someone alive, though we will gladly provide all people with a certain amount of food and shelter. The specific amount provided is under constant debate.
So, are we obligated to protect every random individual ever born? Is it a tragedy if anyone dies? I think that’s debatable. It isn’t a definite downside. In fact, it could even be an upside.
There is so much wrong with this example that I don’t know where to start.
You make up a hypothetical person who dies because she doesn’t heed an explicit warning that says “if you do this, you will die”. Then you make several ridiculous claims about this hypothetical person:
1) You claim this event will happen, with absolute certainty. 2) You claim this event occurs because this individual has low intelligence, and that it is unfair because a person does not choose to be born intelligent. 3) You claim this event is a tragedy.
I disagree with all of these, and I will challenge them individually. But first, the meta-claim of this argument is that I am supposed to consider compromises that I don’t even believe in. Why would I ever do that? Suppose that the downside of a policy decision is “less people will go to heaven”. If you are not religious, this sounds like a ridiculous nonsensical downside, and thus no downside at all. And where do you draw the line on perceived downsides anyway? Do you allow people to just make up metaphysical superstitious downsides, and then proceed to weigh those as well? Because that seems like a waste of time to me. Perhaps you do weigh those possibilities, but you assign them so low a probability that they effectively disappear, but clearly your opponent doesn’t assign the same probabilities to them as you do. So you have to take the argument to the place where the real disagreements occur. Which leads me to these three claims.
1) You claim this event will happen, with absolute certainty.
1 is not a probability. Besides, the original article mentions safeguards that should reduce the probability that this event ever happens. The type of safeguards depend on your hypothetical person, of course. Lets say your hypothetical person is drunk. The clerk could give a breathalyzer test. Maybe your hypothetical person isn’t aware of the warnings. The clerk could read them off at the checkout. Maybe the person doesn’t listen or understand. The clerk could quiz them on the content he just read to ensure it sinks in.
But then, I guess the real point of the article is that the hypothetical person doesn’t believe the warnings, which brings us to:
2) You claim this event occurs because this individual has low intelligence, and that it is unfair because a person does not choose to be born intelligent.
Receiving a warning explicitly stating “if you do this, you will die” is hardly a mental puzzle. Is this really even a measure of intelligence? This seems like a stretch.
Bleach is sold at normal stores, without any restrictions. If you drink it, you could die. Many people have heard this warning. Do people disbelieve it? Do they risk testing the hypothesis on theirself? Why would anyone risk death like this? I am genuinely curious as to how this can be related to intelligence. Someone please explain this to me.
Generally if someone drinks bleach, it is because they believed the warning and wanted to die. Is this a tragedy? Should we ban bleach? This brings me to:
3) You claim this event is a tragedy.
Is it really?
People are hardly a valuable resource right now. In fact, there are either too many of us, or there will be soon. If one person dies, everyone else gets more space and resources. It’s kind of like your article on dust specs vs torture, except that a suicidal person selects theirself, rather than being randomly selected. Unless you apply some argument about determinism and say that a person doesn’t choose to be born suicidal (or choose to lead a life whose circumstances would lead anyone to be suicidal, etc).
Should a person be allowed to commit suicide? If we prevent them from doing so, are we infringing on their rights? Or are they infringing on their own rights? I don’t really know. I do know and love some amazing people who have committed suicide, and I wish I could have prevented them. This is a real complication to this issue for me, because I value different people differently: I’d gladly allow many people I’ve never met to die if it would save one person I love. But I understand that other people don’t value the same people I do, so this feeling is not easy to transfer into general policies.
Is evolution not fair? If we decide to prop up every unfit individual and prevent every suicide, genetic evolution becomes severely neutered. We can’t really adapt to our environment if we don’t let it select from us. Thus it would be to our genetic benefit to allow people to die, as it would eventually select out whatever genes caused them to do this. But then, some safety nets seem reasonable. We wouldn’t consider banning glasses in order to select for better vision. We need to strike some sort of balance here though, and not waste too many resources propping up individuals who will only multiply their cost to everyone with future generations of their genes and memes. I think that, currently, the point at which this balance is set is when it simply costs too much cash to keep someone alive, though we will gladly provide all people with a certain amount of food and shelter. The specific amount provided is under constant debate.
So, are we obligated to protect every random individual ever born? Is it a tragedy if anyone dies? I think that’s debatable. It isn’t a definite downside. In fact, it could even be an upside.