Questions like “is an increased probability (no mater how small) of someone suffering a horrible painful death, no matter how small, always worse than a moderate amount of money” are typical questions of moral theory rather than decision theory.
Er, no. I don’t think this is right either. Since “someone” here refers to yourself, the question is: “is an increased probability (no matter how small) of you suffering a horrible painful death, always worse than a moderate amount of money?” This is not a moral question; it’s a question about your own preferences.
(Of course, it’s also not the question we’re being asked to consider in the “Bomb” scenario, because there we’re not faced with a small probability of horrible painful death, or a small increase in the probability of horrible painful death, but rather a certain horrible painful death; and we’re comparing that to the loss of a moderate amount of money. This also is not a moral question, of course.)
The ambiguity would go away if the stakes were simply money on both sides.
Well, first of all, that would make the problem less interesting. And surely we don’t want to say “this decision theory only handles questions of money; as soon as we ask it to evaluate questions of life and death, it stops giving sensible answers”?
Secondly, I don’t think that any problem goes away if there’s just money on both sides. What if it were a billion dollars you’d have to pay to take Left, and a hundred to take Right? Well… in that case, honestly, the scenario would make even less sense than before, because:
What if I don’t have a billion dollars? Am I now a billion dollars in debt? To whom? I’m the last person in existence, right?
What’s the difference between losing a hundred dollars and losing a billion dollars, if I’m the only human in existence? What am I even using money for? What does it mean to say that I have money?
Can I declare myself to be a sovereign state, issue currency (conveniently called the “dollar”), and use it to pay the boxes? Do they have to be American dollars? Can I be the President of America? (Or the King?) Who’s going to dispute my claim?
I’ve posted a similar scenario which is based on purely money here.
I avoid “burning to death” outcomes in my version because some people do appear to endorse theoretically infinite disutilities for such things, even when they don’t live by such. Likewise there are no insanely low probabilities of failure that are mutually contradictory with other properties of the scenario.
It’s just a straightforward scenario in which FDT says you should choose to lose $1000 whenever that option is available, despite always having an available option to lose only $100.
Er, no. I don’t think this is right either. Since “someone” here refers to yourself, the question is: “is an increased probability (no matter how small) of you suffering a horrible painful death, always worse than a moderate amount of money?” This is not a moral question; it’s a question about your own preferences.
(Of course, it’s also not the question we’re being asked to consider in the “Bomb” scenario, because there we’re not faced with a small probability of horrible painful death, or a small increase in the probability of horrible painful death, but rather a certain horrible painful death; and we’re comparing that to the loss of a moderate amount of money. This also is not a moral question, of course.)
Well, first of all, that would make the problem less interesting. And surely we don’t want to say “this decision theory only handles questions of money; as soon as we ask it to evaluate questions of life and death, it stops giving sensible answers”?
Secondly, I don’t think that any problem goes away if there’s just money on both sides. What if it were a billion dollars you’d have to pay to take Left, and a hundred to take Right? Well… in that case, honestly, the scenario would make even less sense than before, because:
What if I don’t have a billion dollars? Am I now a billion dollars in debt? To whom? I’m the last person in existence, right?
What’s the difference between losing a hundred dollars and losing a billion dollars, if I’m the only human in existence? What am I even using money for? What does it mean to say that I have money?
Can I declare myself to be a sovereign state, issue currency (conveniently called the “dollar”), and use it to pay the boxes? Do they have to be American dollars? Can I be the President of America? (Or the King?) Who’s going to dispute my claim?
And so on…
I’ve posted a similar scenario which is based on purely money here.
I avoid “burning to death” outcomes in my version because some people do appear to endorse theoretically infinite disutilities for such things, even when they don’t live by such. Likewise there are no insanely low probabilities of failure that are mutually contradictory with other properties of the scenario.
It’s just a straightforward scenario in which FDT says you should choose to lose $1000 whenever that option is available, despite always having an available option to lose only $100.