I’m not trying to have a fictional world provide evidence that EA is true. I’m trying to write a basic intro to EA essay that people who wouldn’t read an ‘EA 101 post’ will read because it is embedded in the text of a novel that they are reading because I got them to care about what happens to the characters and how the story problems get resolved.
Also, I do think works of fiction can definitely be places to create extended thought experiments that are philosophically useful. I mean something like Those Who Walk Away from Omelas is a perfectly good expression and explanation of a view about the problems with utilitarianism. I don’t like it because I bite the bullet involved and because I think vaguely pointing in a direction and saying ‘there has to be a better solution’ isn’t actually pointing at a solution. But the problem with it as a piece of philosophical evidence is not that it is fiction, any more than the problem with every single trolley problem ever is that it is a work of fiction.
I don’t think that is relevant to this project.
I’m not trying to have a fictional world provide evidence that EA is true. I’m trying to write a basic intro to EA essay that people who wouldn’t read an ‘EA 101 post’ will read because it is embedded in the text of a novel that they are reading because I got them to care about what happens to the characters and how the story problems get resolved.
Also, I do think works of fiction can definitely be places to create extended thought experiments that are philosophically useful. I mean something like Those Who Walk Away from Omelas is a perfectly good expression and explanation of a view about the problems with utilitarianism. I don’t like it because I bite the bullet involved and because I think vaguely pointing in a direction and saying ‘there has to be a better solution’ isn’t actually pointing at a solution. But the problem with it as a piece of philosophical evidence is not that it is fiction, any more than the problem with every single trolley problem ever is that it is a work of fiction.