The thrust of your argument appears to be that:
1) Trolley problems are idealised
2) Idealisation can be a dark art rhetorical technique in discussion of the real world.
3) Boo trolley problems!
There are a number of issues.
First and foremost, reversed stupidity is not intelligence. Even if you are granted the substance of your criticisms of the activists position, this does not argue per se against trolley problems as dilemmas. The fact that they share features with a “Bad Thing” does not inherently make them bad.
Secondly, the whole point of considering trolley problems is to elucidate human nature and give some measure of training in cognition in stressful edge cases. The observation that humans freeze or behave inconsistently is important. This is why the trolley problems have to be trued in the sense that you object to—if they are not, many humans will avoid thinking about the ethical question being posed. In essence “I don’t like your options, give me a more palatable one” is a fully general and utterly useless answer; it must be excluded.
Thirdly, your argument turns on the claim that merely admitting trolley problems as objects of thought somehow makes people more likely to accept dichotomies that “justify tyranny and oppression”. This is risible. Even if the dichotomy is a false one, you surely should find one or the other branch preferable. It is perfectly admissible to say:
“I prefer this option (implicitly you presume that will be the taxation), but that if this argument is to be the basis for policy, then there are better alternatives foo, bar, etc., and that various important real world effects have been neglected.”
Those familiar with the trolley problems and general philosophical dilemmas are more likely to be aware of the idealisations and voice these concerns cogently if idealisations are used in rhetoric or politics.
Fourthly, in terms of data, I would challenge you to find evidence suggesting that study of trolley problems leads to acceptance of tyranny. I would note (anecdotally) that communities where one can say “trolley problem” without needing to explain further seem to have a higher density of the libertarians and anarchists than the general population.
So in rough summary:
1) Your conclusion does not follow from the argument.
2)Trolley problems are idealised because if they aren’t humans evade rather than engage.
3) Noting and calling out dark arts rhetoric is roughly orthogonal to thinking about trolley problems (conditional on thinking).
4) Citation needed wrt. increased tyranny in those who consider trolley problems.
“I prefer this option (implicitly you presume that will be the taxation), but that if this argument is to be the basis for policy, then …”
This is dangerous, in the real world. If you say “of these two options, I prefer X,” I would expect that to be misinterpreted by non-literal-minded people as “I support X.” In any real-world situation, I think it’s actually smarter and more useful to say something like, “This is the wrong choice—there’s also the option of Z” without associating yourself with one of the options you don’t actually support. Similarly:
you surely should find one or the other branch preferable
Personally, I’m wary in general of the suggestion that I “should” intrinsically have a preference about something. I reserve the right not to have a preference worth expressing and being held to until I’ve thought seriously about the question, and I may not have thought seriously about the question yet. If I understand correctly, the original poster’s point was that trolley problems do not adequately map to reality, and therefore thinking seriously about them in that way is not worth the trouble.
The thrust of your argument appears to be that: 1) Trolley problems are idealised 2) Idealisation can be a dark art rhetorical technique in discussion of the real world. 3) Boo trolley problems!
This is strange, this is the second comment that summarized an argument that I’m not actually making, and then argues against the made up summary.
My argument isn’t against idealization—which would be an argument against any sort of generalized hypothetical and against the majority of fiction ever made.
No, my argument is that trolley problems do not map to reality very well, and thus, time spent on them is potentially conducive to sloppy thinking. The four problems I listed were perfect foresight, ignoring secondary effects, ignoring human nature, and constraining decisions to two options—these all lead to a lower quality of thinking than a better constructed question would.
There’s a host of real world, realistic dilemmas you could use in place of a (flawed) trolley problem. Layoffs/redundancies to try to make a company more profitable or keep the ship running as is (like Jack Welch at GE), military problems like fighting a retreating defensive action, policing problems like profiling, what burden of proof in a courtroom, a doctor getting asked for performance enhancing drugs with potentially fatal consequences… there’s plenty of real world, reality-based situations to use for dilemmas, and we would be better off for using them.
I think that trolley problems contain perfect information about outcomes in advance of them happening, ignore secondary effects, ignore human nature, and give artificially false constraints.
Which is to say they are idealised problems; they are trued dilemmas. Your remaining argument is fully general against any idealisation or truing of a problem that can also be used rhetorically. This is (I think) what Tordmor’s summary is getting at; mine is doing the same.
Now, I think that’s bad. Agree/disagree there?
So, I clearly disagree, and further you fail to actually establish this “badness”. It is not problematic to think about simplified problems. The trolley problems demonstrate that instinctual ethics are sensitive to whether you have to “act” in some sense. I consider that a bug. The problem is that finding these bugs is harder in “real world” situations; people can avoid the actual point of the dilemma by appealing for more options.
In the examples you give, there is no similar pair of problems. The point isn’t the utilitarianism in a single trolley problem; it’s that when two tracks are replaced by a (canonically larger) person on the bridge and 5 workers further down, people change their answers.
Okay, finally, I think this kind of thinking seeps over into politics, and it’s likewise bad there. Agree/disagree?
You don’t establish this claim (I disagree). It is worth observing that the standard third “trolley” problem is 5 organ recipients and one healthy potential donor for all. The point is to establish that real world situations have more complexity—your four problems.
The point of the trolley problems is to draw attention to the fact that the H.Sap inbuilt ethics is distinctly suboptimal in some circumstances. Your putative “better” dilemmas don’t make that clear. Failing to note and account for these bugs is precisely “sloppy thinking”. Being inconsistent in action on the basis of the varying descriptions of identical situations seems to be “sloppy thinking”. Failing on Newcomb’s problem is “sloppy thinking”. Taking an “Activists” hypothetical as a true description of the world is “sloppy thinking”. Knowing that the hardware you use is buggy? Not so much.
If the mistaken summaries are similar to each other
Nah, they were totally different summaries. Both used words I didn’t say and that don’t map at all to arguments I made… it’s like they read something that’s not there.
this may mean that the post did not get across the point you wanted it to get across.
That, or people mis-summarizing for argument’s sake?
Either way, it’s up to me to get the point across clearly. I thought this was a fairly simple, straightforward post, but apparently not.
The thrust of your argument appears to be that: 1) Trolley problems are idealised 2) Idealisation can be a dark art rhetorical technique in discussion of the real world. 3) Boo trolley problems!
There are a number of issues.
First and foremost, reversed stupidity is not intelligence. Even if you are granted the substance of your criticisms of the activists position, this does not argue per se against trolley problems as dilemmas. The fact that they share features with a “Bad Thing” does not inherently make them bad.
Secondly, the whole point of considering trolley problems is to elucidate human nature and give some measure of training in cognition in stressful edge cases. The observation that humans freeze or behave inconsistently is important. This is why the trolley problems have to be trued in the sense that you object to—if they are not, many humans will avoid thinking about the ethical question being posed. In essence “I don’t like your options, give me a more palatable one” is a fully general and utterly useless answer; it must be excluded.
Thirdly, your argument turns on the claim that merely admitting trolley problems as objects of thought somehow makes people more likely to accept dichotomies that “justify tyranny and oppression”. This is risible. Even if the dichotomy is a false one, you surely should find one or the other branch preferable. It is perfectly admissible to say:
“I prefer this option (implicitly you presume that will be the taxation), but that if this argument is to be the basis for policy, then there are better alternatives foo, bar, etc., and that various important real world effects have been neglected.”
Those familiar with the trolley problems and general philosophical dilemmas are more likely to be aware of the idealisations and voice these concerns cogently if idealisations are used in rhetoric or politics.
Fourthly, in terms of data, I would challenge you to find evidence suggesting that study of trolley problems leads to acceptance of tyranny. I would note (anecdotally) that communities where one can say “trolley problem” without needing to explain further seem to have a higher density of the libertarians and anarchists than the general population.
So in rough summary: 1) Your conclusion does not follow from the argument. 2)Trolley problems are idealised because if they aren’t humans evade rather than engage. 3) Noting and calling out dark arts rhetoric is roughly orthogonal to thinking about trolley problems (conditional on thinking). 4) Citation needed wrt. increased tyranny in those who consider trolley problems.
This is dangerous, in the real world. If you say “of these two options, I prefer X,” I would expect that to be misinterpreted by non-literal-minded people as “I support X.” In any real-world situation, I think it’s actually smarter and more useful to say something like, “This is the wrong choice—there’s also the option of Z” without associating yourself with one of the options you don’t actually support. Similarly:
Personally, I’m wary in general of the suggestion that I “should” intrinsically have a preference about something. I reserve the right not to have a preference worth expressing and being held to until I’ve thought seriously about the question, and I may not have thought seriously about the question yet. If I understand correctly, the original poster’s point was that trolley problems do not adequately map to reality, and therefore thinking seriously about them in that way is not worth the trouble.
This is strange, this is the second comment that summarized an argument that I’m not actually making, and then argues against the made up summary.
My argument isn’t against idealization—which would be an argument against any sort of generalized hypothetical and against the majority of fiction ever made.
No, my argument is that trolley problems do not map to reality very well, and thus, time spent on them is potentially conducive to sloppy thinking. The four problems I listed were perfect foresight, ignoring secondary effects, ignoring human nature, and constraining decisions to two options—these all lead to a lower quality of thinking than a better constructed question would.
There’s a host of real world, realistic dilemmas you could use in place of a (flawed) trolley problem. Layoffs/redundancies to try to make a company more profitable or keep the ship running as is (like Jack Welch at GE), military problems like fighting a retreating defensive action, policing problems like profiling, what burden of proof in a courtroom, a doctor getting asked for performance enhancing drugs with potentially fatal consequences… there’s plenty of real world, reality-based situations to use for dilemmas, and we would be better off for using them.
From your own summary:
Which is to say they are idealised problems; they are trued dilemmas. Your remaining argument is fully general against any idealisation or truing of a problem that can also be used rhetorically. This is (I think) what Tordmor’s summary is getting at; mine is doing the same.
So, I clearly disagree, and further you fail to actually establish this “badness”. It is not problematic to think about simplified problems. The trolley problems demonstrate that instinctual ethics are sensitive to whether you have to “act” in some sense. I consider that a bug. The problem is that finding these bugs is harder in “real world” situations; people can avoid the actual point of the dilemma by appealing for more options.
In the examples you give, there is no similar pair of problems. The point isn’t the utilitarianism in a single trolley problem; it’s that when two tracks are replaced by a (canonically larger) person on the bridge and 5 workers further down, people change their answers.
You don’t establish this claim (I disagree). It is worth observing that the standard third “trolley” problem is 5 organ recipients and one healthy potential donor for all. The point is to establish that real world situations have more complexity—your four problems.
The point of the trolley problems is to draw attention to the fact that the H.Sap inbuilt ethics is distinctly suboptimal in some circumstances. Your putative “better” dilemmas don’t make that clear. Failing to note and account for these bugs is precisely “sloppy thinking”. Being inconsistent in action on the basis of the varying descriptions of identical situations seems to be “sloppy thinking”. Failing on Newcomb’s problem is “sloppy thinking”. Taking an “Activists” hypothetical as a true description of the world is “sloppy thinking”. Knowing that the hardware you use is buggy? Not so much.
If the mistaken summaries are similar to each other, this may mean that the post did not get across the point you wanted it to get across.
Nah, they were totally different summaries. Both used words I didn’t say and that don’t map at all to arguments I made… it’s like they read something that’s not there.
That, or people mis-summarizing for argument’s sake?
Either way, it’s up to me to get the point across clearly. I thought this was a fairly simple, straightforward post, but apparently not.