Sean, say you’re one of the 3^^^3 voters. A vote one way potentially has torture on your conscience, as you say, but a vote the other way potentially has 3^^^3 dust specks on your conscience—by your definition a much greater sin. Square one—shut up and vote!
I am aware that a billion people getting punched in the face appears to aggregate to a greater harm than one person being tortured for 50 years. (I should say that when I ask my intuition what it thinks about the number 1,000,000,000, it says ‘WTF?’, so it’s not coming from there....) However, if I was one of the billion and had to cast my vote, I’d ask for the punch, and hope you would too. (I am also confident that it would be because it was the right thing for me to do, and not to alleviate any potential guilt.) What does this say about intuition and additivism?
Sean, say you’re one of the 3^^^3 voters. A vote one way potentially has torture on your conscience, as you say, but a vote the other way potentially has 3^^^3 dust specks on your conscience—by your definition a much greater sin. Square one—shut up and vote!
I am aware that a billion people getting punched in the face appears to aggregate to a greater harm than one person being tortured for 50 years. (I should say that when I ask my intuition what it thinks about the number 1,000,000,000, it says ‘WTF?’, so it’s not coming from there....) However, if I was one of the billion and had to cast my vote, I’d ask for the punch, and hope you would too. (I am also confident that it would be because it was the right thing for me to do, and not to alleviate any potential guilt.) What does this say about intuition and additivism?