When you ask what it’s like if everyone were to “do that”, the answer you get is going to be determined by how you define “that”. For instance, if everyone were to drop chocolate wrappers on the lawn of your annoying neighbor, you might be happy. So is it okay to drop the wrapper on your neighbor’s lawn?
It’s tempting to reply to this by saying “‘doing the same thing’ means removing all self-serving qualifiers, so the correct question is whether you would like it if people dropped wrappers wherever they wanted, not specifically on your neighbor’s lawn”. This reply doesn’t work, because there are are plenty of situations where you want the qualifier—for instance, putting criminals in jail when the qualifier “criminal” excludes yourself.
(And what’s your stance on homosexuality? If everyone were to do that, humanity would be extinct.)
When you ask what it’s like if everyone were to “do that”, the answer you get is going to be determined by how you define “that”. For instance, if everyone were to drop chocolate wrappers on the lawn of your annoying neighbor, you might be happy. So is it okay to drop the wrapper on your neighbor’s lawn?
I do need to be careful to define “that” as a generally applicable rule. In this case, the generally applicable rule would be, is it okay to drop chocolate wrappers on the lawn of people one finds annoying?
So I need to consider the world in which everyone drops chocolate wrappers on the lawn of people they find annoying. Considering this, the chances of someone dropping a wrapper on my lawn becomes dependent on the probability that someone will find me annoying.
So, in short, I can put as many qualifiers on the rule as I like. However, I have to be careful to attach my qualifiers to the true reason for my formulation of the rule; I cannot select the rule “it is acceptable to drop chocolate wrappers on that exact specific lawn over there” without referencing the process by which I chose that exact specific lawn.
I can’t attach a qualifier to a specific person; but I can attach a qualifier to a specific quality, like being annoying, when considering a proposal.
And what’s your stance on homosexuality? If everyone were to do that, humanity would be extinct.
Well, what’s your stance on forcing homosexuals to breed heterosexually to save humanity from extinction? Or forcing all homosexual women and a few men chosen by lottery, since we have an overabundance of sperm?
I don’t think people should be forced to breed, but I wasn’t arguing that people should be forced to breed, I was pointing out that the above argument (would you like if everyone did that) means that it is wrong to refuse to breed. Pointing out that an argument I oppose leads to an uncomfortable conclusion is a reductio ad absurdum and does not mean that I endorse that conlusion myself.
And if everyone were to breed, that would exacerbate the problems that are due to overpopulation. This implies that there should be some process that one follows when deciding whether or not to breed; it should be a process that has a nonzero chance of making the decision either to breed or not.
Exactly what the optimal process is, I do not know.
When you ask what it’s like if everyone were to “do that”, the answer you get is going to be determined by how you define “that”. For instance, if everyone were to drop chocolate wrappers on the lawn of your annoying neighbor, you might be happy. So is it okay to drop the wrapper on your neighbor’s lawn?
It’s tempting to reply to this by saying “‘doing the same thing’ means removing all self-serving qualifiers, so the correct question is whether you would like it if people dropped wrappers wherever they wanted, not specifically on your neighbor’s lawn”. This reply doesn’t work, because there are are plenty of situations where you want the qualifier—for instance, putting criminals in jail when the qualifier “criminal” excludes yourself.
(And what’s your stance on homosexuality? If everyone were to do that, humanity would be extinct.)
I do need to be careful to define “that” as a generally applicable rule. In this case, the generally applicable rule would be, is it okay to drop chocolate wrappers on the lawn of people one finds annoying?
So I need to consider the world in which everyone drops chocolate wrappers on the lawn of people they find annoying. Considering this, the chances of someone dropping a wrapper on my lawn becomes dependent on the probability that someone will find me annoying.
So, in short, I can put as many qualifiers on the rule as I like. However, I have to be careful to attach my qualifiers to the true reason for my formulation of the rule; I cannot select the rule “it is acceptable to drop chocolate wrappers on that exact specific lawn over there” without referencing the process by which I chose that exact specific lawn.
I can’t attach a qualifier to a specific person; but I can attach a qualifier to a specific quality, like being annoying, when considering a proposal.
Well, what’s your stance on forcing homosexuals to breed heterosexually to save humanity from extinction? Or forcing all homosexual women and a few men chosen by lottery, since we have an overabundance of sperm?
I don’t think people should be forced to breed, but I wasn’t arguing that people should be forced to breed, I was pointing out that the above argument (would you like if everyone did that) means that it is wrong to refuse to breed. Pointing out that an argument I oppose leads to an uncomfortable conclusion is a reductio ad absurdum and does not mean that I endorse that conlusion myself.
And if everyone were to breed, that would exacerbate the problems that are due to overpopulation. This implies that there should be some process that one follows when deciding whether or not to breed; it should be a process that has a nonzero chance of making the decision either to breed or not.
Exactly what the optimal process is, I do not know.