See, I’d believe this, except that I’m wrestling with a bit of a moral dilemma myself, and I haven’t done it yet. Your hypothesis is testable, being tested right now, and thus far false.
(If anyone’s interested, the positive utility is me never having to work again, and the negative utility is that some people would probably die. Oh, and they’re awful people.)
I… honestly can’t tell you. Sorry. Realistically, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, even somewhat anonymously.
EDIT: Also for the record, the only reason it’s still a consideration is because it occurred to me that I could donate the proceeds to charity, and have it come out positive, from a strictly utilitarian standpoint. But I gave up on naive utilitarianism a while ago. So now I just don’t know.
EDIT #2: Either way, still contradictory evidence to the original hypothesis.
Well… for people who say they don’t anticipate ever actually finding themselves in trolley problems, I’d say I don’t think it’s that hard to find someone willing to give you $10,000 to murder someone and then give the money to the Against Malaria Foundation.
(No, I wouldn’t do that, even if I think the (CDT) expected utility of that would be positive: ethical injunctions and all that, plus a suspect that the net RDT consequences of precommitting to never do contract killing would be positive.)
Okay, now how about you’re not directly involved in the killing in any way? You just make it easier for other people to do the killing. I guess a good analogy is that you invent a firearm or a poison that cannot be used in self-defense, and can only be used for murder. What do the ethics of selling it openly look like?
See, I’d believe this, except that I’m wrestling with a bit of a moral dilemma myself, and I haven’t done it yet. Your hypothesis is testable, being tested right now, and thus far false.
(If anyone’s interested, the positive utility is me never having to work again, and the negative utility is that some people would probably die. Oh, and they’re awful people.)
I am inappropriately curious for more details.
I… honestly can’t tell you. Sorry. Realistically, I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it, even somewhat anonymously.
EDIT: Also for the record, the only reason it’s still a consideration is because it occurred to me that I could donate the proceeds to charity, and have it come out positive, from a strictly utilitarian standpoint. But I gave up on naive utilitarianism a while ago. So now I just don’t know.
EDIT #2: Either way, still contradictory evidence to the original hypothesis.
Well… for people who say they don’t anticipate ever actually finding themselves in trolley problems, I’d say I don’t think it’s that hard to find someone willing to give you $10,000 to murder someone and then give the money to the Against Malaria Foundation.
(No, I wouldn’t do that, even if I think the (CDT) expected utility of that would be positive: ethical injunctions and all that, plus a suspect that the net RDT consequences of precommitting to never do contract killing would be positive.)
Okay, now how about you’re not directly involved in the killing in any way? You just make it easier for other people to do the killing. I guess a good analogy is that you invent a firearm or a poison that cannot be used in self-defense, and can only be used for murder. What do the ethics of selling it openly look like?
A military-industrial complex. That’s what it looks like.