I agree with many things Prinz says, but it dismays me that, yet again, the conclusion under moral system X that it is moral to kill one innocent person to save 5 innocent people, is used as evidence against moral system X:
For example, one might judge that it is bad to kill an innocent person even if his vital organs could be used to save five others who desperately need transplants. Here, arguably, we feel cumulatively more empathy for the five people in need than for the one healthy person, but our moral judgment does not track that empathetic response.
Eventually, after enough moral systems founder on this “bug”, it’s time to consider the possibility that it is a feature.
Your remark sort of made me go click about something. If one is conflicted about a moral or ethical dilemma, then one method of getting a not insane answer is to look at what a bunch of different systems. would say. This is like how in electronics that are needed to have an extremely low rate of failure they sometimes use a few slightly different systems and then go with what the majority says if there’s a conflict. Similarly, there are some attempts to make predictive systems by weighing what a variety of different predictive rules say. The same approach might work for the tough moral cases.
I agree with many things Prinz says, but it dismays me that, yet again, the conclusion under moral system X that it is moral to kill one innocent person to save 5 innocent people, is used as evidence against moral system X:
Eventually, after enough moral systems founder on this “bug”, it’s time to consider the possibility that it is a feature.
Your remark sort of made me go click about something. If one is conflicted about a moral or ethical dilemma, then one method of getting a not insane answer is to look at what a bunch of different systems. would say. This is like how in electronics that are needed to have an extremely low rate of failure they sometimes use a few slightly different systems and then go with what the majority says if there’s a conflict. Similarly, there are some attempts to make predictive systems by weighing what a variety of different predictive rules say. The same approach might work for the tough moral cases.