It’s an interesting case from a deontological perspective. If it wasn’t ok to invade his privacy, but he’s dead and his story’s fully publicized, is it now ok to keep on talking about it? Is there a meaningful sense in which we can fail to treat the dead as an end in themselves?
I think the closer framing is something like: if you’re the 100,000th person to deliberately run your car over a person’s body, are you liable for vehicular manslaughter?
Manslaughter? Probably not—you did not contribute to that person’s death. You are, however, guilty of:
Desecration of the corpse.
Obstructing the work of the sanitation workers (it’s too late for paramedics) that can’t remove the body from the road because of the endless stream of cars running over it.
You probably didn’t count 100k vehicles running over that body. A bystander who stayed there for a couple of days could have, but since you are one of the drivers you probably only witness a few cars running over that person—so as far as you know there is a slim chance they are still alive.
I may be taking the allegory too far here, but I feel these offenses can map quite well. Starting from the last—being able to know that all the damage is done. In Sipple’s case, this is history so it’s easy to know that all the damage was already done. He can’t be outed again. His family will not be harassed again by their community, and will not estrange him again. His life will not be ruined again, and he will not die again.
Up next—interfering with the efforts to make things better. Does this really happen here? I don’t think so. On the contrary—talking about this, establishing that this is wrong, can help prevent this from happening to other people. And it’s better to talk about cases from the past, where all the damage is already done, than about current cases that still have damage potential.
This leaves us with the final issue—respecting the dead. Which is probably the main issue, so I could have just skipped the other two points, but I took the trouble of writing them so I might as well impose on you the trouble of reading them. Are we really disrespecting Oliver Sipple by talking about him?
Sipple did not want to be outed because he did not want his family to know and he did not want his employer to know. They all know, but even after they were originally told about this, Sipple probably did want want them to be constantly reminded and harassed about this. But… are discussions about this bringing reporters to his surviving family members? I doubt it. This issue is no longer about his sexual orientation, it’s about the journalism ethics now, and there is no point in interviewing his parents and asking them what they think about their son being gay.
Given all that—I don’t think talking about this case should be considered as a violation of Sipple’s wish to not be outed.
From a utilitarian perspective, is Oliver’s outing morally redeemed by using him as an example in journalistic ethics classes? Or would it be, if it helped reduce the incidence of future privacy invasions?
If so, then Harvey Milk is a hero in this story. He not only made Oliver into a gay hero, probably saving more than one life in the long run by advancing the cause of gay rights, but he also gave us a great example of the consequences of privacy invasion that we can use in ethics classes. A two-fer!
That doesn’t feel right.
Maybe the way to make sense of it is this:
Although we can find redeeming value in continuing to talk about the story of Oliver Sipple, there’s a certain tone we must take. It needs to be somewhat ashamed, noting the paradox, condemning the privacy invasion even as we seem to perpetuate it, insisting that we try to treat Sipple as an end in himself even in death. In this way, the ethics lesson maintains its force.
Consequentialism, then, dictates that we use a “deontological” framing.
And that’s what I think is interesting: deontology not as an ethical system but as a storytelling technique that’s necessary for consequentialism to work with the human psyche.
How does this acausally increase their chances? I still don’t get TDT it just seems obvious that the only way this would increase their chances was it if somehow effected someone else through culture or something.
By CDT, deciding (to respect the wishes of the dead) intervenes on the universe by flipping a switch in your brain. By another decision theory, it intervenes on mindspace by flipping a switch in the neighborhood of your mind, which takes effect in the present, past and future.
It seems to me there was some causal factor that caused the switch to flip to me (maybe it was reading about UDT or something), and I should be seeking to cause that same causal factor in other similar brains.
Indeed you can use causal pathways like culture to increase the chances of people deontologically deciding to cooperate, or of people using UDT, but the latter is only useful if UDT cooperates. According to UDT, to decide what to do, compare not the possible worlds conditional on “I decide to cooperate/defect”, but conditional on “UDT cooperates/defects”.
Of course CDT can’t be convinced in the moment that deciding to vote for your party changes the expected tallies by any more than one. But even CDT would agree that the CDT party loses against the UDT party, and that it should build UDT rather than CDT into its AI if that AI will be playing Prisoner’s Dilemmas against its copies.
It’s an interesting case from a deontological perspective. If it wasn’t ok to invade his privacy, but he’s dead and his story’s fully publicized, is it now ok to keep on talking about it? Is there a meaningful sense in which we can fail to treat the dead as an end in themselves?
Is pulling the lever after the trolley had passed still a murder?
I think the closer framing is something like: if you’re the 100,000th person to deliberately run your car over a person’s body, are you liable for vehicular manslaughter?
Manslaughter? Probably not—you did not contribute to that person’s death. You are, however, guilty of:
Desecration of the corpse.
Obstructing the work of the sanitation workers (it’s too late for paramedics) that can’t remove the body from the road because of the endless stream of cars running over it.
You probably didn’t count 100k vehicles running over that body. A bystander who stayed there for a couple of days could have, but since you are one of the drivers you probably only witness a few cars running over that person—so as far as you know there is a slim chance they are still alive.
I may be taking the allegory too far here, but I feel these offenses can map quite well. Starting from the last—being able to know that all the damage is done. In Sipple’s case, this is history so it’s easy to know that all the damage was already done. He can’t be outed again. His family will not be harassed again by their community, and will not estrange him again. His life will not be ruined again, and he will not die again.
Up next—interfering with the efforts to make things better. Does this really happen here? I don’t think so. On the contrary—talking about this, establishing that this is wrong, can help prevent this from happening to other people. And it’s better to talk about cases from the past, where all the damage is already done, than about current cases that still have damage potential.
This leaves us with the final issue—respecting the dead. Which is probably the main issue, so I could have just skipped the other two points, but I took the trouble of writing them so I might as well impose on you the trouble of reading them. Are we really disrespecting Oliver Sipple by talking about him?
Sipple did not want to be outed because he did not want his family to know and he did not want his employer to know. They all know, but even after they were originally told about this, Sipple probably did want want them to be constantly reminded and harassed about this. But… are discussions about this bringing reporters to his surviving family members? I doubt it. This issue is no longer about his sexual orientation, it’s about the journalism ethics now, and there is no point in interviewing his parents and asking them what they think about their son being gay.
Given all that—I don’t think talking about this case should be considered as a violation of Sipple’s wish to not be outed.
There won’t be any more harm done to Oliver by spreading the story, so, at least from utilitarian-ish point of view, the case is clear.
Right, but that’s why it’s interesting.
From a utilitarian perspective, is Oliver’s outing morally redeemed by using him as an example in journalistic ethics classes? Or would it be, if it helped reduce the incidence of future privacy invasions?
If so, then Harvey Milk is a hero in this story. He not only made Oliver into a gay hero, probably saving more than one life in the long run by advancing the cause of gay rights, but he also gave us a great example of the consequences of privacy invasion that we can use in ethics classes. A two-fer!
That doesn’t feel right.
Maybe the way to make sense of it is this:
Although we can find redeeming value in continuing to talk about the story of Oliver Sipple, there’s a certain tone we must take. It needs to be somewhat ashamed, noting the paradox, condemning the privacy invasion even as we seem to perpetuate it, insisting that we try to treat Sipple as an end in himself even in death. In this way, the ethics lesson maintains its force.
Consequentialism, then, dictates that we use a “deontological” framing.
And that’s what I think is interesting: deontology not as an ethical system but as a storytelling technique that’s necessary for consequentialism to work with the human psyche.
There are people that have preferences about the world after they die, they can acausally increase their chances by respecting the wishes of the dead.
How does this acausally increase their chances? I still don’t get TDT it just seems obvious that the only way this would increase their chances was it if somehow effected someone else through culture or something.
By CDT, deciding (to respect the wishes of the dead) intervenes on the universe by flipping a switch in your brain. By another decision theory, it intervenes on mindspace by flipping a switch in the neighborhood of your mind, which takes effect in the present, past and future.
It seems to me there was some causal factor that caused the switch to flip to me (maybe it was reading about UDT or something), and I should be seeking to cause that same causal factor in other similar brains.
Indeed you can use causal pathways like culture to increase the chances of people deontologically deciding to cooperate, or of people using UDT, but the latter is only useful if UDT cooperates. According to UDT, to decide what to do, compare not the possible worlds conditional on “I decide to cooperate/defect”, but conditional on “UDT cooperates/defects”.
Of course CDT can’t be convinced in the moment that deciding to vote for your party changes the expected tallies by any more than one. But even CDT would agree that the CDT party loses against the UDT party, and that it should build UDT rather than CDT into its AI if that AI will be playing Prisoner’s Dilemmas against its copies.
Ahh that makes sense.