Certainly, people in our immediate community are more valuable than people we have never met in other continents.
On a personal level, of course. But morally and ethically, and especially if you are looking for universal ethical values, this is most definitely not the case.
I am rather surprised that no one is questioning the unspoken presupposition that all human lives are of equal value.
That presupposition is an unjustified bias, but I feel a practical one. We’ve seen in the past what happens when human lives were openly valued at different levels, and the consequences were unpleasant, to say the least. Also seeing as trying to calculate “the value of a human life” is something stupendously open to bias, I feel that there are practical and anti-bias reasons to accept the nul hypothesis:
All human lives should be generally considered to be equal. Exceptions to the rule should be justified only in particular cases, and should always be treated as exceptions, never as another rule.
Certainly, people in our immediate community are more valuable than people we have never met in other continents.
On a personal level, of course. But morally and ethically, and especially if you are looking for universal ethical values, this is most definitely not the case.
I’m not sure it makes for bad universal ethics. “Every man for himself, if he is able” is a very sturdy sentiment, not prone to abuse. Similarly, every individual, family, social circle, city, state, nation, is responsible first for their own well-being, and only then for that of others. Certainly, you could do more overall good by helping those whose needs are most cost effective, or more concentrated good by helping those whose needs are most severe—but that is not an evolutionary stable strategy. Not that I’m a big fan of evolution, especially when it comes to ethics, but let me put it this way—it is very rare to see someone who works overtime so that they can donate money to save strangers.
If you’re trying to figure out a universal code of ethics, it would probably help if lots of people, or at least yourself, are willing to follow it. If not, it might still have some use if people shift their morality at least a little toward the optimum, and a lot of value if it can be implemented in an AI. But for now, it would be more useful to have a decently good but popular code of ethics, and that probably means valuing “our own” more than “others”.
Thought experiment: what’s the social status of someone who follows a benefit for community member fund raising drive, reminding people how many lives in Africa could be saved with that same money?
Certainly, people in our immediate community are more valuable than people we have never met in other continents.
On a personal level, of course. But morally and ethically, and especially if you are looking for universal ethical values, this is most definitely not the case.
I am rather surprised that no one is questioning the unspoken presupposition that all human lives are of equal value.
That presupposition is an unjustified bias, but I feel a practical one. We’ve seen in the past what happens when human lives were openly valued at different levels, and the consequences were unpleasant, to say the least. Also seeing as trying to calculate “the value of a human life” is something stupendously open to bias, I feel that there are practical and anti-bias reasons to accept the nul hypothesis:
I’m not sure it makes for bad universal ethics. “Every man for himself, if he is able” is a very sturdy sentiment, not prone to abuse. Similarly, every individual, family, social circle, city, state, nation, is responsible first for their own well-being, and only then for that of others. Certainly, you could do more overall good by helping those whose needs are most cost effective, or more concentrated good by helping those whose needs are most severe—but that is not an evolutionary stable strategy. Not that I’m a big fan of evolution, especially when it comes to ethics, but let me put it this way—it is very rare to see someone who works overtime so that they can donate money to save strangers.
If you’re trying to figure out a universal code of ethics, it would probably help if lots of people, or at least yourself, are willing to follow it. If not, it might still have some use if people shift their morality at least a little toward the optimum, and a lot of value if it can be implemented in an AI. But for now, it would be more useful to have a decently good but popular code of ethics, and that probably means valuing “our own” more than “others”.
Thought experiment: what’s the social status of someone who follows a benefit for community member fund raising drive, reminding people how many lives in Africa could be saved with that same money?