From a utilitarian perspective it doesn’t matter how many people we divide up N * K among, be it ten or some Knuth up-arrow abomination, as long as the resulting suffering can register as suffering.
I agree with this statement 100%. That was the point in my TvCR thought experiment. People who obviously picked T should again pick T. No one except one commentor actually conceded this point.
The fewer slices we use, the more our flawed moral intuitions take notice of them and the more commensurate they look; actually, for small numbers of subjects it starts to look like a choice between letting one person suffer horribly and doing the same to multiple people, at which point the right answer is either trivially obvious or cognate to the trolley problem depending on how we cast it.
Again, I feel as if you are making my argument for me. The problem is as you say obvious to the trolley problem on how we cast it.
You say my experiment is not really the same as Eliezer’s. fine. If doesn’t matter because we could just use your example. If utilitarians do not care for how many people we divide N*K with, then these utilitarians should state that they would indeed allow T to happen no matter what subject matter the K is as long as K is >1
The thing is, thought experiments are supposed to illustrate something. Right now, your proposed thought experiment is illustrating “we have trouble articulating our thoughts about rape” which is (1) obvious and (2) does not need most of the machinery in the thought experiment.
I agree with this statement 100%. That was the point in my TvCR thought experiment. People who obviously picked T should again pick T. No one except one commentor actually conceded this point.
Again, I feel as if you are making my argument for me. The problem is as you say obvious to the trolley problem on how we cast it.
You say my experiment is not really the same as Eliezer’s. fine. If doesn’t matter because we could just use your example. If utilitarians do not care for how many people we divide N*K with, then these utilitarians should state that they would indeed allow T to happen no matter what subject matter the K is as long as K is >1
The thing is, thought experiments are supposed to illustrate something. Right now, your proposed thought experiment is illustrating “we have trouble articulating our thoughts about rape” which is (1) obvious and (2) does not need most of the machinery in the thought experiment.