Vorkosigan

Alonzo Fyfe had this to say to Pomp about his morality:

Second, it still seems, on your account, that a person may -- and perhaps should -- advance their own interests at the expense of others whenever they encounter a situation where they may do so with impunity. And that, in the real world (as opposed to some hypothetical iterated prisoner's dilemma) these instances are quite common.

Alonzo, what do you mean by "with impunity?" Also, what would happen to a person who consistently behaved in this manner?

Michael

[ April 15, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]</p>

tronvillain

While it is true that people should advance their own interests at the expense of others whenever they encounter a situation where they may do so with impunity, most people's interests include the interests of others to some degree, which makes such situations much more rare. Even if that weren't true, are such instances actually quite common? It's not clear that they are - perhaps Fyfe should provide some examples.

Alonzo Fyfe

Examples? Well, there's the person who took the cash out of my desk drawer at work, as well as the person or persons who took the two laptops. There's the person who took the stereo out of my car. These people all advanced their own interest at my expense with impunity.

(Note: They may have been punished performing a similar act against somebody else -- I do not know. But that only goes to show that they should not have performed the action for which they got caught, not that they should not have performed the action against me.)

These are just cases with which I am personally familiar.

Indeed, it would seem that every crime committed by a rational person has the same moral merit as investing in the stock market. One takes a certain set of assets and takes a calculated risk. Calculating cost, benefit, and risk it looks like a good deal. Yet, certainly, it does not always turn out that way. Sometimes, the investment in a stock turns into a bust. Sometimes, the investment in a crime turns into a bust. To the individual subjectivists, it seems, the two calculations are morally equivalent.

Historically, we can talk about tyrants who succeeded in holding onto their titles until they died a natural death, most slave owners, religious crusaders, and the like.

tronvillain

Well, the two calculations aren't equivalent to the moral subjectivist since they don't value the decisions equally. If someone calculates the cost, benefit, and risk of investing in the stock market and does, I don't really care. If someone calculated the cost, benefit, and risk of crime, I do care (depending on the crime). My point is that for most people the cost-benefit analysis does not comes out on the side of crime.

Vorkosigan

If you want to know what stops people, you could cite acculturation, training, fear of the law, consideration for the welfare of others, empathy with other humans, etc. I note that you complain about the people who stole the money from your drawer, without mentioning the hundreds who passed by who did not. Perhaps it is your point of view, and not this conundrum, that is your real problem. How many people have helped you in the course of a day? Do you remember them?

I cannot understand, basically, what your problem is. You keep coming back to this. Lots of people have given you compelling reasons not to fuck over others when possible, but you do not seem to want to accept any. Help us out here. Can you clearly articulate your need?

Michael

bd-from-kg

turtotm et al:

It isn’t a question of what stops people, but of whether hurting other people to advance your own interests is moral.

Tronvillain said, almost casually, “While it is true that people should advance their own interests at the expense of others whenever they encounter a situation where they may do so with impunity...”. This is the kind of thing that brings people like Alonzo and me up short. (And it’s quite obvious, from his comments on many threads, that Pompous Bastard, to whom Alonzo was replying in your original quote, shares this view.)

Let’s see what this statement really means. It means that, if you can safely kill Smith to get his wallet and have no particular reason not to (such as empathy for Smith or his family), you should kill him. That is, it would be wrong not to kill him for his money.

Let’s take this a step further. The notion of “moral obligation” is generally used to refer to a case where an action is strongly indicated from a moral point of view. (For example, many people would say that you should call or visit your mother her birthday, but you have a moral obligation to feed your small child, especially if no one else will do it if you don’t.) Now according to tronvillain and PB, the “should” in “you should kill Smith for his money” is especially strong if he has a lot of money on him, so in this case it would seem to follow that you have a moral obligation to kill Smith for his money.

The fact that this kind of situation rarely arises (i.e., one can rarely act in this way safely), or that most people (one hopes) wouldn’t actually kill Smith in this situation, is irrelevant. Even the fact that most people would strongly condemn such an act on moral grounds is irrelevant. The fact is that tronvillian and PB are saying that the vast majority of people are dead wrong on this point. Not only would it not be wrong to kill Smith for his money, but (if one can do so safely and enough money is involved) one has a moral obligation to do so.

Perhaps this will help you to understand “what our problem is” with this kind of moral philosophy. A moral philosophy based on enlightened self-interest might, in most ordinary, everyday situations, agree with “traditional” morality about what one “ought” to do, but at bottom it is founded on a radically different notion of what constitutes a justification for saying that one ought to do something. And this is brought out with stark clarity by the kinds of examples that AF cites. The problem is not that a lot of people have stolen stuff from Alonzo; what really sticks in his craw is the claim by tronvillain and others that (if they got away with it) they were right to do so; that they ought to have stolen the stuff.

It seems to me that this is just an abuse of language. I can define a “diamond” as a brown overcoat, and then say truthfully that I have a large diamond in my closet. But since my usage of this word would differ radically from the common usage, I would merely be confusing and misleading people by saying this. In the same way, if tronvillain (for example) chooses to use “ought” in such a way that it is true that one ought to kill Smith for his money, he is free to do so. But he will then merely be misleading and confusing people whenever he uses the word “ought”.

tronvillain

bd-from-kg:

It is you who are abusing language, not I.

An example: Smith wants a bag of chips, is standing next to a vending machine that contains bags of chips, and has a spare dollar in his pocket. Assuming everything else is equal, what should Smith do? Obviously he should put the dollar in the vending machine and take a bag of chips. Any other action would be irrational.

As you have specified it, the situation in which killing Smith for his money is exactly the same as Smith purchasing chips. If the person described did not kill Smith for his money, their actions would be completely without rational explanation.

The reason there is a conflict between our view and that of "traditional" morality is that traditional morality assumes conventional interests. Saying that whoever stole Alonzo's stuff ought not to have stolen it or were wrong to steal it can be interpreted two ways: such theft bothers you or if their interests had been conventional ideal interests they would have been irrational in stealing it.

As far as I can tell, my use of "ought" is more accurate than yours.

Pomp

bd-from-kg,

A few quick points before I go off to do other things, including address your post to me in the other thread.

if you can safely kill Smith to get his wallet and have no particular reason not to (such as empathy for Smith or his family), you should kill him. That is, it would be wrong not to kill him for his money.

Not "wrong," as such. It would certainly be irrational not to kill Smith for his money, in the hypothetical situation where it stipulated that you will not get caught, nor will there be any other negative consequences, such as guilt or empathic distress.

Now according to tronvillain and PB, the “should” in “you should kill Smith for his money” is especially strong if he has a lot of money on him, so in this case it would seem to follow that you have a moral obligation to kill Smith for his money.

I can't speak for tron, but I certainly don't hold that anyone ever had a "moral obligation" to do anything. Morality, in my view, is not an overarching set of rules that we are always obligated to obey. I hold that morality is a system of thought that we use to determine how best to adjust our behavior to better cooperate with other moral agents. If such cooperation does not serve our purposes in some situation, then we are not obligated to act in a cooperative manner, any more than we are obligated to obey the rules of chess when we are not playing chess.

The problem is not that a lot of people have stolen stuff from Alonzo; what really sticks in his craw is the claim by tronvillain and others that (if they got away with it) they were right to do so; that they ought to have stolen the stuff.

Well, I certainly sympathize with Alonzo, but my compassion for him is not going to alter my reasoned conclusions regarding morality. I have had things stolen from me on several occasions. I'm upset about these things, but not to the degree that it alters my judgements. I would certainly prefer that I had not been the victim of theft, but I see no sense in saying that the thieves should not have benefitted at my expense.

It seems to me that this is just an abuse of language.

We've been over the "abuse of language" issue in the past. The fact that most people, when they say "A ought to do X" believe that there is some overarching set of moral principles that are true in and of themselves and that oblige A to do X does not mean that such a thing is true. In the utter lack of evidence that such a thing is true, I have to conclude that it is false.

We could certainly conclude that what we call "morality" is a joke and go on to think about cooperative behavior using some other invented term. Or, alternately, we can attempt to salvage some meaning from moral language, explore the reasons that we use it, and ground it in something that is demonstrably true, such as self-interest. If you prefer to call the latter "abuse of language" then you're welcome to do so, but I find that, in itself, an abuse of language.

99Percent

Pompous Bastard: Not "wrong," as such. It would certainly be irrational not to kill Smith for his money, in the hypothetical situation where it stipulated that you will not get caught, nor will there be any other negative consequences, such as guilt or empathic distress.

The fact is it is irrational to kill Smith for his money regardless of any other negative consequences such as guilt or going to jail. Why? Because in order to make a rational decision you take into consideration all the possible truth you have at your disposal. Irrationality would involve going against the truth or making decisions based on intentional falsehood. So in order to make the correct rational decision you have to be open to the most amount of truth and knowledge possible. By killing Smith you intentionally shut off any possible knowledge or reason that Smith might provide you now or in the future (and any human mind has the potential for an astonishing amount of knowledge stored).

So if Smith holds the key to cure of AIDS, or knows that in fact your wife is board a plane that contains a terrorist bomb, the result of your action will directly affect you negatively.

In any rational decision you of course cannot know everything but you can certainly have the most available truth in order to make the most accurate decision. By killing a moral agent you intentionally shut off a source of knowledge, of which you can never know for certain what it is. This is why it is irrational and therefore immoral to intentionally kill any human being.

Lets see how this line of reasoning goes with tronvillain's example:

An example: Smith wants a bag of chips, is standing next to a vending machine that contains bags of chips, and has a spare dollar in his pocket. Assuming everything else is equal, what should Smith do? Obviously he should put the dollar in the vending machine and take a bag of chips. Any other action would be irrational.

As you have specified it, the situation in which killing Smith for his money is exactly the same as Smith purchasing chips. If the person described did not kill Smith for his money, their actions would be completely without rational explanation.

Clearly it is not rationally the same for Smith to purchase a bag of chips from a vending machine and to kill for his money. Because a vending machine or chips aren't moral agents with a source of knowledge by themselves.

Pomp

99Percent,

By killing Smith you intentionally shut off any possible knowledge or reason that Smith might provide you now or in the future (and any human mind has the potential for an astonishing amount of knowledge stored).

In implying that it would be irrational to kill Smith for this reason, you are making the unfounded assumption that a) Smith has now, or will have in the future, some knowledge that I value at least as much as his money and b) Smith is, or will be, willing to share that knowledge with me. The possibility that both of these assumptions are true certainly counts as a factor to be considered when determining whether or not to kill Smith, but it is not decisive in and of itself. As the hypothetical stipulated that there would be no negative consequences entailed in killing Smith, we can assume that either a or b is false in this case, and proceed to kill Smith.

By killing a moral agent you intentionally shut off a source of knowledge, of which you can never know for certain what it is. This is why it is irrational and therefore immoral to intentionally kill any human being.

Presumably, you do not mean this to apply in all cases. Do you hold that it is rational to kill in self-defense? If so, you admit that there are values, one's own life in this case, that can take precedence over potential sources of information.

I'm digressing a bit here, but you, like bd-from-kg in other threads, seem to operate under the assumption that a rational agent always wants as much information as possible. I maintain that this is simply not true. One of the key problems in AI research is developing algorithms to filter out useless information. One of the defining characteristics of intelligence seems to be the selective destruction of extraneous information, as an agent with a limitless amount of information to consider never reaches a decision. Ideally, an agent will have just enough information to reach an informed decision, no more and no less.