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Date: Tue, 7 Nov 2006 16:08:33 -0500
To: improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: Dave Morris <thecat &AElig umich.edu>
Subject: Re: social welfare + fairness + knowledge
Status: O

I put forward the somewhat controversial point that sometimes 
absolutely horrible things are in fact the ethically correct course of 
action. We live in a universe that doesn't care whether we live or die, 
people suffer regularly as a part of life. Furthermore we live as a 
species filled with people who are willing to commit atrocities, 
because they are mentally broken either by genetics or what has been 
done to them. This is reality. That one can posit a situation that 
requires one to do horrible things in response to this reality does not 
mean that ones ethical code is flawed. It means that our universe is 
flawed (if bad things happening were the definition of flaw).

In the extreme and unrealistic ticking bomb situation- where a) I know 
the person I have captive knows the answer I need, b) I know that the 
threat is real (but for some reason don't know where the bomb is?), and 
c) I know that torture is the only solution to get the information- of 
course I'd torture the person for information, you'd be a fool not to. 
But then in the real world, a, b, and c, are never true. And in the 
real world, I would happily sign a universal ban on torture ever even 
though I admit to my first assertion. In reality people won't wait to 
see that a, b, and c, are true, they'll use it more and more often for 
more and more trivial reasons and many many people will suffer all the 
time, which is a greater cost than the very low probability event of 
losing New York city because you failed to torture the right person at 
the right time. Even knowing that we live in a world where our 
government can take almost anyone, almost any time, and disappear them 
to Guantanimo Bay, and do whatever they want to them there without 
oversight or regulation, is a huge cost to me. It really bothers me. 
And it didn't even happy to me or anyone I know. That's the realistic 
consideration of any utilitarian argument about torture. The realistic 
costs in the realistic situations.     Maybe the law should be that 
torturing a subject for information is a capital offense- and this will 
be universally applied, regardless of outcome. In which case, I would 
still commit to my assertion at the beginning of this paragraph- any 
rational ethical person would.

So no, utilitarianism is not broken because it can be used to justify 
torture.

And I think Erik put it well- fairness etc. are adequately captured by 
utilitarianism as well, since it's important to people, therefore it 
provides them with utility.

The value of this argument is that we accept that the basis for 
argument about such topics should be the overall utility of the 
decision. So when we decide whether or not to pass a law banning 
torture, or requiring hotels to put mints on pillows, we can talk about 
the utility it will provide, and remove, to how many, and to whom, and 
thus come to agreement on the best course of action.  Far more useful 
than talking about what feels right or what god says we should do or 
most other decision making processes I've seen.

Just my thoughts, you can tell I've gone over this argument more than 
once before. :-)

Dave

On Nov 6, 2006, at 5:53 PM, Daniel Reeves wrote:

> That's another tricky thing about maximizing social welfare 
> (synonymous with maximizing utility, as Dave notes) -- deciding how to 
> include nonhumans in the equation.  You have to include animals' 
> utility in some way otherwise it would be ethically A-OK to torture 
> animals for fun.
> Or maybe it suffices that there are *people* who get disutility from 
> the torture of animals.  For example, if we had a yootles auction to 
> decide whether to kill a puppy, we wouldn't need the puppy's 
> participation to decide not to do it.
>
> That puts me tentatively in the "animals don't count" camp.  Anyone 
> else?
>
> (I disagree with Dave that 2 & 3 are subsets of 1.  Splitting utility 
> equally is often more important than maximizing the sum of utilities.  
> For example, it's not OK to steal money from someone who doesn't need 
> it as much as you.)
>
> (And knowledge, truth, and scientific understanding are intrinsically 
> valuable, beyond their applicability to improving social welfare.  But 
> perhaps my own strong feelings about this undermine my own point.  In 
> other words, maybe we don't need to include it for the same reason we 
> don't need to include animal welfare.)
>
>
> --- \/   FROM Dave Morris AT 06.10.30 11:25 (Oct 30)   \/ ---
>
>> I think that it's important to note that 2 & 3, while distinct and 
>> interesting components of the discussion, are in fact subsets of 1, 
>> which could be rephrased in it's general sense as "maximization of 
>> utility" if you don't want to treat only the defined subset of 
>> "human". :-)
>>
>> On Oct 28, 2006, at 1:30 PM, Daniel Reeves wrote:
>>
>>> Based on off-line discussion with my grandfather, I propose that 
>>> there are only three fundamental principles worth fighting for in 
>>> human society:
>>>   1. Social Welfare
>>>   2. Fairness
>>>   3. The Search for Knowledge
>>> (This started with an argument about the parental retort "who says 
>>> life's supposed to be fair?")
>>>
>>>   (1 and 2 are distinct because if we're all equally miserable, 
>>> that's
>>>   fair but not welfare maximizing.  Likewise, of the methods for 
>>> dividing
>>>   a cake, for example, the method of "I get all of it" maximizes the 
>>> sum
>>>   of our utilities, but we nonetheless prefer splitting it in half.)
>>> Is there a number 4?
>>> -- 
>>> http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel 
>>> Reeves"
>> David P. Morris, PhD
>> Senior Engineer, ElectroDynamic Applications, Inc.
>> morris &AElig edapplications.com, (734) 786-1434, fax: (734) 786-3235
>>
>>
>
> -- 
> http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/dreeves  - -  search://"Daniel Reeves"
>
> "Lassie looked brilliant in part because the farm family she lived
> with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always
> getting pinned under the tractor and Lassie was always rushing
> back to the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd whimper and
> tug at their sleeves, and they'd always waste precious minutes
> saying things: "Do you think something's wrong? Do you think she
> wants us to follow her? What is it, girl?", etc., as if this had
> never happened before, instead of every week. What with all the
> time these people spent pinned under the tractor, I don't see how
> they managed to grow any crops whatsoever. They probably got by on
> federal crop supports, which Lassie filed the applications for."
>   -- Dave Barry
David P. Morris, PhD
Senior Engineer, ElectroDynamic Applications, Inc.
morris &AElig edapplications.com, (734) 786-1434, fax: (734) 786-3235