a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by artis
artis  ·  3382 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Philosophy experiment: Should You Kill the Fat Man?

About as useful as the ticking bomb scenario. When you have to take things that you can't possibly know for sure as given you can't deliver a meaningful answer.





briandmyers  ·  3382 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Exactly so. For me, this became absurd as soon as we were required to accept as FACT that torture had a 75% success rate.

circuit  ·  3381 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I felt the same way. Analogy:

"If you won a billion dollars in the lottery, would you ever play the lottery again?"

"No, I'm rich."

"But what if you had a 99% chance of winning again in one try, are you sure you don't want to reconsider your blanket statement?"

"Why didn't you include the statement I consider to be absurd in the original question?"

"..."