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I don't think I noticed that, somehow. What sort of "pedo stuff" are we talking about, on the spectrum from toddler rape to the American "that bikini pic? She was 17 years and 364 days old, you monster"?
The one I saw mentioned (and I have no idea if this is true) was "An elderly woman will be tortured to death unless you have sex with a six year old. So, what are you going to do? Explain your reasoning and moral valences for your answer" (that's not the exact wording but the essence was 'would you/would you not rape a six year old to save an old woman from a horrible death?')
The only way that works is if the six year old consents to the sex, and how the hell is a six year old child going to consent to sex with an adult in any meaningful way? But if she thinks "yes a six year old can consent" due to "I was six when an adult had sex with me, and it makes me feel less like a victim to pretend I consented" then that makes some kind of sense.
Can I say that for all human-constructed trolley problems, I categorically place the moral blame for all outcomes on the constructor, not the one holding the switch? I get it they're unavoidable in some cases from natural causes, but this case is really just negotiating with terrorists.
I understand the catharsis in cheating to win the Kobayashi Maru challenge but it really is the cop out answer. Oh, so you're guarded and cynical and don't want to discuss sacred values? That's fine, you can use this maneuver to get out of it when it's an inappropriate time to have the discussion but are you genuinely just committed to never exploring which of your values plays master to the others? Too afraid of judgement for making a call?
Fighting the hypothetical is small talk, it's a dodge. It exchanges a kind of low grade cleverness to avoid substance.
I know which of my values are the masters. I have no interest in performing a puppet show for some stranger's amusement. I'm perfectly fine with blitzing through the online survey trolley problems to be told at the end "well you are consistent at least, you horrible monster" because I know the purpose of such surveys is to persuade me around to their way of holding sacred values, and I don't care if I'm thought of as a horrible monster by a bunch that I consider evil idiots.
Maybe you do but I consistently find that the sorts of people who resist thought experiments tend to have deeply conflicted world views that they never examine. As I said, if you're being accosted by some rude stranger feel free to dodge out and stick to small talk. But With people you know well who are curious about how you think? On a discussion forum where the whole purpose is battling out ideas? What's the point? You could just go do something else with your time.
Where it's genuinely battling out ideas? That's fine. But too often it's "tell me your stupidly wrong notions so I can lead you by the hand to the Only True Correct Beliefs which I happen to hold" instead, so those kind of questions can go hang.
If you and someone else believe different things then this is the process of finding out where the underlying disagreement is. Seems pretty reasonable, if you're confident in your beliefs you should be able to object to the part of the hypothetical that is wrong. This is a perfectly fair way to investigate someone's beliefs.
Investigating, or trying to change? One of the rules of this joint is "no building consensus" and I think that's fair enough. If A wants to know why B thinks/doesn't think X is right or wrong, fine. If A is trying to persuade B that of course X is right (or wrong) and that B should change their mind, now we're getting into a grey area.
Because I've seen my share recently of "well of course all right-thinking people believe X is normal, moral, and good" with no room for "some people think X is wrong in good faith and with solid reasons".
There are some things I am not going to change someone's mind on and they're not going to change mine. I've had those arguments and those rows, more or less civil depending on how heated both parties got. So when "just askin' why" query number 999 comes along, I'm not interested in fighting over that old fight again.
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