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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   4441 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 5, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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I'm not sure if a similar thought experiment exists but I suppose I'll lay it out. A lady was letting out some blood-curdling screams outside my apartment as if she was getting stabbed or something. I looked out my window, but couldn't identify the source of the screams, the screams stopped and I went back to work. I would have probably gone down and tried to intervene or do whatever if she was within my line of sight, but she was out of sight, out of mind. (I probably wouldn't have gone if the screams were coming from a mile away because I live in a city and others would get there before me anyways, yes I am a bystander.)

So imagine this ;

You are informed that a stranger is about to get murdered in their home. The murderer will absentmindedly drop his pistol before entering the residence of his victim, which you can use to save the potential victim's life by shooting the murderer. There is absolutely no way you can call the cops because you have been informed about this event that is yet to perspire by a demon who would kill your entire bloodline if you choose any but two of the options. Either intervene by yourself or not. The demon won't harm you for choosing not to do anything. Given we are dealing with a demon who can see the future, he will inform you with more than enough time to prepare and travel to the potential crime scene and he will make sure you don't mistakenly harm the victim. No one but you can save the victim. You and only you are informed about this. The demon will also make sure you won't be trialed as guilty or that this has any reputational effect on your life at all. You won't get any form of recognition of heroism or compensation. The demon knows that you will lose both time and money but that's not his problem. The demon will ensure you can't smartass your way around the spirit of the thought experiment.

How far would the murder have to take place before you chose to not do anything about it?

I think the thought experiment makes the abstract notion of paying charity and the resultant Newtonian ethics more quantifiable. But I am sure there are quite a few logical and inferential holes in my formulation of the experiment.

he will inform you with more than enough time to prepare and travel to the potential crime scene and he will make sure you don't mistakenly harm the victim. The demon will also make sure you won't be trialed as guilty or that this has any reputational effect on your life at all.

With these guarantees, I'd go anywhere in the world. I would even spend thousands of dollars and up to several months of time if not more. Explicitly saving someone's life, directly, with perfect knowledge and guarantees, and getting to shoot a murderer with no legal repercussions or safety issues, would be a huge self confidence booster. You can supposedly save a life for $X by donating to charity at whatnot, but it doesn't have the same psychological value as directly saving someone's life, and doesn't have the guarantees that whoever is computing that estimate and spending the money is actually doing it properly and isn't accidentally subsidizing dictators or something.

I'd go anywhere in the world if it's a one off. If the demon shows up every day I'd probably give up pretty soon.

The inconvenience itself might be too much, I for example can't skip more than 1-2 days of work without paying a huge price.

The demon will ensure you can't smartass your way around the spirit of the thought experiment.

I'm not sure how well this will work, actually. "I have private evidence that I, personally, have to murder someone to prevent something bad from happening, and that I cannot tell anyone about this or even worse things will happen" is how I would expect the onset of schizophrenia to feel. Given that I was convinced that the above was true and did not conclude that my mind had broken, I think it would matter very much exactly how I was convinced, because I really can't imagine a situation that looks like "a demon just threatened to kill my entire family and now is trying to bait me into killing someone, promising that nothing will go wrong" where my mind is fully intact and yet the situation looks like "oh I better go kill the future murderer then" and not "holy shit demons exist".

In the case where there's a single innocent person that I am certain can only be saved by me personally killing the future murderer, and I am somehow confident that there will be no unexpected repercussions, and I am somehow still confident in my own sanity, I don't think I pull the trigger. But I can't really be sure, because being that certain of the future effects of my actions is not something I've ever actually experienced, which is why I lean deontologist rather than consequentialist.

I am assuming I won't have to explain to anyone why I'm taking a mysterious trip I cannot tell anyone about, won't have to reschedule meetings and appointments, won't have to take holidays, hire a babysitter etc.? Because knowing myself, those are the kind of inconveniences that would very quickly push me over the edge. I am also ignoring the potential value of a holiday.

If it's purely about the monetary cost and inconvenience of travel, I would say that they are utterly dwarfed by a different type of cost: the guilty conscious of having killed someone and the possible trauma I might develop. To me, those are much more serious considerations.

If we are saying that the demon is absolutely trustworthy, the scale is very slightly in favour of intervening because I regard it as my duty to do so, but trivial inconveniences not directly related to travel will very rapidly provide me with an excuse not to.

I think personal inconveniences not being covered should be a part of the thought experiment. E.g what is a few days of missed work for saving a life? But if it puts your career on the line then it might not be worth saving a stranger's life. Maybe if the demon has you covered on those fronts, the experiment would be less noisy?

Maybe if the demon has you covered on those fronts, the experiment would be less noisy?

Yes, i think there are just way too many variables here to get at what you find interesting: inconvenience vs. duty to help. By the way, AFAIK Singer has a very similar example about a kid drowning in a pond. I'd have to look it up.

There are parts of the world I would not travel to for this due to personal risk, aversion to spending time in poverty-stricken areas, and discounted value of lives in those areas. Aside from that, I would certainly rescue the person across the bulk of places that I find reasonably accessible. If it happens to be somewhere like Korea or Germany that's pretty interesting anyway, I'll make a vacation out of it.

I don't think this moves the needle for my positions regarding charity because the demon is capable of providing a level of certainty that I find lacking in charitable contributions. I continue to maintain that I have no ethical obligation to charity beyond the enormous tax burden that I already meet - if a web of governments can't solve the problems with half of my money, I think they're probably not legible enough and solvable enough for me to throw even more money at. I'm happy to help out with personal labor on local projects where I can see the results though.

In your hypothetical scenario, I shoot and kill a home invading murderer with no repercussions? I would happily do this anywhere in my country, and probably abroad.

Given the extremely low likelihood of an actual murder occurring in your IRL situation where I live, I probably would have done the same as you.

How long of a flight are you willing to take? Im assuming money is no issue?

Hmm. A few days seems about right, maybe up to a few weeks. Money isn't an issue so long as this isn't a regular thing. This is assuming that I absolutely trust the demon is telling the truth. Even a little bit of uncertainty that I'm killing a murderer and saving someone's life by doing this changes my intuition.

I'd do nothing just on the principle that demons setting you up to do something are probably bad news. But in your screaming scenario I'd probably at least yell "are you ok out there?" and note the time in case the police want to know.

I already covered that edge case. "The demon won't harm you for choosing either".

As for the woman, I couldn't discern which direction the sound was coming from so yelling that out from a highrise window wouldn't have done much, I would have had to go down to meaningfully do anything.

Do you have foxes? Because some of their calls sound like someone is getting murdered. Really surprised me the first time I heard them.

I say don't shoot, it's a demon, he's probably lying. Why can you unload the gun after it's dropped?

No foxes or any wildlife would make those noises. I am extremely confident it was a woman, probably not getting stabbed but getting beaten up or mugged or just going insane (there have been more of those lately, crazy times so don't blame them).

The murderer can grab a kitchen knife and stab the victim to death. Or bash their head into a bedframe as many times as it takes. The demon doesn't lie.

I invite you to give the though experiment a genuine try or just find any holes in it.

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