I'm not sure I agree with this. Complaining about pedantic objections to hypothetical is a sort of "double standard"
Remember, a hypothetical takes an abstract idea and lets us reason "by proxy" in a more familiar context. In this case, it's hard to talk about moral decisions in the abstract, so we concoct situations that best illustrate our point.
So when someone responds, even if you think it's stupid and unproductive, you need to remember that their general response is also "coded" in the same way your general argument is (through the hypothetical). They are also trying to illustrate something.
For example,
- the organ transplant guy was arguing how the uncertainty is so large that getting involved would be unjustifiable. Ethical dilemmas usually trivialize uncertainty, so it's a good objection.
-The guy who suggests derailing the trolley by pulling switch halfway is arguing that the moral thing is to spend your time finding a third option, even if it ends up being futile. If "the point" is to "see what someone thinks is the right choice in a difficult ethical dilemma", what more do you want?
- The kid is really asking: "why do the exact probabilities not matter?" There's a deep, interesting misunderstanding about probability theory under the hood here, but you'll only notice when you realize that the kid (the interlocutor) is thinking about this for the first time. They cant switch between abstract and concrete as quickly, so they won't articulate it as such.
I know its ironic that I'm pedantically picking apart your hypotheticals, but Im just trying to show how there is a lot of info in "stupid" answers. We should put in the work to generalize their responses in the same way we expect them to generalize our hypothetical.
I think Huemer just meant "be humble and listen before you object the premise", which goes both ways I guess. -A
I think I agree abstractly, but disagree on practical grounds in certain situations. Consider someone who presents me with the violinist/abortion philosophy thing. In almost any case I run into that, someone is not just blandly trying to get me thinking - they are trying to win an argument about abortion. The guy who wrote the thought problem might not be that way, but let's say almost everyone else is using that as a tool to promote a view or "win" during a disagreement.
I contrast that against something like the trolley problem, that really IS generally about just making people think, discussion, and learning.
If it's the latter, I agree with you on most points as far as I've thought it through. But in the case of the former, scrutiny of the premise starts to make a lot more sense and be a lot more necessary, because it's now part of a greater argument that overflows into real-world policy and decisions. So I'll start to ask why we chose an adult and not a baby (considering that in the real world we weight the protection of children heavier than we do for adults in almost every case) or why the person who needs to be strapped to the violinist is presented as completely unassociated from them, etc.
We might still come to the same conclusions in the long run, but I think there is a "I can't let you score points for free" incentive in some cases here.
I'm not sure I agree with this. Complaining about pedantic objections to hypothetical is a sort of "double standard"
Remember, a hypothetical takes an abstract idea and lets us reason "by proxy" in a more familiar context. In this case, it's hard to talk about moral decisions in the abstract, so we concoct situations that best illustrate our point.
So when someone responds, even if you think it's stupid and unproductive, you need to remember that their general response is also "coded" in the same way your general argument is (through the hypothetical). They are also trying to illustrate something.
For example,
- the organ transplant guy was arguing how the uncertainty is so large that getting involved would be unjustifiable. Ethical dilemmas usually trivialize uncertainty, so it's a good objection.
-The guy who suggests derailing the trolley by pulling switch halfway is arguing that the moral thing is to spend your time finding a third option, even if it ends up being futile. If "the point" is to "see what someone thinks is the right choice in a difficult ethical dilemma", what more do you want?
- The kid is really asking: "why do the exact probabilities not matter?" There's a deep, interesting misunderstanding about probability theory under the hood here, but you'll only notice when you realize that the kid (the interlocutor) is thinking about this for the first time. They cant switch between abstract and concrete as quickly, so they won't articulate it as such.
I know its ironic that I'm pedantically picking apart your hypotheticals, but Im just trying to show how there is a lot of info in "stupid" answers. We should put in the work to generalize their responses in the same way we expect them to generalize our hypothetical.
I think Huemer just meant "be humble and listen before you object the premise", which goes both ways I guess. -A
I think I agree abstractly, but disagree on practical grounds in certain situations. Consider someone who presents me with the violinist/abortion philosophy thing. In almost any case I run into that, someone is not just blandly trying to get me thinking - they are trying to win an argument about abortion. The guy who wrote the thought problem might not be that way, but let's say almost everyone else is using that as a tool to promote a view or "win" during a disagreement.
I contrast that against something like the trolley problem, that really IS generally about just making people think, discussion, and learning.
If it's the latter, I agree with you on most points as far as I've thought it through. But in the case of the former, scrutiny of the premise starts to make a lot more sense and be a lot more necessary, because it's now part of a greater argument that overflows into real-world policy and decisions. So I'll start to ask why we chose an adult and not a baby (considering that in the real world we weight the protection of children heavier than we do for adults in almost every case) or why the person who needs to be strapped to the violinist is presented as completely unassociated from them, etc.
We might still come to the same conclusions in the long run, but I think there is a "I can't let you score points for free" incentive in some cases here.