Re: Why \"Would You . . .\" Questions are All BS
 

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The relevant data in these sorts of hypothetical cases (at least as they are usually employed in moral philosophy) is what the responder thinks they should appear to other people to be saying they should do in those circumstances, and not whether or not they are correct about what they would in fact do.

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Wouldn't this be true of any poll then?

I can tell you that in the classroom students responding to these sorts of hypotheticals couldn't care less what the other students think they should be saying.

Re: Why \"Would You . . .\" Questions are All BS
 

td,

to be fair we're taught, every day that we're at school, for our entire formative years, to obey the instructions of all authority figures without question. I wish it were ethical to repeat Milgram's experiments now and do them on Summerhill students or similar.

Re: Why \"Would You . . .\" Questions are All BS
 

The yes/no answers are close to meaningless, yes. But discussing how people arrived at the answers and how these answers relate to our collective moral scoring system are far from meaningless.

The burning building example allready cited lead to some interesting debate. Notably about the way we have developed as a species to weigh up the proximity of a person we can help when making decisions about wether to give enough money to save a child's sight, or buy a second cheeseburger that we don't really even want with the money.