Stem Cells, Iraqi Children, Dogfighting

[UpstateMatt]

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I'm not sure I follow this entire thread / Justin's line of discussion - are we simply talking about the merits of pure utilitarianism here?

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No. Whatever criterion you use, if there is no set of weights and balances to measure utility, then your set of criterion is logically indefensible.

I am not 100% utilitarian, although I'm pretty close. But what I'm talking about is any form of reasonable logic should lead someone to being at least 1% utilitarian.

If you wouldn't shoot an innocent person in the foot to save a billion lives from severe suffering and ultimately death, then you have some serious problems, especially if you think the Christian God is on your side.

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I don't disagree, in principle. Obviously, there are utilitarian and communitarian trade-offs that are so small and do so much good that it becomes ridiculous to argue against them.

However, this thread is using the extreme hypothetical to prove a general principle. You seem to be now arguing that there is a difference between the extreme hypothetical and the day-to-day implications. We can't draw the utilitarian line - if 1% is beyond-questionable reasonable, then 2% is hard to argue against, no? But at the same time, killing 9,999 innocent people to save 10,000 others is equally beyond-question unreasonable. If the thought-provoking part of this is "where is the line," then there is no answer.

But if it's not about the line, and it's not about the extreme example proving a general, universal priniciple, then i'm still confused.

And i don't mean any of this in a harsh way - i'm very interested in such questions, and i'm trying to work out the value of using extreme examples in such discussions.

matt