David Sklansky and the Bible Baby

[m_the0ry]

I hope you guys realize the government has been killing people to increase our happiness (by less than 1% each) for years.

[madnak]

Right, this is why it's politics. To clarify, how much should the government pay to save a life? But it's impossible for that not to become an AC hijack in one way or another.

[OrigamiSensei]

[ QUOTE ]
the question is easier for me to answer if you allow me these options:

a) save william from abortion (i.e. time travel is involved)
b) save random baby


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One other aspect of this choice to consider: for a pro-life adherent preventing an abortion means that not only has a life been saved but also a sin/deliberate wrongful act has been prevented. Assuming the cause of the fire was accidental, the choice of preventing the abortion may become preferable by virtue of one life saved + bad act prevented being greater in value than one saved life only. If the choice is between preventing the abortion and saving a baby from a fire that was deliberately set then the pendulum might well swing back to saving the baby as it has already been born and is already known to have survived the rigors of pre-natal development, birth and the first days of life.

For me as a father I think I'm personally wired to go for the baby every time regardless of the consequences. Not saying it's the logically optimal choice but I guarantee I could live with myself quite easily for behaving that way.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
For me as a father I think I'm personally wired to go for the baby every time regardless of the consequences. Not saying it's the logically optimal choice but I guarantee I could live with myself quite easily for behaving that way.

[/ QUOTE ]

The only solid justification I've heard so far.

[RayBornert]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
the question is easier for me to answer if you allow me these options:

a) save william from abortion (i.e. time travel is involved)
b) save random baby


[/ QUOTE ]
One other aspect of this choice to consider: for a pro-life adherent preventing an abortion means that not only has a life been saved but also a sin/deliberate wrongful act has been prevented. Assuming the cause of the fire was accidental, the choice of preventing the abortion may become preferable by virtue of one life saved + bad act prevented being greater in value than one saved life only. If the choice is between preventing the abortion and saving a baby from a fire that was deliberately set then the pendulum might well swing back to saving the baby as it has already been born and is already known to have survived the rigors of pre-natal development, birth and the first days of life.

For me as a father I think I'm personally wired to go for the baby every time regardless of the consequences. Not saying it's the logically optimal choice but I guarantee I could live with myself quite easily for behaving that way.

[/ QUOTE ]

if you change it to a pure abortion scenario

a) save baby newton from abortion
b) save random baby from abortion

you can still make a fatherly claim; but seeing as the dilema is forced upon you and you're already going to be saddled with the downside of letting one of them die there is no logical reason to choose the random baby unless you want to suppose some outcome where the random baby turns out more significant than baby newton.

if the choice were changed to "the only known hand written manuscripts of williams plays (all of thme)" (obviously priceless) then i'd probably save the random baby (for the same fatherly reasons you've mentioned) and forever regret that amount of wealth i sacrificed.

ray

[bunny]

RRL. There are some non-living things I value more than an individual life but I would err on the side of the baby as otherwise I dont think I'd be able to live with myself.

It also seems to me that non-living things are inherently "more replaceable" than living individuals. (Ie - there will be some literature, even if not shakespeare, I dont think the world would be worse if he'd never written anything, just different).

[madnak]

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RRL. There are some non-living things I value more than an individual life but I would err on the side of the baby as otherwise I dont think I'd be able to live with myself.

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So you're openly irrational about it?

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It also seems to me that non-living things are inherently "more replaceable" than living individuals. (Ie - there will be some literature, even if not shakespeare, I dont think the world would be worse if he'd never written anything, just different).

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh... Well that's a painful thing to hear, because I love Shakespeare. But how can you apply that reasoning to Newton?

[bunny]

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RRL. There are some non-living things I value more than an individual life but I would err on the side of the baby as otherwise I dont think I'd be able to live with myself.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you're openly irrational about it?

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I dont think it's irrational, it's more that I would prefer to make a few mistakes incorrectly saving a baby worth less than the book and never make the opposite error.

Although I cant think of anything I would choose over a baby, I am sure that some example exists.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It also seems to me that non-living things are inherently "more replaceable" than living individuals. (Ie - there will be some literature, even if not shakespeare, I dont think the world would be worse if he'd never written anything, just different).

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh... Well that's a painful thing to hear, because I love Shakespeare. But how can you apply that reasoning to Newton?

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It's easier in newton's case, because his work would eventually have been discovered without him, so I see even less reason to preserve it.

It changes, of course, if you start analysing how many lives are saved by saving the inanimate object (a la revots' influenza cure example) but I assume that's not part of the thought experiment and that you're interested in purely the artistic value?

[madnak]

No, not purely the artistic value, just exclude the life value. So happiness, cultural progression, quality of life, etc are the same. That is, our quality of life would diminish considerably without Newton as we'd lose all of our technology - but it would result in no death, we'd all live to be the same age we would otherwise, etc.

[bunny]

Well that becomes hard to imagine (since I doubt newton's disappearance would have only happiness impact and not an impact on life) - if it was someone else like perhaps Galois or Cantor whose work didnt have much practical impact then I'd still choose the baby - the people amused by their theorems would just be amused by different theorems.

Perhaps a unique device from a UFO allowing communication with alien species in another galaxy or something - then I would rate it as more valuable than the baby I guess.

I think I place the value of life very, very high but not infinite. Certainly I'd choose baby over bible in the original thread, but there are so many outs of the "I trust god to look after everyone" variety that that was never really a difficult choice, in any of its formulations.