Why "Would You . . ." Questions are All BS

[Borodog]

Ok, they're not *totally* BS.

I mean the "Would you run into a burning building to save a baby" type questions. I've asked my share of these. And they can be useful in examining your personal feelings on the pros and cons of various ethical/moral situations.

But anyone who says they definitely would do this or they certainly would do that under such and such circumstances is deluding themselves. You are not in that choice situation. You can say anything you like now in your swivel chair, but it has little bearing on what preferences or value scale you would actually demonstrate in the actual situation.

[ALawPoker]

For sure.

If anything, I'd wager that the people who say they probably wouldn't do anything or that they're not really sure would actually be *more* likely to help than the people who say they'd definitely do it. I feel like we all have some basic condition that will drive us to almost involuntarily act in a certain way in such situations (entirely regardless of whatever intellectual justifications we might come up with on an internet message board). And the people who insist they'd help and that helping is so righteous are probably more likely to just be overcompensating for the fact that they're wusses who would run as soon as the situation got a little scary or whatnot. The people who say "eh, whatever" are still human, and thus still perfectly likely to help. Their response is just more honest to the reality that there's no way to know.

[WiiiiiiMan]

Because people have a hard time putting their mental energy into something productive.

[Bork]

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But anyone who says they definitely would do this or they certainly would do that under such and such circumstances is deluding themselves. You are not in that choice situation. You can say anything you like now in your swivel chair, but it has little bearing on what preferences or value scale you would actually demonstrate in the actual situation.

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What people claim they will do has little bearing, yes. What leads them to say it (past experiences/ current beliefs) could have signifigant bearing on what they would actually do. Though it won't necessarily have any bearing.

There are a lot of hypothetical questions where what people say they will do is a good indicator of what they actually would do. Cases which involve a lot emotions and instinct aren't often among them, because it's impossible to simulate what kind of overpowering fight/flee/empathy feelings will determine what you do. (if you have in fact saved somebody in the past at great risk to yourself then I think then you may well be justified in saying you would save the child.



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And the people who insist they'd help and that helping is so righteous are probably more likely to just be overcompensating for the fact that they're wusses who would run as soon as the situation got a little scary.

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Saying people who claim they would save the kid are less likely to actually do so than those who claim they wouldn't is pretty crazy. People can be and are often wrong about what they actually would do. Some even will lie about what they believe they would do. This doesn't entail or suggest the opposite correlation though. Many of the No's could be wussies too and even be answering 'no' because of that knowledge of themselves. It's odd that you think that the Nos/Probably Nots are more honest and in touch with reality, yet are more likely to save the child which they don't think they would have.

[ALawPoker]

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Saying people who claim they would save the kid are less likely to actually do so than those claim they wouldn't is pretty crazy.

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You seem to be missing my point. My point (in agreement with OP) is that there IS NO WAY TO KNOW what we'd do and that the vast majority of our decision is made on the subconscious level. So pay careful attention to my wording. I'm referring to people who INSIST they would help.

Since I believe there is no way they could know this no matter how resolutely they claim it, all their sureness indicates to me is that they claim an irrational position. If someone said he had an 8 foot vertical leap, I would think "Hmm, humans don't have the capacity for 8 foot vertical leaps, so I wonder why he would say that?" From there, it seems more likely to me that they claim this because they'd actually be less willing to help than because they'd be more willing to help. Agree/disagree/why?

You can argue that my point only applies to their *perception* of themselves. Maybe the person who claims the 8 foot jump wishes for whatever reason that he could jump higher, but is still a great athlete. That's fine. But in general when someone claims an irrational attribute, I think it's (very slightly) more likely that they tend to actually not possess that attribute. I have no problem with "eh, I'd probably consider helping, but who knows" (since that falls within the range of what one could rationally claim).

I'm not really attached to the argument or anything though. It's probably entirely negligible. *If anything* were my key words. All I really meant was that I agreed the claims are empty.

[tame_deuces]

Well, as I read in the specific post about the burning building, alot of posters made the point that they couldn't know but theorized atleast what they believed is right.

The question also illustrates a logical deficiency in our thinking - though it is ofcourse perfectly explainable by taking the 'social sphere' into account et cetera. Personally I find such discussion quite interesting...and the purpose of the question isn't really to figure out who is going to jump into the blaze and who is not, but to debate an ethical question (if you can save one kid by risking your life, why wouldn't you save one where you don't have to risk your life).

[Henry17]

I do agree that the answers to these questions are mostly meaningless. People just answer with either the image of themselves they would like to portray or they answer without much reflection.

That doesn't mean they can't be answered honestly. I have never come across a burning building with a baby inside. But I have been in several situations where I had to put my safety at risk for someone else. From that you can extrapolate to other similar situations.

[Bork]

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Since I believe there is no way they could know this no matter how resolutely they claim it, all their sureness indicates to me is that they claim an irrational position. If someone said he had an 8 foot vertical leap, I would think "Hmm, humans don't have the capacity for 8 foot vertical leaps, so I wonder why he would say that?" From there, it seems more likely to me that they claim this because they'd actually be less willing to help than because they'd be more willing to help. Agree/disagree/why?

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I don't understand why it seems more likely to you. I don't see the relevance of the example either. If humans can't jump eight feet then the person who claims that we will do it has an equal chance of doing it compared with those who claim they won't do it. If 1/100000000000 could through some mutation, I would think the person who claims that he will do it is still more likely to be able to jump 8 feet than those that claim the opposite. To be clear it's not more likely that they are correct in the claim, it is more likely that they would make the jump/ run-into building, etc.

If somebody claims a strong position and unjustifiably (all cases won't be unjustified) believes strongly they will do X in the future. It may not carry much weight in convincing you that their claim is true, but you would certainly expect that they are more likely to do X than those who claim they would not do it.

People sometimes strongly believe that they are good at poker for very weak irrational reasons. Does it follow that the people that claim to be good at poker are less likely to be good than those that say they are not good? This actually is a more interesting and probably irrelevant case because good poker players tend to not want everyone to know how good they are. You could imagine that the good players won't lie to cancel that out.

How about people who say they could withstand water boarding? Ignore the fence sitters. Who do you think is more likely to withstand it, the people who claim they would or the people who claim that they wouldn't. Now the people who claim they wouldn't would be correct at a much higher % and probably overall more rational people, but I don't think they would more likely to withstand it.

If your point is just that the definitely yes people are very likely irrational/mistaken/decieving themselves I agree. If you are claiming that the yes people are more likely making a false claim, again I agree. If you claim that the Nos are more likely to run into a building I am not swayed from thinking that is crazy and false.

[ALawPoker]

EDIT: I've emboldened some of my reply, not to be a tool, but because it was longer than it needed to be and I wanted to make sure the crux was not buried.

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It may not carry much weight in convincing you that their claim is true, but you would certainly expect that they are more likely to do X than those who claim they would not do it.

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I'm not talking about people who firmly say they wouldn't do it. I'm talking about people who say things like "I don't know," "Maybe," "Probably not," "It depends," and "If it seemed right to me at the time."

This is an important distinction, as I would probably think people who say "definitely no" are the least likely of all. (FWIW, I think it's way more possible that someone could be detached from society to a large enough degree to rightfully make that claim, so I'd be more likely to believe him, and up the odds that he indeed wouldn't consider helping. But, I don't think it's possible for one human's empathy to totally blow the average out of the water to the degree where he can reasonably claim he would definitely help based on a very loose hypothetical.)

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People sometimes strongly believe that they are good at poker for very weak irrational reasons. Does it follow that the people that claim to be good at poker are less likely to be good than those that say they are not good?

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No, because "being good at poker" is very possible. So if someone says it, while there is some chance he is just running his mouth and is actually bad at poker (and I'd certainly factor that in), there is also the very reasonable possibility that he is indeed good at poker!

If he told me he had 6 bracelets, and if I knew he didn't possibly have any bracelets, then I would say yes, he's probably more likely to be worse than (all else being equal) someone who says "eh, I'm decent."

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How about people who say they could withstand water boarding?

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I've never water boarded, but I assume my answer is exactly the same as the poker one. If withstanding water boarding is something that is reasonably plausible, then again, the analogy doesn't apply. If someone says they can do it then they probably can. If someone says they can actually walk on water and don't need the board, then I laugh it off and don't interpret his irrational claim in a way that makes me think he's more likely to be a good water boarder.

You seem to think that because it's possible to save a burning baby that it follows that it can be possible to KNOW FOR SURE that you would save the burning baby based on an abstract hypothetical. They are two very different things, and you're missing my major point -- that I think it is impossible to know how you would react. And so, when you claim a definite direction, your claim itself is empty. All that matters to me is why one would make such claim. Is it more likely that he's stated the impossible because he is more likely than the average person to help or because he is less likely? I think it's the latter, but there really is no way to prove it one way or the other beyond "that's just what makes sense to me."

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If your point is just that the definitely yes people are very likely irrational/mistaken/decieving themselves I agree.

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OK... it's more "~100% certainly" than "very likely," which might sound nitty but is actually a critical distinction.

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If you are claiming that the yes people are more likely making a false claim, again I agree.

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OK... again it's that I think the "definitely yes" people are "almost certainly" making an impossible claim.

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If you claim that the Nos are more likely to run into a building I am not swayed from thinking that is crazy and false.

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You say this (and really the entire post) as if I haven't even considered that on a very rudimentary level the claim that people who say they might not do something are actually more likely to do it is an odd position.

But then you've fumbled just about every argument. And actually, I am more sure now than I was when I originally made the claim that I am right.

Your analogies have nothing to do with my claim here (and for that matter, my vertical leap one wasn't perfect either). Really, they're way off. My claim lies on the assumption that most people would react roughly the same, because the decision is one that relies on our most basic of human instincts. Your examples deal with things that we can perceive some humans to be much better at than others, and where a very high percentage of the population doesn't even engage in the activity (so just by talking about it, you can assume that such person is already above average).

The whole point behind what I'm saying is that words are pretty meaningless to how the person would actually react in the baby situation. In poker (while sure, some people lie or are delusional) it's very possible to be sure about what your ability actually is. No one can reasonably be sure of what they would do in ultra high stress hypothetical X. NOTHING you could say to me could convince me that you are terribly more likely or less likely to save the baby. Your subconscious will drive you to one decision or the other, and you have to be in the moment to know which one it will be.

So, if someone does insist that they'd do it, I lend ~0 credence to this statement (not because I immediately dismiss any strong claim that comes at me, but because I consider this a near impossible position). I'll give him some 1/X chance that he actually would 100% help and somehow knows this. So on that front his likelihood goes up. To whatever extent the 1/X doesn't apply, I think it's slightly more likely that his claim indicates he would be less likely to help than someone who is not claiming an irrational position. I think this outweighs the minute 1/X chance that he is 100% to help.

Someone who says "I don't know" or even "I probably wouldn't" is offering what I believe to be the standard, rational, human response, so I am considering this person (since he too is a warm blooded human regardless of how callous he might sound on a message board) to have a "standard" likelihood of going into the building. You seem to think this claim lowers his likelihood, and that's the mistake you're making. I believe this person's likelihood is neither raised nor lowered by his honest response, and I believe the "100% yes" type of response to most likely not be raised or lowered either, but to whatever extent it is anything, I think it is actually lowered.

You seem to be confusing "irrational position" with "strong but perfectly plausible position" in your analogies.

[Nielsio]

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Ok, they're not *totally* BS.

I mean the "Would you run into a burning building to save a baby" type questions. I've asked my share of these. And they can be useful in examining your personal feelings on the pros and cons of various ethical/moral situations.

But anyone who says they definitely would do this or they certainly would do that under such and such circumstances is deluding themselves. You are not in that choice situation. You can say anything you like now in your swivel chair, but it has little bearing on what preferences or value scale you would actually demonstrate in the actual situation.

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The 'would you rather be buried alive or burned alive' type question have very little to do with morality. The point of these situations is to mindfuck you. If reality is like that then the actual moral problems are to be found somewhere else entirely.