Hey there, just saw this! I'll just make two comments:
1. I'm definitely in the ethical intuitions camp. (We know that the Spartans killing the Helots was wrong because it's "obviously wrong".) But I don't think we can treat all possible ethical intuitions equally. After all, if we did that, how can we say the Spartans were wrong?
2. Since you accept the final "letting Grandma fall down the stairs" scenario, I think most of our disagreement comes down to how much harm to our norms/precedents killing grandma would actually cause. I really do maintain that it would be a lot, enough to outweigh the benefit in terms of lived saved. But it seems to me that neither of us have particularly strong arguments on either side here.
"If Dynomight believes that ethical intuitions—such as the belief that child suffering is wrong—are merely evolutionarily adaptive instincts, he must take the stance that intuitions are not probative—they do not afford us proof or evidence of any kind. If intuitions do not afford us evidence, they are either useless or misleading."
I don't know that this follows, that is, that evolutionarily adaptive instincts are not probative. I suppose it depends a bit on what you think ethics are for, but if you assume something along the lines of "human flourishing within the society of other humans" that suggests that the instincts are more or less in line and thus probative. (I might be misunderstanding, however.)
Another point to bring up is that none of these scenarios seem to have any consideration for the past: what happened to put us in the situation the hypothetical exists in. That is tremendously important to humans, both intuitively and for estimations of total utility, but it is never really addressed. A process focused ethics would seem to give rather different answers, and perhaps be better at lining up intuition with utility. (Although I think utilitarianism basically boils down to "Assume omniscience, then make the right decision" myself.)
Good article. I especially like the part where you praise this Bentham's bulldog guy!
Hey there, just saw this! I'll just make two comments:
1. I'm definitely in the ethical intuitions camp. (We know that the Spartans killing the Helots was wrong because it's "obviously wrong".) But I don't think we can treat all possible ethical intuitions equally. After all, if we did that, how can we say the Spartans were wrong?
2. Since you accept the final "letting Grandma fall down the stairs" scenario, I think most of our disagreement comes down to how much harm to our norms/precedents killing grandma would actually cause. I really do maintain that it would be a lot, enough to outweigh the benefit in terms of lived saved. But it seems to me that neither of us have particularly strong arguments on either side here.
"If Dynomight believes that ethical intuitions—such as the belief that child suffering is wrong—are merely evolutionarily adaptive instincts, he must take the stance that intuitions are not probative—they do not afford us proof or evidence of any kind. If intuitions do not afford us evidence, they are either useless or misleading."
I don't know that this follows, that is, that evolutionarily adaptive instincts are not probative. I suppose it depends a bit on what you think ethics are for, but if you assume something along the lines of "human flourishing within the society of other humans" that suggests that the instincts are more or less in line and thus probative. (I might be misunderstanding, however.)
Another point to bring up is that none of these scenarios seem to have any consideration for the past: what happened to put us in the situation the hypothetical exists in. That is tremendously important to humans, both intuitively and for estimations of total utility, but it is never really addressed. A process focused ethics would seem to give rather different answers, and perhaps be better at lining up intuition with utility. (Although I think utilitarianism basically boils down to "Assume omniscience, then make the right decision" myself.)