I guess the thing that gets me about this viral "logic experiment" is how obvious it is. There's no moral quandary around saving one loved one vs many strangers on a train track. If you pick red nothing bad happens to you. If you pick blue, you might die. Everyone has that same decision in front of them. What is there to think about? What am I missing? And yes, I know that isn't the main focus of your post, I just had to vent after seeing this in too many places.
Right, but that's exactly the point. It's so obvious when you frame it as "If you pick red nothing bad happens to you. If you pick blue, you might die." Because then you have a consequence-oriented frame. Everyone has the same life or death decision, and if they all accord it the normal weight we give to life or death decisions, then their deaths are their choice.
But the button and the making the decision individually means that you are not making that decision the way life or death decisions are made. You're making it in the arbitrary register of "pushing a button". If you know a single person who doesn't really think before pushing buttons, then you need to push blue to help spare their life. And even if you don't know anyone like that, if you know someone who KNOWS someone like that, they might have pushed blue and you need to push to save them. And the recursive change keeps expanding until eventually a red button push means "Any person who has a careless person within their sphere of moral concern -- to an arbitrary level of depth - ought to be killed." This would not be a good way to organize a society (if you disagree, imagine someone following you around with a gun waiting for the first time you push a button foolishly), and blue pushers are mostly voting against that world.
So you're either focusing on the decision or the modality, but all you're really learning is why we don't make those kinds of decisions with those kinds of modalities. The "objective game theory" privileges the decision as being the "real problem" and the modality as being arbitrary framing, but importantly, this is not how reality works (this is why the logical positivists were wrong and Wittgenstein repented).
Thank you, I missed the social welfare angle to this, but as an iterative approach I see what you are saying. Although even here I guess I disagree with "not be a good way to organize a society" if that implies there is no limit to stopping people from harming themselves (we are talking about a button that can kill you, so the stakes are high) or even no limit to having to accommodate how irrational someone may be. Sometimes culling is justified. I remain team "red button", but now at least there will be a tinge of doubt.
IRB for thought experiments
I guess the thing that gets me about this viral "logic experiment" is how obvious it is. There's no moral quandary around saving one loved one vs many strangers on a train track. If you pick red nothing bad happens to you. If you pick blue, you might die. Everyone has that same decision in front of them. What is there to think about? What am I missing? And yes, I know that isn't the main focus of your post, I just had to vent after seeing this in too many places.
Right, but that's exactly the point. It's so obvious when you frame it as "If you pick red nothing bad happens to you. If you pick blue, you might die." Because then you have a consequence-oriented frame. Everyone has the same life or death decision, and if they all accord it the normal weight we give to life or death decisions, then their deaths are their choice.
But the button and the making the decision individually means that you are not making that decision the way life or death decisions are made. You're making it in the arbitrary register of "pushing a button". If you know a single person who doesn't really think before pushing buttons, then you need to push blue to help spare their life. And even if you don't know anyone like that, if you know someone who KNOWS someone like that, they might have pushed blue and you need to push to save them. And the recursive change keeps expanding until eventually a red button push means "Any person who has a careless person within their sphere of moral concern -- to an arbitrary level of depth - ought to be killed." This would not be a good way to organize a society (if you disagree, imagine someone following you around with a gun waiting for the first time you push a button foolishly), and blue pushers are mostly voting against that world.
So you're either focusing on the decision or the modality, but all you're really learning is why we don't make those kinds of decisions with those kinds of modalities. The "objective game theory" privileges the decision as being the "real problem" and the modality as being arbitrary framing, but importantly, this is not how reality works (this is why the logical positivists were wrong and Wittgenstein repented).
Thank you, I missed the social welfare angle to this, but as an iterative approach I see what you are saying. Although even here I guess I disagree with "not be a good way to organize a society" if that implies there is no limit to stopping people from harming themselves (we are talking about a button that can kill you, so the stakes are high) or even no limit to having to accommodate how irrational someone may be. Sometimes culling is justified. I remain team "red button", but now at least there will be a tinge of doubt.