Is it Good to condemn an innocent person to X amount of pain, as long as doing so would indirectly allow a billion people to experience (X+1)/10^9 amount of pleasure each?
This pleasure does NOT come from knowing that the innocent person is in pain, it's not someone they all hate or anything like that. You cannot choose which innocent person will feel pain, and it ONLY works if they objectively don't deserve it. No third option to have it both ways, no loophole, no bullshit. Answer either yes or no.
>>48124123
No that's evil, you're manipulating billions of peoples emotions at the price of a someone elses suffering.
Unless that person derived pleasure from that pain. In which case, with their consent, whip that ass nigga.
>>48124123
That's probably someone's fetish.
>>48124123
Depends, if hes an utilitarian he deserves everything he gets for following such a retarded and sterile morality.
Yudkowsky please go.
Yes
But then again, i am thar kind of guy that if put in front of a button saying "everytime you push me, you gain 10,000 $ but a random person unknown and unrelated to you will die" I would wipe out the equivalent of the population of China
Doing an evil thing for a understandable reason doesn't make the evil thing any less evil. It could be argued whether or not an evil act is 'worth' committing, for the good of the many, but the unprovoked aggression remains evil.
The only possible circumstance in which this could be even considered to be good, is if said innocent were informed of what was happening to them, and they consented to enduring said pain of their own free will.
>>48124174
/thread
>>48124123
>Pleasure = Good
>Pain = Evil
Circumstances are entirely too generalizes. We don't know the motivations of the afflicted or the afflicted. It's all dependent on the society and intentions of those involved before we can make a ruling.
My money is on not good though.
>>48124123
Condemning the innocent person to X amount of pain will also condemn others who care about them to a certain degree of pain, as well, assuming they are aware of what has happened to that person.
Why would it be good to take a course of action that creates suffering for someone?
>>48125145
Because the result adds up to more total pleasure than pain, so you would be creating suffering on a global scale by NOT doing that. But only if the pleasure is spread out among so many people that they don't appreciate it.
And before you ask, the mechanism by which pain and pleasure are generated at a slight gain when spread out is magic, I don't have to explain it.
>>48124123
Depends on the setting. Your question boils down to "Is utilitarianism true?" and my experience is that in most fantasy settings, the answer is no. Something rather more like virtue ethics is true.
>>48125298
The validity of a moral system shouldn't depend on the setting. The fact that some people throw fireballs and swing glowy swords around shouldn't affect what actions are morally correct.
>>48125276
>so you would be creating suffering on a global scale by NOT doing that.
Not how it works.
Making someone suffer for the pleasure of others is not a good act, in any shape or form.
>>48125622
Yeah its not like the nature of the universe matters right what are gods good for anyway my narrowminded autist morality is true throughout not only the cosmos, but also any cosmos anyone can ever imagine and if you think otherwise you are evil
*farts into a sandwich and eats it*
>>48125699
you're trying too hard bro
No, the entire thing is stupid an pleasure itself isn't always good.
Let me explain to you where you went wrong.
You tried to break morality and ethics into a math equation. That's when you fucked up. It doesn't matter how many people get an orgasm, it happened because some innocent dude is getting tortured, and that's just fucked up.
>>48124123
>Is it Good to condemn an innocent person to X amount of pain
NO.
>>48125699
>>48124123
By utilitarian ethics this is a sound proposition.
As long as you surpress knowledge of the nature of this exchange becoming widespread; the cognitive dissonance might ruin the exchange ratio of suffering to happiness.
Pleasure is not a Good thing in itself.
Did you know that it is possible to drug a person to feel pleasure? Did you know that you can do the same thing even more reliably by putting two wires into a person's brain and running an electric current through it? Both of these things are things we can do, right now, in the real world. No magic necessary. So why haven't we placed such wires into every person on Earth, or delivered cheap antidepressants for recreational use?
The answer is that it is not a good thing to feel pleasure for no reason. It is good to feel pleasure as a result of doing good things: pleasure is the reward for the good thing, not the source of it.
"I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity. I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What does it accomplish?" - Ecclesiastes 2:1-2.
>>48125761
I can back your initial proposition that pleasure is not innately good, but I would proffer a secular explanation;
Pleasure is a function of the brain that causes you to seek out beneficial things like nourishment and company and stimulation.
When you get stuck on an activity that yields high pleasure for minimal actual gain your life will begin to deteriorate gradually as you spend less time finding food or making social connections or propagating your DNA.
Essentially we've learned how to cheat our bodies natural pleasure systems; like a rat that's jammed open the food pellet hatch, and so it no longer runs the maze.
