Almost There Dogwise

[David Sklansky]

You guys will be the death of me. One sentence this time.

You must check a box after which a random human will die six hours sooner than his time or three ownerless dogs will be excruciatingly tortured for a half an hour.

Also to kidluck: What is the official difference between values and morals?

[malorum]

[ QUOTE ]
You must check a box after which a random human will die six hours sooner than his time or three ownerless dogs will be excruciatingly tortured for a half an hour.


[/ QUOTE ]

Oh cool. Now I see what your asking. At last. I think u still have some way to go with the question though.

The answer (for each individual) could then be potentially be found by using a questionaire, but I hope the attempt to formulate this below highlights the deficits in your question as presented. I trust you will do better next time:

1. Place a personal utility between 1 and 100 on how you would feel about shortening a persons life by n%

to find 'n' you need to specify the age or life expectancy of the person.
You suggest a 'random' selection of individuals.
so 'n' may vary between 100 and 5.8 x 10 ^-6
The distribution would depend on demographic data and
this means however you may select a baby due to die painlessly six hours after birth, and you would thus deprive the child of life altogether (this could be good or bad for parents or child.)What matters in the utilitarian analysis is weather you would feel worse about this than about the woman who is 120 losing a few hours.

My first approximation is that it is more usefull to view a shortening of life in terms of a % of total lifetime, for the purposes of such analyses.

The problem is that the first part of this analysis becomes compplex because of variations in life expectancy.

The latter part of the analysis about the dogs, is possibly simpler. You have to place a weighting on how bad the decision maker feels about three dogs suffering for the given period of time.
I'm not sure why the number three is used. I suspect most humans use a non-linear weighting when it comes to the number of animals suffering and how they feel about it (Do you eat eggs from battery farmed hens?)


Good luck, and God speed in your quest for the perfect question.

[FlFishOn]

After that animals in order of complexity.

[Non_Comformist]

I choose the box which doesn't result in the dogs being tortured.

[m1illion]

I am assuming I can't check both?

[Lestat]

I still do not believe the last 6 hours of life is worth torture of any kind. In fact, I would forego the last 6 hours of my own life to prevent any intelligent animal's torture. I say intelligent, because while I'm not sure about a turtle, or even a mouse, I am sure about dogs, cats, maybe a grizzly bear, etc. Intelligent enough to feel and possibly worry about the level of pain I assume you're referring to.

While I clearly have some logic problems, I do believe my answers and logic behind those answers have been consitent with this series of questions. I'm anxious to hear where you're going with this.

[DougShrapnel]

Once you reduce this question to is 1 time increament of animal suffering worth spending for 1 time increament of human life. It's a simple yes.

[ QUOTE ]
I choose the box which doesn't result in the dogs being tortured.

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Very thoughtful and excellent post!!!! but i must ask, considering the original question, why?

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
One sentence this time. You must check a box after which a random human will die six hours sooner than his time or three ownerless dogs will be excruciatingly tortured for a half an hour.

[/ QUOTE ]
I understand that by "ownerless" you wanna say that no human will emotionally suffer from the dog's torture. So we have to pick six stray dogs from the street.

Plus, to be consistent, you must be assuming that no human will suffer emotionally from the death of the "random human" - which obliges us to pick our "random human" from a pool of absolutely certain, 100% sure family-less, friend-less humans.

So, you are asking us essentially what we prefer, to whack
a guy from the Bellagio poker room -or- torture six dogs.

That's not really a question.



[ QUOTE ]
You guys will be the death of me.

[/ QUOTE ]
I check this box.

[J. Stew]

Dogs are better manifestations of nature/life/god than humans are most of the time. Dogs are dumb and don't know to be anything different than dogs. Humans are smart and try to get famous so others will verify their existence. In this sense, dogs are true to themselves whereas people conjure up all sorts of ideas in their heads about who they are which is actually separate from reality and is not truth.

Dogs are balls of consciousness with hair and waggy tails. People are balls of consciousness with balding heads and clothes from the Gap. The only way dogs, or humans for that matter, get away from their natural selves is if they are abused or if they desire things apart from that which they already are. Dogs don't want anything but life and that which sustains it i.e. food, shelter . . . People eat, drink, want, in excess of what they need to sustain life.

If three dogs are tortured then there is a probability that one or all of the dogs will be scarred mentally for life which may separate them from their true selves that they are most likely in tune with already, granted no previous abuse and a generally normal life up till torture time. An example would be that the dog or dogs feels so much pain while being 'racked' that he/they remain in a state of fear for the rest of their lives. This would have reprocussions (sp?) not only in their own departure from their natural selves but exponentially in society when considering they will interact with many dogs for the rest of their lives and which their own negative mental state could prove infectious. Of course not to the same degree but low energy breeds low energy, that sort of thing. . . Anyways the negative effect on the dog or dogs' state of mind and the spread of hatred from that dog to other dogs, which would stem from the fear that the torturer instilled in said dog/dogs through torture, would outweigh the six hours of extra life the random human would get considering that the current average human state of mind is off in la la thought land and not here in the present moment where life is happening and dogs are pooping on their front lawns.