I think in reality it comes under intuition. You have an idea experientially as to what is a reasoanble course of action to take. Tonthe extent a mathematical decision gets made, its at the level of “i probably ought to be ok”

Thinking about, there is a good analogy in the world of sports - look at the change in basketball shot patterns. The change is traceable to applying an economic / statistical approach to thise decisions.

But my point is people are more like players before the analytical approach took over. They tend to use intuition and “feel” more than the sort of evaluation you are talkkng about.

In fact its really interesting how wrong peoples intuitions are in those situations … making the less efficient choice, choosing the wrong strategy etc.

That to me shows that in practice people do not ordinarily make the sort of calculations you were describing. It doesn’t mean that they should not make those, just that they do not.

>Well selflessness and altruism come from a deep feeling of empathy

Not necessarily. Claiming all (or even most) selflessness and altruism stem from empathy is reductionsist.

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

[deleted]

Thank you.

[removed]

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle comments that it is the mark of a virtuous man is to give gifts, but not receive them. Giving gifts denotes one's superior position, their abundance, their surplus, while their inclination towards declining gifts means they are secure in their own position and do not need material goods.

Extrapolated, this means that selfless and altruistic are signs of the superior, excellent, virtuous man while going out of one's way to not demonstrate good will to their fellow man is the sign of a small-souled bugman.

[removed]

[removed]

Sounds like this would make a fine pairing with that prosperity gospel BS.

[removed]

I did mention that it was written by a human, yes, but the reintegration part is called “machine learning” and doesn’t necessarily require any further human input once the algorithm is given its authority.

I’m trying to say the racist outcome in this example isn’t the result of some tyranny of numbers that we need to keep subjugated to human sentiment or something. It’s actually the result of human overconfidence in the future mandate of our technological achievements, which is an emotional flaw, rather than something inherent to their simple performance as tools.

Well selflessness and altruism come from a deep feeling of empathy, where you feel not only your pain, but others as well. So being able to feel more pain than your own, wouldn’t that make you stronger?

[removed]

I want to understand your argument. My writing might sound snarky, so I apologize to you in advance.

1. Wouldn't the algorithm be written by a human?
2. Wouldn't the reintegration happen by a human?
3. Aren't all decisions made by humans?

I don't understand how remove the human element.

[removed]

If that is true then philosophers have been wasting our time with moral arguments. If you can’t choose what morality to believe in, it’s no use trying to convince someone to follow your morality. It would be like trying to convince a heterosexual person to become homosexual.

That’s only true if the algorithm is written to build patterns and reintegrate them into its decisions, which was a human decision to program, AKA hubris. There would be no problem if it was written to evaluate the relevant data alone. It wouldn’t do anything to fix the underlying social problems, of course, but ideally this would free up some human HR that could be put on the task.

it is, of course, a travesty to a pragmatist like myself that we now live in an era where moral reasoning has become more prevalent than building moral character. how are we so lost that not only do we see no problem in the classic trolley problem (that the very construction of it reduces the need to build moral character in aristotelian sense), we encourage the development of such a skill?

the revelation that logic can be applied to ethics is as white as snow—since the beginning of western philosophy, philosophers have applied the use of reason to differentiate between the moral and the immoral. i blame kant, however, for popularizing that reason alone can birth ethical principles--that we may, in a case such as the trolley problem, rely entirely upon our reason to inform how we act. Reason has now become the subject (which Nietzsche takes to an entirely new level), ethics the object; whereas (largely) pre-Kant, ethics was the subject of which reason was applies not to discover but to mould.

[removed]

I enjoyed the article, what follows is context, not criticism.

If you come across an article that contains what seem to be large numbers, or infinities (which I did’t see here) take a minute to get at least a sense of what really large numbers are like, (or small numbers as the inverse of a really large number) Numberphile has some good videos on Graham’s number and Tree Three. These really large numbers provide a useful context. If an author pulls out what seems to be a small probability, appreciate how massive that “small” probability is compared to the range of possible really small probabilities.

Probability is part of what makes us human though, as with the ability to describe our odds of survival somewhere rather than simply feeling it in our bodies.

Our awareness of uncertainty and risk are rooted in emotion, or basic drives, and they later became quantitative disciplines, similar to psychology. Likely or unlikely outcomes have always shaped our actions and our beliefs, sometimes also in contrast to the odds, where things may become heroic, irresponsible, etc.

You might look to numbers not to justify your morality, which is a precise form of argument, but to investigate it. Numbers can bring you back in touch with basic human drives we may have forgotten in the realm of abstract thought. Justification can then be built on top of the findings of that investigation.

Worth noting that Game Theory is more about optimal actions/scenarios than being a predictive model for any given action.