Re:Alphabet's Self-Driving Cars to Get Their First Real Riders
by true_religion on Wednesday April 26, 2017 @07:30AM
(#14202134)
It's a bit contearian but if you will lose 100% of your population by not sacrificing 10%, then your scoiety is doomed in a way where normal ethics can't really apply. The guy refusing to give up his organs is going to be condemned as the naysayer nihilist who "wants us all to die".
However, in a society where people can observe the actions of others and form motivations in response to policies, etc, you'll find that because society reacts fairly poorly to organ harvesting, because organ harvesting is implausible to do at scale without extra bad things happenning, etc, the utilitarian solution is actually not to go about doing it.
Only a naive utilitarian wouldn't try to also remain consistent with something like a Kantian imperative of global self-coherence.
Now, as for cars and testing self-driving on real folks, well, this may be something where the water is pretty murky. I think that society will react poorly enough to early bad events in self-driving that a measured approach is actually the best for saving lives in the long term.
The critique here shouldn't be that "well, utilitarianism sure looks good from afar, but would you murder your neighbor?" It should be "The problem is too difficult to address with utilitarianism because it involves complex societal factors and responses."