Re:San Francisco is getting cold feet about self-driving car...
by dauertewigkeit on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @10:25AM
(#34611766)
Personally, I am not a big fun of utilitarianism.
Reducing deaths is fine obviously, but switching modes of death with the excuse that it reduces fatalities overall is in my opinion morally questionable.
Re:San Francisco is getting cold feet about self-driving car...
by LatteLazy on Wednesday February 01, 2023 @11:23AM
(#34612791)
I won't pretend utilitarianism is perfect, but I don't think we have much option. If we take the "no new problems" extreme alternative then you get worse and stranger results: Seatbelts would never have been legal since while they save 1000s of lives a day, they also occasionally kill people who would otherwise survive...
I don't think this example is unreasonable, I think it will be the reality of any change like this. But that is sort of my point: Someone will always lose out. That's the price of things getting better for everyone else. And that's that standard we should judge all changes on: do we do more good for more people than we do bad by making this change? Then perhaps you can re-distribute.
That's what I am asking for here. If self-driving cars prevent 10 people dying down town but cause 5 to die up town, that's a good deal because 10>5. The fact it's a bad deal for those 5 people does not mean it is not a good deal for society as a whole...