The Ronco Principle

Re:The Ronco Principle by NhanH on Tuesday January 20, 2015 @08:46PM (#8920994)

If we're talking about effectiveness, you then have to define what's the criteria that you're optimizing for - that's mostly the difference between morality frameworks. Certainly there is argument that was made within utilitarianism that if 1 people are tortured so that hundreds of millions of people can avoid having a speck of dust in their eyes, it's still a net gain for happiness (and so it's an acceptable, even preferable scenario to happen).

The fact that it's impossible for human agreeing on the criteria to be optimized asides. Normally there are many reasons that we almost never make morality argument based on effectiveness (unfortunately, I'm not articulate enough to summarize those reasons in a comment). The trolley problem is a good example: if it was a straightforward effectiveness argument, we all know what the "rational" decision should be.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Ronco Principle by waps on Tuesday January 20, 2015 @11:20PM (#8921426)

There are multiple morality frameworks, most including torture, and very few that don't. Western Christianity (ie. "New Testament") and it's "atheist variant" Humanism are fully opposed to torture (unless you count banishment as torture, which some do), but most other ideologies aren't.

Take the old testament, which is certainly a moral framework. Or, when it comes to frameworks in use, islam's moral framework, for example, specifies torture as punishment for crimes (whippings, beatings, certain prescribed forms of execution, forcing children to witness execution of convicted parents, ...). But this is not the exception, most religions support torture, mostly only as punishment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da%E1%B9%87%E1%B8%8Da_%28Hindu_...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_and_corporal_punishment...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Punishments_in_religio...

It's not limited to religions either. For instance, most or all person cults support torture.

A lot of people have serious trouble with the concept of multiple moralities, yet of course that's exactly what different religions are. People seem to find it easy to tolerate, oh going to temple instead of church, but if you disagree on marriageable age, slavery, or punishment then you're a monster. Never mind that by that standard, the majority the planet's population fails.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Ronco Principle by dragonwriter on Wednesday January 21, 2015 @10:46AM (#8923548)

> Take the old testament, which is certainly a moral framework.

The Old Testament (and ditto with the New Testament) is not a "moral framework"; it is a set of stories which have been incorporated as part of the justification or inspiration for numerous moral frameworks, many of which conflict deeply with each other.

[ Parent | on HN ]