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cutelyaware t1_iyorv39 wrote

Reply to comment by feliweli49 in How to solve moral problems with formal logic and probability by beforesunset1010

I think I disagree. I feel our moral disagreements aren't around ideas such as "less death is better", but around the details of "how", not "what". For example is it OK to kill animals for food? We can argue over when it's OK and when it's not, but I can't think of an example where someone came to the decision that less death is better or gave up such a belief.

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feliweli49 t1_iyovk13 wrote

The "less death is better" part refers to the blog primarily with the trolley problem. It's a naive and utilitarian way to quantify those problems and disregards a lot of the why behind the taken decision. My point is that those alternative decisions can still be expressed with logic because they just has different premises.

"Is killing animals for food ok?" has plenty of different premises for both sides, and both sides can be expressed in a logically sound way.

E.g. it's not ok to kill sentient beings, animals are sentient, eating animals kills them etc. end up with a hard no. Those premises aren't universally agreed upon, so even using the tools logic provides us won't give us a clear universal answer on if killing animals for food is ok.

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cutelyaware t1_iyp3j01 wrote

Alright then it seems we're in agreement. "less death is better" is the moral position that doesn't yield to mathematics. Only the application of that position to particular situations can.

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