Logical Reasoning

PT17 · S2 · Q15 To perform an act that is morally

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To perform an act that is morally wrong is to offend against humanity, and all offenses against humanity are equally bad.

Principles

All offenses against humanity are equally bad.

Perform an act that → offend against is morally wrong humanity

Since murder is morally wrong, it's equally bad to have killed one person with a bomb as it is to have murdered a hundred people with that same bomb.

Goal

Let's find an answer either going from "X was morally wrong" to "X offended against humanity", or let's find an answer saying "this instance of morally wrong / offending humanity" is equally bad as .

15.

Which one of the following judgments conforms to the principles invoked above?

  1. Correct

    If lying is morally wrong,

    Why this is right

    We were told that "murder is morally wrong". And we were told that anything morally wrong is an offense against humanity. So we know that murder is an offense against humanity. If lying is morally wrong, then lying is also an offense against humanity. We were also told that "all offenses against humanity are equally bad". So if murder and lying are both offenses against humanity, then they are equally bad. Thus, we can get from this trigger to this outcome. If lying is morally wrong, then it's an offense against humanity that is equal in badness to all other offenses against humanity, such as murder.

    Skill tested: Principle-Conform · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    69% picked this

  2. Risking one’s life to save

    Illegal Negation

    This argument is trying to take what we were told about morally wrong actions, actions that are an offense against humanity, and apply the same logic to morally right actions, or actions that we might consider heroic. These principles told us that all bad actions are equally bad, but we can't turn that into "all good actions are equally good".

    17% picked this

  3. If stealing is morally wrong,

    Out of Scope: important to society

    This answer introduces the totally alien concept of how important to society it is to prevent something from occurring. We don't have any language like that in our principles, so we can't use those principles to adjudicate how important to society preventing certain actions would be.

    5% picked this

  4. Accidentally causing the death of

    Out of Scope: accidental killing

    We know that all morally wrong actions are equally bad. And we know that murdering someone is morally wrong. But is accidentally causing the death of a person "morally wrong"? We don't know. So we can't pass judgment on that.

    4% picked this

  5. In a situation in which

    Unclear Morality

    We're able to say that any two morally wrong actions are equally bad. But do we know in a situation in which the life of X can be saved only by killing Y, that killing and not killing are both morally wrong? We don't. Maybe X is about to kill Y for immoral reasons and so for us to kill Y and prevent the death of X would be a morally okay action.

    5% picked this

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