u/RefrigeratorPlusPlus

So, this is inspired by button debate, but not necessarily about it. Only partially.

My question is, what are the criteria for difference here?

To remind you about the original wording:

"Everyone on Earth takes a private vote by pressing a red or blue button.

If more than 50% of people press the blue button, everyone survives.

If less than 50% of people press the blue button, only people who pressed the red button survive. Which button would you press?"

We assume, for the purpose of the discussion, that the buttoner is a 100% trustworthy and precise with words, because otherwise anything is speculation.

I know that philosophers don’t have a unified answer about to which degree a person bears moral responsibility for the death of other people in general.

However, I know that there are certain criteria: such as intent, whether other people were used as tools, foreseeability of the outcome, likelihood of the outcome, ability to change the outcome, etc.

I see that people are split roughly equally here on “red is letting die” and “red is killing”, but it's hard to judge why either opinion is considered true.

I’m just a bit confused from this entire debate, and I’m going to explain why in a moment.

So, buttoner doesn’t directly assign causality to buttons. It only states “if that, A survive, if this, B survive”. No direct comment on what kills. Wording is pretty passive. Just to compare

1.     Red button results in death of blue pressers unless 50% or more press blue.

2.     Blue button results in death of blue pressers unless 50% or more press blue.

Here causality is obvious, but in practice, math/game theory side of the question is the same.

So, this alone cannot help us determine “kill/let die” distinction, and morality of taking either action. At least, it’s unclear to me personally.

...

What else?

Well, if you press blue, blue have greater chance of living than if you press red. Even if the alternative is accepting a risk to your life. Neither life nor death are guaranteed for blue. Does this help, knowing that action A has a greater chance of people dying than action B?

Well, again, I’m confused here.

If you, say, shoot into direction where people could be, you increase their chances of death. This is pretty clear.

But. This, presumably, is a high percentage increase in this chance. Not to mention that you do not worsen your own well-being by doing the opposite to shooting.

Purely theoretically, if you actively contribute to global warming in any way, you also increase other’s chances of death, but by a way smaller amount.

This is not so clear. But in this case, you're worse off without contributing.

Even something as innocent as driving your car according to all the rules is risk imposition, technically.

If you choose to run away from burning building, rather than into it, you also, in theory, increase chances of death for people who are trapped inside, if only by a fraction of percent (as otherwise you could’ve helped and maybe saved them).

Same, in theory, applies to donations. You could’ve helped, but you chose not to, and people died. Some argue responsibility, others – lack of it.

Hard to say what situation applies here.

...

We could also look at “using as a means to an end” situation. It doesn’t seem to be the case, as the goal of red – survival - could be achieved without existence of blue pressers or generally deaths of others. Nothing in the wording suggests that red survives through blue death.

...

Other way to establish responsibility is to look whether doing otherwise could result in change to the situation.

The way it seems to work is that in majority of cases personally switching your choice doesn’t result in change of the collective outcome, good or bad.

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Is it foreseeable though, that some people will be in danger and will die in some outcomes? I would say yes, it is quite foreseeable – guaranteed, even.

Though I’m unsure how it affects the calculation, all things considered: we, individually, don’t know nor the likelihood, not the amount of people in danger, nor the actual chance of our choice saving them.

I’m not sure what ethics say about the environments with so many unknowns.

...

Did you create the situation? That affects the degree of responsibility as well.

I mean, it doesn't seem to apply either (both to blue and red) if there is no option to walk away. You were forced to choose by a third party, the buttoner, and would've rather returned to status quo.

There is a bit of debate whether red introduces the danger/blue willingly puts themselves in danger (maybe both is correct), but this is muddy due to presence of actors who do not control their actions.

The unknown amount of danger is already introduced, and so is unknown amount of potential victims. This comes back to environment of uncertainty and whether you worsen the situation or refuse to improve it.

Argument could be made, of course, that the default state is non-vote - you're neither helping to save blue, neither saving yourself, and just wait to either die of starvation, either for the vote to be over due to time limit.

Would abstaining from vote be equivalent to voting red, in this case, even though this is inaction? I don't know.

...

So, to summarize, do you think pressing red is killing or letting die and according to what criteria?

I might've missed something, so, feel free to add your own thoughts.

So, I've noticed that a frequent viewpoint on this entire button dilemma is something like

"Red victory will create society of sociopaths* who are completely unwilling to cooperate".

...Why?

Reds, presumably, press red to avoid death.

Ask youself: is dying for others the only way you could benefit society and generally the only way to behave in prosocial way?

No.

Look at how many people do good for society and enrich other's peoples lives. How many of them nearly died or been in danger to achieve this result?

I bet not the majority.

There are many levels of separation between "not helping others at all" and "I will die for a stranger".

Majority of people are way more willing to send money or do charity than endanger themselves directly, particularly for somebody unfamiliar.

It's a weird lack of nuance, because in real life everyone understands that self-sacrifice of such degree is unusual to say the least. "The ultimate sacrifice", for a reason.

...

I also don't quite accept the biological argument.

You see, only living organisms reproduce (ignore viruses and whatever replicators, they're not the point).

So, in order for self-sacrifice to be viable, from the standpoint of natural selection, the genetic benefit must outweight the genetic cost.

It is easily seen in ants, wasps, bees - in short, eusocial organisms, due to their unique method of reproduction.

Arguably, even death of cells in multicellular organisms is an example of such altruism. They could afford that, because most cells will not create a new organism. It is their purpose: to serve and die for the collective whole.

Not so much with organisms who reproduce in a more typical way.

Loss of every adult individual is expensive because every adult could pass on genes, even more so in social organisms that benefit from lived experience and pass on knowledge to others, increasing fitness of the group in that way.

There is kin selection, of course, but to which degree it facilitates self-sacrificing behavior in any given species is up to a debate.

Point is, we aren't the most social species on the planet per se (we aren't eusocial), and it's weird to treat sacrifice of life in humans as a biological law.

We're definitely more prone to it than many other species, but it's not the default behavior.

*As if people with ASPD aren't fully capable of behaving in prosocial manner, even in absence of affective empathy