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Comment by burrows | Hacker News Reader

> The key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are.

The victims family is saying “Our principle is that people who stab Ed should not get a heart, therefore David should not get a heart.” The doctor is saying “Our principle is that we don’t use the patient’s past violence or convictions to determine whether they should get a heart or not, so the stabbing doesn’t disqualify David.”

Neither party can offer a valid argument as to why their principle is true, because both of their principles are normative.

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The weird thing about saying "Do not save those who took another's life" is that you are saying, "The person took a life. That's bad. We should punish them for the bad thing." Then saying, "Let's take their life to punish them." (not saving a life you could being essentially the same as life taking, to me, here).

To me, you are undermining your view that life-taking is bad, by engaging in it yourselves. To me, this is a paradox. You seem to be standing up for your belief in the badness of life-taking, by doing something against those who do it, then you do something which goes against the very thing that you are trying to protect--which, to me, makes it seems like you are merely pretending to protect.

So, to me, their moral claim (?) that they are somehow "better" than this life-taker, and therefore have a right to say/do this life-save withholding, is completely undermined by their action of said withholding (or proposal to do it).

On the other hand, my ape-brain very much endorses the logic of revenge and sees no problem with an eye for a eye. It will teach people a lesson, let them know they can't mess with us, and let them know there are consequences if they try. Hopefully, my ape brain says, that will make us safer and rest easier, in future.

But the logical/rational part of me trying (but maybe failing) to consider this from an ethical or moral point of view, says, "Nah, that doesn't work."

So, thieves cannot be fined for their crimes (take their money after they took someone else's), kidnappers cannot go to jail (take their freedom after they took someone else's) - because it would undermine, what exactly? That makes no sense.

Well it makes sense to me. Your reading is a little bit uncharitable. Seems almost like you didn't make any effort to understand it, and just rather pretend that it's stupid...Sigh. But I suppose I could have helped you by saying the other part which I think about this:

That's why the legal system is so important. We need a way to do these things, that's not about individuals getting revenge. So...you kill Alice, then society takes it up with you, through their legal/punitive officers--rather than Alice's family.

But even so...that doesn't fully resolve it for me, the paradox I see there.

But at the same time, I get your point of view. I mean, what that means we can't punish anyone? Because we don't want to seem bad, by pushing back against the bad people? Are you saying we just turn the other cheek? That's crazy.

Yeah, I get that...But I think it's important...You do some crime, and I say, "I have to get back at you". But no, I'm the one that has to be moral. Individuals have to be moral. The state doesn't have to be moral in the same way. But we can't let that spill over to individuals otherwise everything collapses.

I mean, I'm not saying I can resolve this right here--and your strong reaction to what I said, indicates that I have raised a complex, subtle point that's not easy to resolve. People face stuff like that, it's difficult, so they react strongly, or emphatically, like you did.

So I think we need the state, the organs of the state, to be able to enact this violence on our part (take their money, their freedom, their life--maybe? I'm not sure about the last one). Then we can afford to be moral and live up to that, and that's good overall. It's not perfect but then what other options do we have?

You’re exactly right. In fact resolving this paradox and avoiding the chaos of blood price for crimes committed are part of the themes of every system of law since Hammurabi’s code.

Thanks a lot, that's really kind. It's great to feel my struggle with is backed by thousands of years of other people struggling with it. And your comment helps me feel interested to read more into it! Thank you! :)

Seems almost like you didn't make any effort to understand what I wrote. Sigh.

My interpretation is not uncharitable, it's precisely the same argument you are making, and, to me, it makes no sense - as shown by my examples. Clearly, you have no problem with fines for thieves and prison for kidnappers, and why should you - so you agree with me.

I think the resolution to the problem of 'punishment' is exactly the one you point out at the end: we hand over the monopoly of violence to the democratic state.

Thus the point you're making is wrong: the problem is not at all whether we punish by exactly the same measure that we're punishing for. The simple truth is that the death penalty is a qualitative very different kind of punishment (which I find barbaric, just for the record).

Edit: I don't really see where I react strongly or emphatically. I'm just pointing out that your logic does not hold up.

Really? But I just said this:

> But at the same time, I get your point of view. I mean, what that means we can't punish anyone? Because we don't want to seem bad, by pushing back against the bad people? Are you saying we just turn the other cheek? That's crazy.

> Yeah, I get that...But I think it's important...You do some crime, and I say, "I have to get back at you". But no, I'm the one that has to be moral. Individuals have to be moral. The state doesn't have to be moral in the same way. But we can't let that spill over to individuals otherwise everything collapses.

I mean doesn't that look like I'm making an effort to understand your POV? That's exactly what I'm doing? What does that look like to you? How did you take that?

---

Second thing:

> My interpretation is not uncharitable, it's precisely the same argument you are making

Well I'm saying it is uncharitable. I think you think that it's the same, but maybe you don't see how you've misinterpreted.

In my first post (GP?) I don't mention the state. Now, it's understandable if maybe you thought I was talking about that (use of possibly ambiguous "you", or "their", or "yourselves" to refer to who I was saying claimed they could punish like this), but to me I was clearly replying to the ancestor phrase "The victim's family is saying:" Maybe that was not clear, but I thought it was. Sorry, maybe that was what confused you?

So, in that context where I am talking about it (what I said up there), the context is: when people say they want to respond in the same way. That is different to the point you're making, I think. I think you're saying, that I'm saying:

"We don't have a right to punish people, because if we do, we are not moral. And we shouldn't punish people in the same form as their transgression."

That is what I'm saying...but I'm also genuinely trying to explore it and being more modal than, "well it is 100% like this." I'm just saying what I said up there.

But I think your mischaracterization is that your meaning is maybe like this:

"You are referring to the state. You are saying the state cannot punish people because it would undermine its moral position somehow. This is obviously nonsense. You are wrong. Because then we do not punish anyone. Also, what's really wrong with punishing in the same form? It's not even a point. Also wrong."

Let's leave aside the "same form" thing because that's, probably, you know, something else. But I just think your mischaracterization is to mischaracterize or misinterpret, the who of what I'm talking about. And that part's understandable maybe--ok?--because I didn't make it explicitly clear. But what you're saying I'm saying, is not exactly the point I'm making, and it is uncharitable because it doesn't seem to try to see it from the point of view where it could be true...your mischaracterization throws out the stuff I'm saying about the seeming moral paradox, and reduces the modal exploratory aspect to an absolute one, ignores the part where I'm making an effort to consider your PoV, and seems to deny that considering this as a moral problem is a valid consideration. Also, saying "You have no problem with punishing" is a complete mischaracterization, stripping off the subtlety of what I'm trying to explore, which is that, to me, these things are moral issues like I said above.

I mean one basic point is, if what you're trying to do is prove me wrong, then having to misinterpret and reduce what I'm saying in order to prove it wrong, is invalid...it doesn't touch what I'm saying. So you've only proved wrong, if you have, your misinterpretation of what I'm saying. And sort of validated what I'm saying and the difficulty of proving it wrong, by avoiding dealing with it.

Now maybe you don't see it like that, and I get it. Maybe you just genuinely think your interpretation was totally valid, and I'm just shifting the goal posts to avoid being pinned down by the formidable pincers of your immaculate logic...or some stuff like that, whatever. Or maybe you are doing it deliberately...or maybe it's just a blindspot and you don't realize you're doing it? Maybe?

For me the far more important point tho, is about how people interact in discussions, not the proving wrong. And it just seems like you're saying, what I've said is all invalid and wrong. It kind of hurts. Because it does hurt. And also because I'm dealing with the topic genuinely, and curiously. And it just feels like you just want to prove a point, and you don't care who you misinterpret, like you don't care how you misinterpret what someone says into some form you can say "it's wrong" because it seems you only care about saying "it's wrong." rather than about hearing or dealing honestly and respectfully with what someone is saying.

I mean you could have just said, "Well maybe it's right, how could this guy be meaning in a way that's right? What could they be trying to say here that's not the obvious rebuttal I can make or what I might be misinterpreting? Maybe they're more subtle than that?" Because when you do that, you know, mischaracterization and say "you're wrong", I feel a bit sad, because it seems like you're saying, "This person is stupid." Because you're assuming the stupidest interpretation, the one that obviously doesn't make sense. Is that what you think I'm saying? Why do you need to look down on me?

And I just think that's a bit sad. I'm engaging genuinely, but it seems you just wanna prove someone wrong...and you don't care who you hurt? I was a little scared to reply you because I got the feeling you might do that...but, I gave you a chance.

I picked up the strong reaction in your first answer, and I felt scared you would try and just do that, and you did. It was a feeling, but some points in the text you could link it to are: "undermine what exactly? [[ your point about undermining is invalid, there's no complexity here ]] That makes no sense." It was my feeling about your intention but those words are even pretty strong to me. I get that maybe you don't see that...sad to say, but I think that not seeing it might be obvious. Maybe you can think about how that might come across...

---

Third thing: I mean if you want to take some overly literal editorialized misinterpretation of what someone said, and pretend it's their logic that doesn't make sense, rather than your interpretation (because I guess that helps you feel smart(er?) for seeing the flaws in their logic, but it's a little unfair and twisted to foist your perverted misinterpretation on what they say, just to get your rocks off by feeling they're wrong and you're smart, right?), I mean it's actually not that difficult to do that...so how does it feel,

"My interpretation is not uncharitable...so you agree with me...Thus the point you're making is wrong"

I mean I can do that, and be like, "Gotcha. If I'm wrong, but I agree with you, then you're wrong too?"

Clearly a more simplistic misinterpretation than your more subtle misinterpretation, but of the same kind, and seemingly the same intention. The thing is, that kind of stuff, doesn't lead to interesting or fun conversations, I think...because then we got to waste time maybe going back over like, "i didn't mean that," "you didn't mean this", it's a time saving effort if you just respond to the strongest position. And even if I didn't mean that strongest position, then maybe I can rise to it (I mean--you see me as capable of that, right?) then we could have had a more fun and interesting conversation, right? but to do that you have to surrender the temptation of seeing someone else as stupid, and what they're saying as wrong, so you can feel smart(er)? because if you don't surrender that temptation, it's just for you then, it's not a contribution to the community. maybe you feel as if your contributions will not be appreciated, so you fall back to this. getting your jollies in this "taking" way (and in this current context, kind of immoral, because nobody took anything from you at the first, at least not here~~not saying you had an easy time online tho...but does that mean you keep being unkind/uncharitable?). because when you do that, it hurts, because you're devaluing what other people are saying. I hope you see that, or reflect on it, and maybe try to be better to others...please.

Ah, I see where you're confused by your own writing, but I'd be happy to spell it out slower, so that you can understand [0]: you write "I get your point of view", and you mistake making that statement with the factuality of it.

And let me help you with another thing you are confused about [0]. So, in essence your argument is that I am wrong because I am answering to what you wrote rather than what you thought you wrote or wish you wrote, and that's what you call 'uncharitable'.

The main problem with your 'argument' is that you make absolute statements, but then are not able to back them up, getting upset when someone points that out. It's simple engineering practice to check how things hold up at the limits. Not 'punishing' someone with the same thing they did does not hold up in the limits of simple wrongdoings, e.g. taking away some property. What this should tell you is not that you require a more charitable interpretation and special rules for the fringes to rescue your argument, but maybe that the overall logic is flawed. And it is: as I wrote in the other comment, the simple truth is that the death penalty is a different beast altogether.

[0] What's with that condescending tone with all your replies? Can you not simply make a statement that stands on its own two feet?

I don't know if this will be helpful to you, but I'm throwing it out there.

In a consequentialist, utilitarian moral system, revenge cannot be a moral good on its own. If a universe where one person gets hurt is worse than a universe where no one gets hurt, a world where two people get hurt must be worse still.

So if you're utilitarian, you believe in justice as a means to prevent crime. Punishing people can act as a deterrent, imprisoning people can separate them from would-be victims, and rehabilitation can prevent future crimes.

Some people aren't consequentialists, but retributivists. They believe that deserved punishment is innately good. A universe that is fair is one in which those that cheat are issued handicaps to balance that out- think the reckless driver who gets pulled over frequently enough that it doesn't buy them any time in the long run. A fair universe is morally preferable to an unfair one. This also makes sense, though it's somewhat at odds with the utilitarian perspective.

Well this has been a surprising explosion of positivity here on this thread. Some of these comments, look at you, thank you!

That's interesting. And I don't know much about that, but your comment is going to help me look into that, when it's time for me to do so: consequentialists, retributivists, and utilitarianism. Thank you :)

It's an interesting, seemingly two valid perspectives that are in contradiction. Thank you! :)

Fines and jail sentences are imposed by courts. It would be weird for a grocery store clerk to overcharge a convicted thief after they served their sentence.

We're talking about the morality of the reaction, not about who imposes it. GP argues that it's morally fundamentally wrong to react to some else's 'misbehavior' by imposing the very same action as punishment.

Well maybe not wrong fundamentally...but it calls into question your stance against the thing you end up doing.

Graderjs comment does not say they are morally fundamentally wrong.

They say that the specific argument that life-taking is bad is undermined by arguing for life-taking.

This does not preclude other arguments for why life-taking may be bad, nor other arguments for why it may be justified in specific circumstances.

Note that graderjs' very own comment gives examples of other possible arguments for "eye for an eye":

> It will teach people a lesson, let them know they can't mess with us, and let them know there are consequences if they try. Hopefully, my ape brain says, that will make us safer and rest easier, in future.

As such it's very clear that graderjs is not making any sort of claim to absolute morality, but addressing the weakness of a specific line of argumentation.

Note that graderjs is not saying that there could not be other morally justifiable reasons for calling for the death of someone.

What they were saying is specifically that arguing that someone who takes a life should be punished in a life ending way because of the severity of taking a life is undermining that argument's own central claim of the severity of taking a life by at the same time arguing for ending a life.

Your analogies are flawed for two reasons:

1. there are other justifications for punishments that may (or may not) be valid. One argument may be that it is preventative, for example.

2. in neither example would most people argue that we're imposing a particularly extreme sentence because the action was particularly extreme, and this is central to the argument made by graderjs.

In the case of the theft example, if anything we'd tend to argue a fine is not a very serious punishment. In the case of kidnap, we argue for serious sentences because of the seriousness of the crime, but a prison sentence would not be seen by most people as equally cruel as the uncertainty and fear and trauma imposed on both the victim and their loved ones, and most people would argue that the prison sentence is not just a response to the seriousness of the crime committed.

Some people might nevertheless find it hypocritical to argue for prison sentence on the basis of the seriousness of kidnapping, and its their right. But that in itself does not make a prison sentence unjustifiable even if you agree with them, because you may have many other arguments, such as e.g. risk of reoffending, or signal effect to others.

The point is in other words not that a given punishment can't be justified, but that if you choose to argue that something is particularly severe and then in the same breath argues for inflicting that same thing on someone because of that perceived severity, you're undermining that argument.

The analogy is not flawed because the comments you made are precisely my point: it's not a general, fundamental, moral conundrum -- it's that the death penalty is its own special beast. Graderjs argues from a general perspective using the example, but not limiting his arguments to, the death penalty. And then, as you and I point out, it simply does not hold up. It's the severity that makes it stand out, not the overall act of 'are we moral if we do the same thing'.

Graderjs also makes no argument about other justifications of 'punishment', and, again, I'm with you. Note that I often write 'punishment' in quotation marks. I don't believe (and the numbers between countries support that) that revenge is a productive reaction from a society.

I think you read way too much into the comment that is not justified by the actual text of the comment.

It’s worth pointing out that the stabbing victim didn’t die. It sounds like the stabbing had long term health effects, though.

The stabbing victim was wheelchair bound and later died from a stroke directly related to the stabbing.

Thanks for basing the ethical explanation so succinctly on the respect from life. Rarely do I find it put in such a clean and simple and accessible way. Connecting it to the ape-brain level urge for revenge is the icing on the cake.

From there I comfort myself with two thousand years it took a truly global institution to fully completely and no more strings attached reject capital punishment, the CCC, Catholic church law, closed the last loopholes allowing capital punishment only very recently.

We need to be patient with some nations to get there... Patient and persistent. As you were with your comment. Thanks again!

Wow, the positive comments here are really, nice. Thank you! Yes I was rather proud of that as well, I thought it deserved a bit of love--so thank you for sharing! :)

It's nice to get that here after slugging it out with someone who's seemingly misinterpreting what you're saying, so thank you for that support :) xx

Confining a person is bad. But we imprison someone who did that. Thereby, to show that freedom taking is bad, we engage in it. To me, this is a paradox.

r/im14andthisisdeep

Well put. Apart from the lengthy threads here regularly on how flawed the very notion of free will that's necessary to even justify this focus on vengeance, I absolutely agree with you that if you're going to argue for vengeance and have a moral leg to stand on you better at least not argue for such an outcome.

I like to point to this page from Franquin's Idées Noires (finally in English as "Die Laughing", only a few decades late) [1], which makes much the same point as you. (The whole book is very much worth it if you like dark humour - it's a crime it took so long for it to get translated to English given how many other languages it's been translated to decades ago)

Translated the speech bubbles are roughly:

"The law is clear: Every person who voluntarily kills another will have their head cut off. Let the executioner do their job."

"Over here, my friend."

"And so a good deed done..."

"Sorry, but the law is clear: Everyone who voluntarily kills another..."

[1] https://i.pinimg.com/474x/c5/3c/45/c53c451e1fea4fd04ea6cf674...

When evaluating principles, the trick is to extrapolate from each principles what society would be like if they were followed.

The first one “Our principle is that people who stab Ed should not get a heart, therefore David should not get a heart.” means that there is no rehabilitation for ex-cons, that doctors have the power to condemn people to death based on their past by refusing a life saving procedure and that in the case of new research like this one, doctors cannot have access to the best candidate.

Extrapolating the second principle means living in a society where the judicial system decides the punishment and people pay their due afterward, potentially reducing recividism. It means that when doing an experimental procedure that requires very specific candidates, the doctors have to pass on an ideal candidate delaying discovery.

> Neither party can offer a valid argument as to why their principle is true, because both of their principles are normative.

Can you offer a valid argument for the truth of your own principle, that it is impossible to offer a valid argument for the truth of any normative principle? I think your own position is a normative principle, and hence your position is self-refuting.

To call an argument "valid" is to make a normative claim; it is to claim that a rational agent ought to accept it. To call an argument invalid is to claim that a rational agent ought not accept it. Rationality has as much oughtness as morality does, and hence is a normative discipline just as morality is.

Thank you for prompting me to reevaluate my position.

Initially I claimed, “There are no valid arguments for normative claims.”, I would like to amend my claim.

Def: An inferential system is a tuple of axioms and inferential rules.

Def: An argument is a non-empty ordered sequence of statements. The last statement is called its conclusion.

Claim: If an inferential system produces an argument for a normative claim, the system is either inconsistent or permits inference from positive statements to normative statements or the argument proceeds from normative axioms.

Proof. Suppose S is a consistent inferential system and that A is an argument in S from S’s axioms to a normative conclusion. If S has only positive axioms then A makes inference from positive to normative statements. QED

Corollary: There are no arguments for normative claims that don’t proceed from normative axioms in consistent systems that don’t permit inference from normative to positive statements.

You are saying that, a valid deductive argument with a normative conclusion must either have a normative premise, or else rely on a logic whose inference rules permit normative statements to be inferred from non-normative ones.

I agree with you there. But you haven't explained how this (obviously true) statement is relevant to the original discussion, about the morality of providing life-saving medical treatment to perpetrators of serious crimes.

> But you haven't explained how this (obviously true) statement is relevant to the original discussion, about the morality of providing life-saving medical treatment to perpetrators of serious crimes.

My original point was in response to the claim that “the key principle in medicine is to treat anyone who is sick, regardless of who they are”. I took this to be an ought and wanted to point out that its truth isn’t established anymore than the ought indicated by Ed’s family, and that in fact there would be serious difficulties with establishing either one for the reason given by your last post:

> a valid deductive argument with a normative conclusion must either have a normative premise, or else rely on a logic whose inference rules permit normative statements to be inferred from non-normative ones.

But also I think that this poster makes a good point that the doctors are actually making a positive claim.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30081152

> To call an argument "valid" is to make a normative claim; it is to claim that a rational agent ought to accept it.

I think I had in mind a textbook definition I had read.

An argument is called valid if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. And then we say that an argument is sound if it is both valid and has true premises.

Which seems like a useful pair of definitions, and in that context I was confused about the terms.

I actually haven’t ever thought about or heard of this idea of ‘when is a rational actor committed to accepting claims’. But yeah, seems interesting to me.

That textbook definition of “valid” only applies to purely deductive arguments. Outside of mathematics, most arguments humans make have a significant non-deductive component (inductive and/or abductive). So, unless we assume that moral reasoning is closer to mathematical reasoning than to the kinds of reasoning we normally use in the sciences and humanities-a very dubious assumption-the formal concept of “validity” you are invoking has rather limited relevance to morality. That’s why I read your statement as intending “valid” informally rather than formally, since in its informal sense the term is not restricted to purely deductive arguments; and informally it is very much a normative concept (formally, I think it has multiple formal senses, some of which contain more normativity than others)

I think your overall point is, you are expressing scepticism about claims to know the truth of some particular moral proposition, grounded in a more general scepticism of the possibility of any moral knowledge at all.

I think that kind of general moral scepticism is (usually) a form of normative scepticism. The big problem I see with normative scepticism, is that attempts to argue for it logically and rationally turn out to be self-refuting, because logic and rationality are themselves normative concepts. Furthermore, if one understands knowledge as having a normative component, normative scepticism collapses into radical scepticism (there is no such thing as knowledge), which obviously ought to be rejected.

> That textbook definition of “valid” only applies to purely deductive arguments. Outside of mathematics, most arguments humans make have a significant non-deductive component (inductive and/or abductive). So, unless we assume that moral reasoning is closer to mathematical reasoning than to the kinds of reasoning we normally use in the sciences and humanities-a very dubious assumption-the formal concept of “validity” you are invoking has rather limited relevance to morality.

I don’t have any sense for the various properties of inductive arguments. So to the extent that moral arguments are inductive, I have nothing to say. Thanks for pointing out that I’m assuming moral arguments must be deductive. Any recommendations for an introductory text on inductive arguments?

> That’s why I read your statement as intending “valid” informally rather than formally, since in its informal sense the term is not restricted to purely deductive arguments; and informally it is very much a normative concept (formally, I think it has multiple formal senses, some of which contain more normativity than others)

Understood.

> I think your overall point is, you are expressing scepticism about claims to know the truth of some particular moral proposition, grounded in a more general scepticism of the possibility of any moral knowledge at all.

Yes, that is my point.

> I think that kind of general moral scepticism is (usually) a form of normative scepticism. The big problem I see with normative scepticism, is that attempts to argue for it logically and rationally turn out to be self-refuting, because logic and rationality are themselves normative concepts.

This is the first time that I’ve heard of normative epistemology, which I gather is what you are talking about. One thing I will say though, thinking about this seems smoother than thinking about normative morality because (I think) I don’t have as many childhood memories of people telling me what I ought to think compared to those of people telling me what I ought to do.

> I don’t have any sense for the various properties of inductive arguments

You can easily find a lot of resources on this topic, but I can't think of any to particularly recommend. To give my own high-level summary, there are three main types of logical arguments:

- Deductive arguments: from the premises, the conclusion necessarily follows. If the premises are true, and the argument is valid, the conclusion must be true. These are the kinds of arguments found in mathematical proofs, and classical syllogisms such as "All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal"

- Inductive arguments: from many particulars, infer a generalisation. If all swans so far have been observed to be white, it is reasonable to conclude that "All swans are white" – and the more observations you make, the stronger the conclusion becomes – but that conclusion can never be certain, only probable, because maybe tomorrow someone will discover a black swan, proving the conclusion to be false after all–which is of course what actually happened, when Europeans came to Australia and found swans which were black. (Also, confusingly, "mathematical induction" is a type of deductive argument, not induction in the logical sense.)

- Abductive arguments: from a situation, infer the truth of its most plausible explanation: If I walk into a room and find toys spread all over the floor, I am going to conclude that our four year old did it. Now, maybe some crazy stranger broke into our house, threw toys everywhere, then left – not absolutely impossible, but far less likely than it being our four year old.

The big difference: in deductive arguments, if the argument is good, and the premises are true, the conclusion must be true; in non-deductive arguments, the argument can be good, and the premises can be completely true, and yet the conclusion can still be false. A deductive argument which produces a false conclusion from true premises is by definition a bad one; a non-deductive argument which produces a false conclusion from true premises can still be a perfectly good one, provided that unfortunate outcome is improbable.

The natural sciences use all three, but rely heavily on induction and abduction. Historians primarily use abduction – induction works best for repeatable events, whereas many of the events historians study are essentially unique and unrepeatable (World War II was in many ways a unique event in human history, nothing quite like it had ever happened before, even World War I was different in many ways, and if World War III ever happens it is going to be very different again).

I think a lot of moral reasoning must be non-deductive, because deductive arguments generally deal with certainties, whereas it is quite natural for people to say about moral issues "I think it is probably wrong but I'm not 100% sure". I think moral reasoning often involves some degree of induction – if you repeatedly encounter particular situations which offend your conscience, you are likely to adopt a moral principle which condemns whatever those particular situations have in common – generalising a principle out of particular cases, which is essentially what inductive reasoning is. But, as in all inductive reasoning, you can never be sure that there will not be some case which might convince you that your generalisation needs an exception – a moral black swan.

> This is the first time that I’ve heard of normative epistemology, which I gather is what you are talking about.

Yes, exactly. A lot of the concepts traditionally used in epistemology appear to be normative. For example, in the classical definition of knowledge as "justified true belief", justification appears to be a normative concept – a belief which is justified given some evidence is a belief which one ought to hold (or, at least, one is permitted to hold) given that evidence, a belief which is unjustified given some evidence is a belief which one ought not to hold given that evidence.

> One thing I will say though, thinking about this seems smoother than thinking about normative morality because (I think) I don’t have as many childhood memories of people telling me what I ought to think compared to those of people telling me what I ought to do.

I think a lot of people grow up exposed to conservative religious approaches to morality, which they often experienced as being pushed on them inflexibly and never with any convincing justification–and it is unsurprising many such people become attracted to the idea that "morality is subjective". However, I wonder, is that "throwing the baby out with the bathwater"? Most of these people would feel strongly that genocide, slavery, apartheid, torture, child abuse, theocratic totalitarianism, etc, are immoral – yet, having accepted "morality is subjective", those moral positions they endorse must be just as subjective as those which they've rejected. Subjective morality weakens their own moral positions. Indeed, once you believe that morality is subjective, you can no longer claim (in any objective sense) that anyone else's morality is wrong, including that of various religious conservatives – the most you can consistently say about their morality is that you don't like it – but why should they (or anyone else) care about what you like?

Not being able to use emperical evidence to prove a normative claim is a very common (albeit not universal) belief. Probably because nobody has really convincingly done so in thoussands of years.

> To call an argument "valid" is to make a normative claim; it is to claim that a rational agent ought to accept it.

Idk, it could just be a claim that the argument can be expressed in a logical system, combined with the normative axiom that rational agents should only trust arguments that can be validly expressed in such a formal system.

Regardless this seems to be missing the forest for the trees. Nobody has put forth any arguments for either position that are emperical in nature. Is there really a practical difference between impossible and possible but nobody knows how?

The practical/empirical argument would essentially be to extrapolate out what the world will become like if we spread X or Y normative belief/practice.

You can argue that one will lead to a preferable world than the other.

Of course, we may have different preferences, so we may not agree even if we agree on that extrapolation. But often basic human preferences like not wanting to be the victim of unprovoked public violence do align.

Consider this (meta-)moral principle: For some moral proposition P, if universal human obedience to P would lead to human extinction, then P is false.

Example of application: Consider "It is always immoral to have children". Obviously, if humanity universally obeyed that principle, human extinction would inevitably and quickly follow. Therefore, that principle is false. From which obviously follows: "It is moral to have children (at least sometimes)".

Now, I would propose we accept that meta-moral principle as an axiom. To me, and to many others, it seems self-evidently and intuitively true. Who seriously doubts or denies this axiom? Well, most of the people who doubt or deny it, do so not due to its specific content, but due to a philosophical objection to accepting any moral axioms at all. The number of people who are happy to accept moral axioms but would refuse to accept this particular one appears to be rather small. It seems as good a candidate to be an axiom as any other. So why not accept it as an axiom?

> Idk, it could just be a claim that the argument can be expressed in a logical system, combined with the normative axiom that rational agents should only trust arguments that can be validly expressed in such a formal system.

The term "valid" has both formal and informal senses. I agree some of its formal senses are non-normative, but I think its informal uses have a strong normative element. The original comment to which I was responding wasn't very clear about in what sense it was intending the term, but when people aren't clear, it is not unfair to assume they mean a term informally rather than in some specific formal sense.

> Regardless this seems to be missing the forest for the trees. Nobody has put forth any arguments for either position that are emperical in nature. Is there really a practical difference between impossible and possible but nobody knows how?

What is the proper role of empiricism in human knowledge, including moral knowledge? You seem to be making some assumptions here which you are not making explicit.

If one accepts moral sense theory – that moral intuitions are a form of empirical knowledge – then we can have direct empirical knowledge of the truth or falsehood of moral propositions.

If one accepts pragmatism – that beliefs can be justified by the pragmatic benefits of believing them, and that pragmatically justified beliefs can constitute genuine cases of knowledge – then empirical evidence can be used to establish the pragmatic benefits of a moral belief, and hence (indirectly) to establish its truth.

One may believe that some axioms are self-evidently true, and that one's knowledge of the truth of those axioms is innate rather than empirical – in which case, if one accepts that for non-moral axioms, how about accepting it for moral axioms as well?

> Neither party can offer a valid argument as to why their principle is true, because both of their principles are normative.

The majority of ethicists agree that normative statements can express true statements.

But the positive/normative distinction is also not important here: medical ethics is a prescriptive and lexical ethics, one that you must follow if you are to practice medicine. It's not interested in what any individual does thinks should or shouldn't be the case: you do no harm and you always render treatment in accordance with your means.

> The majority of ethicists agree that normative statements can express true statements.

What do you think is a good candidate for such a statement? My impression is that arguments must proceed from axioms, positive axioms aren’t helpful because the statement is normative and normative axioms just reproduce the issue.

> medical ethics is a prescriptive and lexical ethics, one that you must follow if you are to practice medicine.

What is the meaning of “lexical ethics”? Google didn’t return anything helpful.

I believe the essence of the claim you are making is that, “There is a powerful enforcement body that will only permit doctors to practice medicine if they do no harm and render treatment in accordance with their means.” I think this a positive claim about human behavior, a proposition potentially belonging to the set of sociological or historical facts.

I suspect the family is talking about the way things ought to be, “Heart transplants should go to good people”. And you are pointing out that the doctors are responding with a positive claim, “That’s not what we do here.”?

> What do you think is a good candidate for such a statement?

Here's an intuitive one: "you shouldn't kick puppies." Most people think that expresses a true statement (not that "most people" is itself indicative of truth value).

In terms of my own ethics: "act only in a way that you can will be universal law." Of course, not everybody agrees with that one, but I think it's an awfully good candidate.

We can talk about if and how those proceed from axioms, but I suspect that'll be a long thread :-)

> What is the meaning of “lexical ethics”?

Sorry: lex is in lex, legis, "law." Medical ethics don't concern themselves with normal moral objects or even moral laws in the deontological sense; they are literally a book of rules that doctors (broadly) are not allowed to disagree with.

So yes, I think it's correct to read the doctors' responses as a positive claim: they're pointing out that it's a category error to appeal to their (potentially true!) moral beliefs.

> a book of rules that doctors (broadly) are not allowed to disagree with.

They’re allowed to disagree, as long as they still follow them.

You're right, sorry. "It doesn't matter whether they disagree" is a better way to put it.

Dura lex sed lex and all that.

>Most people think that expresses a true statement

Worth pointing out that truth is a pretty complicated word in this case. The statement is intuitively true in the sense that it is a command that ought to be followed, but it's not a factual truth statement in an empirical sense. Likewise often truth statements or commandments are reframed emotional stances, say "you should not look at porn!" expressing simply disapproval.

Lay ethics discussions conflate truth claims a lot so it's hard to draw any conclusions from it. Also there's a deep cultural aversion to argue that moral statements have no truth value, despite it being a common philosophical position.

> The majority of ethicists agree that normative statements can express true statements.

Well, yeah, it would kind of be silly to be an ethicist if you didn't believe that, and even if you were it would be contrary to self-interest to admit to it. It’s like polling astrologists on the reality of planetary influence on personality and personal fortunes.

Not particularly! There are ethicists who believe all sorts of silly things, if you think "self-defeating" or "undermining" qualifies as "silly." For example, there are plenty of ethicists who think that moral statements are really just preference statements, putting "killing is bad" on the same epistemic level as "I don't like peanuts on my sundaes."

This all works out because it isn't actually contrary to their self-interest: academic philosophy doesn't care whether your position undermines some grounding claim, because there's no universal consensus around that grounding claim to begin with. You'll find plenty of moral philosophers who think that morality is a purely preferential mental phenomenon; they don't mind admitting that because there's still plenty of interesting work to be done if that's the case.

>The doctor is saying “Our principle is that we don’t use the patient’s past violence or convictions to determine whether they should get a heart or not, so the stabbing doesn’t disqualify David.”

>Neither party can offer a valid argument as to why their principle is true, because both of their principles are normative.

I'm pretty sure someone mentioned that the Dr's pov is that the doctors don't punish crime. Someone else does that. If they have a crime worthy of death, someone else determines that and administers that punishment. The Dr's stay out of that conversation.

Exactly. If the law was changed to allow judges to impose "denial of transplants" as a punishment, then one might consider that a good or bad thing, but in that case it would be the courts not the doctors who makes the determination, and the legislative who'd be ultimately responsible for the rule existing.

As long as there is no such law, it's not for doctors to impose such restrictions.

The first argument is a slippery slope. What crimes disqualify you from getting a heart? How much repentance do you have to go through the get qualified back? Who judges that?

You’d can’t just have a list of disqualifying crimes. You’d need to balance things out a proper social credit score.

With an indirect death penalty attached, yes. Can’t think of how this could go wrong at alllllllllllll

The guy should have got the death penalty for attempted and arguably successful murder (the victim later died of a stroke directly attributable to the wounds he received from the stabbing). 10 years for stabbing a guy multiple times to the point of putting him in a wheel chair is a slap on the wrist.

Funny how a lot of problems work themselves out when swift justice is delivered. This whole thread doesn’t exist in that alternative, more just world.

In the article I see a few pictures of the guy with his large, seemingly happy family. Getting rid of the opportunity for that to happen would be like creating another tragedy from the ashes of the first. I don’t know where you’re from, but in America a lot of folks share your view. But our use of the death penalty hasn’t eradicated crime. So then one has to wonder if the possible benefits are worth the price.

> with his large, seemingly happy family

If we take that into account, then do loners without friends/children/family not deserve the same consideration?

They definitely do in my view. But if you were facing the death penalty as a part of a jury trial they might feel differently, character witness statements matter to some degree.

People who commit crimes should not get a heart can be transformed to Only people who have not committed crimes should get replacement hearts. The problem is, who hasn't committed crimes? Which crimes count? Who decides?

That question makes the more-topical issue When the ER fills up, should unvaccinated people be treated by administering carbon monoxide in the hospital parking garage? look trivial to resolve, in comparison.

Seems pretty damn simple to me. If you wouldn’t put someone to death for a crime, you shouldn’t deny them medical care in a manner that will kill them for the same crime. It’s functionally and legally the same as putting them to death. Withholding necessary medical care is the same as withholding food, water, air, or shelter.

We deny people waiting for organ transplants medical treatment regularly. there simply aren't enough organs to go around. In the case that people are already having life saving organs withheld from them, it makes sense to prioritize.

I think people have the ethical issue in this case backwards: the reason this guy got this transplant is because it was an experiment. We effectively used an ex-con as a guinea pig. (Personally, I'm fine with that, he was fully aware and consented, it was his only chance.)

If this guy had died due to the experimental heart failing, we'd probably be seeing a bunch of op-eds about our moral failure to prevent exploitation of a vulnerable (ex-)prison population.

> We deny people waiting for organ transplants medical treatment regularly. there simply aren't enough organs to go around.

Yeah. There is no shortage of pig organs which is kinda the whole point. Rationing limited care is different than denying perfectly available care simply out of retribution. I thought the context made that distinction rather self-evident.

There is definitely a shortage of transplantable pig hearts. This is the first such heart ever.

There is shortage yes in the sense that the heart didn’t come from just any pig. It is a specific, modified breed which made the procedure more likely to succeed. The donor pig was also probably raised in more sanitary conditions than most other pig would be.

There is not a huge supply of these transplantable pig hearts at the moment. But if the procedure proves to be viable and the long term consequences make it favourable we can scale up transplantable pig heart production.

The reason we are not transplanting pig hearts to thousands of patients right now is not because of any such supposed shortage though, but because the procedure is not proven yet. The experiment in question is set out to provide data to help answer that question.

Yeah, I don't think we disagree about anything real.

> We deny people waiting for organ transplants medical treatment regularly.

Yes, but not for their moral failings. We deny care for health reasons, as generally speaking the goal is to optimize for additional healthy years of life.

> If this guy had died due to the experimental heart failing, we'd probably be seeing a bunch of op-eds about our moral failure to prevent exploitation of a vulnerable (ex-)prison population.

On the contrary, you’re probably massively overestimating how much the society at large cares for convicted felons.

The sad reality is it’s not a lot.

Which is why I doubt we’d see a single op-ed about it.

In the vaccination example: it is based on triage. Which is based on predicted outcome and resources available.

If you have one hospital bed and two COVID patients that are looking like they will die if they don’t get admitted you treat the one with the greater chance of survival. Being vaccinated is predictive of a higher survival rate…

I mean one of those principles generalize, the other does not. I would argue making medical decisions based on ad-hoc principles is unjust.

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