From: Nick Tarleton (nickptar@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Mar 10 2008 - 15:42:45 MDT
On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin@rawbw.com> wrote:
> True, but take a more challenging example: I choose to have
> myself tortured to death in place of my child. Now I do this
> knowing full well that I will regret, infinitely regret, this decision.
> (That's part of the definition of true torture.) Thus I am
>
> sacrificing "the quality of my subjective experience" for an
> unknown, and horribly duration.
>
> You may argue, "Oh, well, during the tiny moment you made that
> decision, you were optimizing your tiny current subjective experience".
> That's true, though it reduces us to the "everyone does everything for
> a selfish reason", thus totally negating what the word "selfish" means
> and effectively removing from public discourse.
>
> Most people will in fact, I claim, sacrifice their subjective well-being
> for certain higher or nobler goals, even if it involves knowing very
> well that they will enormously regret the decision. I dare say that
> we could concoct an example where John Clark would do the same.
I would argue that you're sacrificing your subjective well-being for
your child's, thus demonstrating John's point.
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