From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Tue Jul 29 2003 - 00:07:10 MDT
How can a prescription to trust our moral instincts deal with the fact
that people disagree about these matters? In their press conference
(http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/ndrive/archive/ter/ter072803_wydendorgan.rm)
the Senators said "betting on terrorism is morally wrong". They said
it was "offensive to almost everyone", "ridiculous and grotesque", a
"sick game".
Logic and reason have as some of their main benefits the ability to
reconcile conflicting views. If people can agree on their premises, then
ideally, using logic, they can come to agreement on their conclusions.
But how can this work with emotions, with instincts? Suppose I don't
share the senator's repugnance? Which of us is right, and which is wrong?
What mechanism can we use to resolve these differences of opinion?
I suppose, in practice, we would just say that majority rules. If most
people share the moral repugnance of the Senators, then they are right.
If instead people instinctively thought that the market's potential
benefits were worthy enough, then the supporters of the futures market
are right.
I'm not that happy with a rule like this, that the majority is always
right. But what else can we do?
Hal
P.S. Another well known example of instinctive moral judgements that
conflict with those held by many of us is Leon Kass's article, The
Wisdom of Repugnance, about his instinctive discomfort with reproductive
technology. How can we know who is right, if it's our guts against his?
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