What you fail to recognize is that because most people don't think carefully about how to do good, and don't make large personal sacrifices in doing good, someone who *does* do that is trying to be better than others, which is actually the worst thing one can do.
Everyone knows that to be a good person you shoudn't do much good at all, lest your flower rise above everyone else. One *certainly* shouldn't try to do tons and tons of good, or God forbid try to do the *most* good, because nobody is special or better than anyone else in any way.
You would do well to remember the Law of Jante, which is the foundation of harmonious society and the ultimate expression of the good life:
You're not to think you are anything special.
You're not to think you are as good as we are.
You're not to think you are smarter than we are.
You're not to imagine yourself better than we are.
You're not to think you know more than we do.
You're not to think you are more important than we are.
I don’t see why people find weighting adult lives higher than infant lives objectionable while also finding abortion to be perfectly moral. Does something magic happen when the baby leaves the birth canal and the umbilical cord is cut? Either bite the bullet and ban abortion after some (hopefully not too arbitrary) cutoff, presumably not banning all abortion since not many people think that newly fertilized eggs have more moral worth than adults in general and women’s right to bodily autonomy in particular, or admit that Dario was doing his best to be a good person! Just because he’s currently a big bad evil tech CEO or because he has some things in common with a group that’s fashionable to hate on (EAs) doesn’t discredit his effort to DONATE TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS TO SAVE LIVES AS A GRAD STUDENT which no smug and morally pure NYT subscriber has ever done…
(Or of course, we could really bite the bullet and say that killing adults is not nearly as bad as aborting fetuses and conclude that we should legalize murder, but that seems like a bad idea)
Normies get really triggered from rigorous and uncomfortable moral reasoning. More than actual devils sometimes.
On the other hand, I find Dario's line of reasoning, to try to check in the abstract how many times an adult's life is more worth than a child's life, to be quite out of line. But, it doesn't take from his work of virtue of great charity, nor did he actually seriously follow that so it was probably just overthinking at the time.
Our altruistic instincts are beneficial adaptations that evolved like everything else. They're meant to make people think that we'd be good allies, friends, and partners.
In service of that, we display our altruism in ways that make it seem undeniable. We give emotionally, suddenly, and uncontrollably. We were simply so moved by the plight of the needy that we couldn't help but give. We're illogical, but we're illogical in a way that'd make us a really good friend (wink wink nudge nudge).
People who tabulate up the costs and benefits of their altruism are inherently suspicious. They're not illogical at all! Instead they come off as heartless mercenaries, calculators who'd abandon us the moment they found someone better to fill our place. We don't want to be friends with a mercenary, we want to be friends with someone who's illogical (in a way that benefits us).
That's why we view it as immoral to think deeply about moral questions. It gives an instinctive "ick". Because people who respond reflexively are trustworthy, predictable, and loyal. People who think for a long time come off as fickle, they can be bought. Of course, the people who are suffering would probably rather people make their donations logically rather than emotionally. But, really, who cares about them?
I think -- no, I feel -- that there is something, as @Dhay says, deranged in that specific process. And maybe some of the reaction is to that, and not to the "whose life is more worth saving" question. But that's a very charitable read.
People ("normies") will much more happily debate whether to throw out of a balloon a random person, the heaviest person or the least deserving one, so it's "valuing infants less" that's triggering this reaction. One is purely emotional (we evolved to care for and about creatures that while in themselves INCREDIBLY unrewarding, represent pure potential -- on this account infant is OBVIOUSLY the most valuable) and one might be a cover up reaction to recognising the uncomfortable logic of the argument (especially if you're pro abortion) and practices that historically have been very common in human societies.
Yeah, many evidently feel a sense of violating a moral taboo here, but I think it's actually quite misguided in this instance (for the reasons explained). There can be *some* cases where we have social or practical reasons to simply ignore certain group differences, as I mention briefly in 'What is Unjust Discrimination?' - https://www.goodthoughts.blog/p/what-is-unjust-discrimination - but I think those are rare and most people overapply taboos in ways that preclude valuable moral reasoning.
What you fail to recognize is that because most people don't think carefully about how to do good, and don't make large personal sacrifices in doing good, someone who *does* do that is trying to be better than others, which is actually the worst thing one can do.
Everyone knows that to be a good person you shoudn't do much good at all, lest your flower rise above everyone else. One *certainly* shouldn't try to do tons and tons of good, or God forbid try to do the *most* good, because nobody is special or better than anyone else in any way.
You would do well to remember the Law of Jante, which is the foundation of harmonious society and the ultimate expression of the good life:
You're not to think you are anything special.
You're not to think you are as good as we are.
You're not to think you are smarter than we are.
You're not to imagine yourself better than we are.
You're not to think you know more than we do.
You're not to think you are more important than we are.
You're not to think you are good at anything.
You're not to laugh at us.
You're not to think anyone cares about you.
You're not to think you can teach us anything.
You scooped my article tomorrow!
Write it anyway. :-)
I don’t see why people find weighting adult lives higher than infant lives objectionable while also finding abortion to be perfectly moral. Does something magic happen when the baby leaves the birth canal and the umbilical cord is cut? Either bite the bullet and ban abortion after some (hopefully not too arbitrary) cutoff, presumably not banning all abortion since not many people think that newly fertilized eggs have more moral worth than adults in general and women’s right to bodily autonomy in particular, or admit that Dario was doing his best to be a good person! Just because he’s currently a big bad evil tech CEO or because he has some things in common with a group that’s fashionable to hate on (EAs) doesn’t discredit his effort to DONATE TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS TO SAVE LIVES AS A GRAD STUDENT which no smug and morally pure NYT subscriber has ever done…
(Or of course, we could really bite the bullet and say that killing adults is not nearly as bad as aborting fetuses and conclude that we should legalize murder, but that seems like a bad idea)
Emotion over Logic
Normies get really triggered from rigorous and uncomfortable moral reasoning. More than actual devils sometimes.
On the other hand, I find Dario's line of reasoning, to try to check in the abstract how many times an adult's life is more worth than a child's life, to be quite out of line. But, it doesn't take from his work of virtue of great charity, nor did he actually seriously follow that so it was probably just overthinking at the time.
Our altruistic instincts are beneficial adaptations that evolved like everything else. They're meant to make people think that we'd be good allies, friends, and partners.
In service of that, we display our altruism in ways that make it seem undeniable. We give emotionally, suddenly, and uncontrollably. We were simply so moved by the plight of the needy that we couldn't help but give. We're illogical, but we're illogical in a way that'd make us a really good friend (wink wink nudge nudge).
People who tabulate up the costs and benefits of their altruism are inherently suspicious. They're not illogical at all! Instead they come off as heartless mercenaries, calculators who'd abandon us the moment they found someone better to fill our place. We don't want to be friends with a mercenary, we want to be friends with someone who's illogical (in a way that benefits us).
That's why we view it as immoral to think deeply about moral questions. It gives an instinctive "ick". Because people who respond reflexively are trustworthy, predictable, and loyal. People who think for a long time come off as fickle, they can be bought. Of course, the people who are suffering would probably rather people make their donations logically rather than emotionally. But, really, who cares about them?
I think -- no, I feel -- that there is something, as @Dhay says, deranged in that specific process. And maybe some of the reaction is to that, and not to the "whose life is more worth saving" question. But that's a very charitable read.
People ("normies") will much more happily debate whether to throw out of a balloon a random person, the heaviest person or the least deserving one, so it's "valuing infants less" that's triggering this reaction. One is purely emotional (we evolved to care for and about creatures that while in themselves INCREDIBLY unrewarding, represent pure potential -- on this account infant is OBVIOUSLY the most valuable) and one might be a cover up reaction to recognising the uncomfortable logic of the argument (especially if you're pro abortion) and practices that historically have been very common in human societies.
Yeah, many evidently feel a sense of violating a moral taboo here, but I think it's actually quite misguided in this instance (for the reasons explained). There can be *some* cases where we have social or practical reasons to simply ignore certain group differences, as I mention briefly in 'What is Unjust Discrimination?' - https://www.goodthoughts.blog/p/what-is-unjust-discrimination - but I think those are rare and most people overapply taboos in ways that preclude valuable moral reasoning.
Being upset is a matter of unmet expectations. Accept who the average person is and be done with it.
These people enrage me so much. I had to delete a lot of profanity in drafting my article about this.