Who Counts?

April 30th, 2012
ea, morality
Who should count in my moral system? Whose joy and suffering matter? All living things? Animals? Mammals? People? Relatives? Me?

Normally people go to their moral intution to answer these questions, but I'm dubious of mine because it tells me things that are unreasonable:

  • Someone physically close to me is more important than someone in another country.
  • Doctors should treat people first-come-first-served instead of treating inexpensive diseases first.
  • Charities should spend all their money on helping people instead of measuring how well what they're doing works.
  • The suffering of a person matters less if they're being emulated on a computer.
  • The suffering of cuter animals and more attractive people matters more.
  • One person with a problem is more important than many.

Cutting chunks off a tree for fun seems wrong. So does going around stomping on ants, raising chickens in massively overcrowded conditions, kicking puppies, and torturing people in video games. But I'm not sure which of these, if any, are actually wrong and not just my moral intutition being overly empathic in what to identify with.

Referenced in:

Comment via: google plus, facebook, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Linkpost for March

Effective Altruism

via Thing of Things March 2, 2026

The Newest Technology in Frozen

There are lots of different things in Frozen that are new-ish, but my dad and I were wondering: what is the actual newest thing in Frozen? This led me to watch Frozen a lot while taking notes. Some of the things I found included: Elastic hair-ties A safety …

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts March 1, 2026

2025-26 New Year review

This is an annual post reviewing the last year and setting intentions for next year. I look over different life areas (work, health, parenting, effectiveness, etc) and analyze my life tracking data. Highlights include a minimal group house, the usefulness…

via Victoria Krakovna January 19, 2026

more     (via openring)