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Self-Serving utilitarian arguments

askell.blog · 2,031 words · saved by 2 readers

Tim is a utilitarian and has dedicated his life to doing good. He works on existential risk by day and runs a hedge fund by night that funnels money to the global poor. Tim calculates that he's on track to save a 3 million lives during his lifetime. One day,

Tim is a utilitarian and has dedicated his life to doing good. He works on existential risk by day and runs a hedge fund by night that funnels money to the global poor. Tim calculates that he's on track to save a 3 million lives during his lifetime. One day, Tim gets sick and is rushed to hospital. The doctors inform Tim that there's a 10% chance he's going to die if he doesn't drink exactly 10ml of medicine X (which makes Tim start to suspect he's in some kind of philosophical thought experiment). The hospital only has 10ml of medicine X. To make matters worse, there are ten other people in t

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