From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Tue Oct 10 2000 - 14:52:24 MDT
Brian D Williams wrote:
>
> Good question <sound of gears grinding>
>
> Yes.
>
> Even if you could remove "the bad part" the entire other person was
> killed.
>
Yes. But killing the killer will not bring that person back. It will
only result in another individual irretrievably lost.
> How could a sentient, caring person live with themself knowing they
> had murdered another person? Denial? That wasn't the "real" me?
>
A sentient, caring person can come to appreciate the enormity of the
wrongness of the act if properly reformed and never perform such an act
again. Many acts short of murder but also quite heinous cannot be
undone. At best one can make what poor atonement one can and resolve
never to perform in such a way again. Or do you believe all wrong-doers
should be executed given your logic?
How can a sentient, caring person condemn another human being to
irreversible and irretrievable death?
> This could also lead to a dilemma: What if someone decided to kill
> someone knowing the worst that could happen is that the "bad part"
> would be purged. They would still accomplish their task.
>
It is not that simple by far. There is no "bad part". This is a
strawman. Their task was a misaligned way of acheiving some goal. Cure
the misalignment if you can.
> Of course one would like to think if we had the kind of technology
> that could remove "the bad part" this would be accomplished before
> the fact.
>
Most likely many such murders would be avoided by better psychological
and sociological practices before the fact.
> Axiology: The branch of philosophy dealing with values, as those of
> ethics, aesthetics, or religion.
>
Cute, but hopefully incorrect as we very much require ethics especially
as we become more powerful.
- samantha
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