[ExI] ethics question: RE: To Aaronson Trump

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2016 7:39 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] To Aaronson Trump

 

Sorry about that, I meant to send that to somebody else.

 

John

 

 

No worries John, we are somebody else.  Or rather I am.  Some commentators prefer to use the non-lifeform-specific term “thing” as in Spike, you’re something else.  That way, they flatter me in a less specific way.

 

John, don’t worry, do something.  Anything you can think of.  Do the right thing, my friend, do it.

 

But do let me go bounce off a political post into something else (the opposite direction discussions usually bounce) and ask ethics experts please a question about terminology.

 

In a situation where a prole must choose between two bad options, that is called an ethical dilemma.  (Ja?)

 

Where she must choose the best of two mutually exclusive good options, we can talk about opportunity cost of one or the other perhaps.  Is there a table of terminology in ethics?

 

OK what if… a prole has the option of doing good deed A or good deed B but she does neither?  That becomes a bad deed, ja?

 

And what if… a prole discovers some interesting technology that can do a good thing that helps people, but also might harm some people in unknown ways?  Then opting to do nothing is a bad deed, ja?  Does that have a name or a category?

 

Ethics hipsters, have you a favorite link for the very basic terminology on this? 

 

spike

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