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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

One probably-final comment--you say that

lack of external "guidance" - the absence of something to tell me what to think or do about my situation - is presumably what can make REAL moral dilemmas so excruciating.This puzzles me; I would have thought the "excruciating" quality came simply from an uncomfortably high probability of being disastrously wrong. Of course if (a) you had reliable external guidance, then the probability of being disastrously wrong goes down to zero, just as if (b) you had reliable internal guidance, or as if (c) the cost of being wrong were low in the first place. I wouldn't particularly emphasize (a) over (b) or (c); did you mean to do so, or were you considering them to be excluded by the terms of reference, or ?

Anyway, it might be good to think about real examples (this is a morning for asking for real examples, I guess; I'm working with Russian linguists and I mostly don't know what they're talking about, even when they switch into English for my sake.) If you google for the "man who saved the world", you get a variety of links to pages about Stanislav Petrov(1983) and some about Vasili Arkhipov(1962), two Soviet officers without whom we would not be having this discussion. Each had a choice without really adequate data: Arkhipov's sub was getting hit with US depth charges (not too close, it seems) and his co-captain seems to have thought it likely that a nuclear war was going on overhead. Petrov's computers told him about incoming US missiles. Each decided not to launch. Of course they may not have perceived it as a dilemma, we don't know that. But if you want to think about excruciating, I think these are more interesting examples than Sartre's. :-)

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Well, there might be survival advantage in a lot of things, but I think you've fairly well exposed the problem with "plumping" - I suppose we could call what you're referring to "post-plumping" (or as Hal succinctly referred to it, a self-serving bias).

When I originally introduced this idea of "plumping," I meant to refer to the problem one might have in making a decision (the frustration, or self-doubt involved) where reasons are indecisive. That lack of external "guidance" - the absence of something to tell me what to think or do about my situation - is presumably what can make REAL moral dilemmas so excruciating. (This is a point that Rue was concerned that I had unduly neglected.) But if I "convince myself" that the choice I make is the right one, that act of "convincing" (i.e. plumping) is not guided by a reason. Of course, that doesn't mean that my decision itself is irrational, or unjustified - since it seems that I may choose however I decide in a dilemma - but I can't take my *particular* course of action to have "universal validity." And if I (pre-)plump, I may delude myself into thinking that, not only did I do *something* right or good, but that I did the *only* right thing. (In thinking that, I seem to forget about the other possibility and that I could have equally well chosen it.)

BTW, Tom, thanks for the discussion.

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