Page 1 of 6 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 60

Thread: Moral thought experiment. Would you or wouldn't you...

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Beans
    43

    Moral thought experiment. Would you or wouldn't you...

    You are on a long, straight street, which on one side has a car yard/lot selling cars to people like you. There are no competing car yards anywhere, and never will be.

    On the other side of this (infinitely long) street is an infinite number of cars, owned by no-one, indistinguishable from the cars sold by the car yard, currently benefiting no-one, the removal of which cannot directly harm anyone or anything. If the car yard owner goes broke and the car yard is abandoned the supply of infinite cars will be unaffected.

    The owner of the car yard is running a business, and wants you to buy a car from him. Every time he sees someone get in one of the infinite cars and drive away he gets upset, because he knows he's lost a potential customer. When he started his business there were no infinite cars across the street, and he bought cars to fill his yard. But now after a sale he replentishes his stock from the infinite cars.

    The inspiration for this experiment is obvious, of course. (File sharing - movies in particular)

    You have no car, but want one. The questions are:
    1. if you could not afford a car from the car yard (now or in the near future) would you take one of the infinite cars as your own?
    2. if you *could* afford a car from the yard without any *extreme* hardship (not being able to afford rent, or food, etc), would you buy from the car yard or take from the infinite cars?

    Yes, or no?
    Last edited by Cracklepop; March 23rd, 2011 at 10:27 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Rome, Italy
    Beans
    2,184

    Re: Moral thought experiment. Would you or wouldn't you...

    Quote Originally Posted by Cracklepop View Post
    You are on a long, straight street, which on one side has a car yard/lot selling cars to people like you.

    On the other side of this (infinitely long) street is an infinite number of cars, owned by no-one, indistinguishable from the cars sold by the car yard, currently benefiting no-one, the removal of which cannot directly harm anyone or anything.

    The owner of the car yard is running a business, and wants you to buy a car from him. Every time he sees someone get in one of the infinite cars and drive away he gets upset, because he knows he's lost a potential customer.

    The intended analogy is obvious, of course.

    The questions are:
    1. if you had no car but wanted one, and could not afford a car from the car yard, now or in the near future, would you take one of the infinite cars as your own?
    2. if you *could* afford a car from the yard without any *extreme* hardship (not being able to afford rent, or food, etc), and wanted a car, would you buy from the car yard or take from the infinite cars?
    too much questions.. i do a walk!

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Kansas City, KS
    Beans
    1,319
    Distro
    Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

    Re: Moral thought experiment. Would you or wouldn't you...

    In this thought experiment, there's no benefit to supporting the dealer. In fact, the dealer seems to be scalping a free product. Taking the scenario as written, the unclaimed cars are a free and infinite resource and anyone would be daft not to take one. The dealer is clearly in the wrong business.

    If the dealership's existence is by some mechanism necessary to the production of more cars, then it would seem morally best to buy from the dealer. If the dealer in fact owns the infinite cars, but cannot prevent their removal, then to take one would be theft. The analogy is obvious. = )
    I know I shouldn't use tildes for decoration, but they always make me feel at home~

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Beans
    43

    Re: Moral thought experiment. Would you or wouldn't you...

    Quote Originally Posted by Copper Bezel View Post
    In this thought experiment, there's no benefit to supporting the dealer. In fact, the dealer seems to be scalping a free product.

    If the dealership's existence is by some mechanism necessary to the production of more cars, then it would seem morally best to buy from the dealer.
    You haven't answered... Thanks for the input though, I'll update the original.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    NT, Australia
    Beans
    338
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: Moral thought experiment. Would you or wouldn't you...

    I would bye one of the free cars just to teach the dealer a lesson. What kind of idiot puts a car dealership right next to a road of infinite free cars?

    EDIT: I just remembered that am to young to get a licence XD

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Kansas City, KS
    Beans
    1,319
    Distro
    Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

    Re: Moral thought experiment. Would you or wouldn't you...

    You haven't answered... Thanks for the input though, I'll update the original.
    Sorry, I have a nasty habit of posting, then editing back the bits where I do things like actually address the question. = )
    I know I shouldn't use tildes for decoration, but they always make me feel at home~

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Beans
    6,537
    Distro
    Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

    Re: Moral thought experiment. Would you or wouldn't you...

    Quote Originally Posted by Jagoly View Post
    What kind of idiot puts a car dealership right next to a road of infinite free cars?
    Well yes, exactly. His business model is unsustainable, what's to stop an infinite number of competitors setting up rival car dealerships next door and undercutting him? They'll all simply race to the bottom of the market and (which is zero) and go out of business anyway. As far as i'm concerned he doesn't have a viable car dealership, he has a money-eating machine.

    So I would have no problem taking a free car and laughing at him for being a doofus.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    New Zealand
    Beans
    607
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: Moral thought experiment. Would you or wouldn't you...

    If the analogy is about FLOSS as I understand it,

    The benefit from purchasing from the dealer is that he will clean your car once a year and fix it when ever it breaks.

    The cars occasionally break and are too difficult for most people to fix, so unless they're mechanics, in the long run it's far better for them to buy the car (because a) you can only choose a free car once or b) once you get the car the amount you personalise it means that you want to keep the same car, not trade in every couple of months.)

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Beans
    43

    Re: Moral thought experiment. Would you or wouldn't you...

    Quote Originally Posted by frup View Post
    If the analogy is about FLOSS as I understand it,
    Not even remotely. The inspiration is file sharing (it wouldn't be accurate to call it an analogy).
    Last edited by Cracklepop; March 22nd, 2011 at 09:11 AM.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Kansas City, KS
    Beans
    1,319
    Distro
    Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

    Re: Moral thought experiment. Would you or wouldn't you...

    If it's literal, then, the car dealer is in fact responsible for the existence of the cars, and all the infinite cars do in fact belong to him. Stealing one of the infinite cars rather than buying one from the dealer contributes to the dealership going under, so that there will never be any better cars.
    I know I shouldn't use tildes for decoration, but they always make me feel at home~

Page 1 of 6 123 ... LastLast

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •