Suppose we granted that punishing certain acts is an intrinsically good thing. If the above it were true, it would seem hard to deny that punished crimes create less net-badness than otherwise identical unpunished crimes. This is because they are associated with an intrinsic good (punishment) that unpunished crimes are not. Presumably, if there are … Continue reading A repugnant implication of retributive punishment

ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat I I have a recurrent experience where something I’ve done, or something I am, appears to me to be better than I know it to really be. I pause and try to break through, to see it from the outside, but I can’t. When I write, what I’ve … Continue reading Perspectival fever: On being shot through with philosophical desire

This is an old puzzle- I recall reading it in Ted Chiang and I think other places as well. It's a great example of how seemingly reasonable intuitions can lead us astray. Premise 1. There could exist a book that contains infallibly accurate information about the future. Premise 2. A robot could read this book. … Continue reading Paradox of the book and the robot

Here's a fun little philosophy mini-game. Nozick imagines an experience machine, capable of generating experiences, just as vivid, rich and pleasurable as the real thing- for the whole range of desirable human experiences. Nozick argues that experiences had in such a machine would be inherently less meaningful than their real world equivalents. It seems to me … Continue reading Philosophical minigame: How much do different activities lose through the experience machine?