Not sure I understand what you are getting at - what exactly has been justified by the "ticking time bomb" experiment? I am not arguing for bad science.
I am also not using the ticking time bomb as a general example to support torture - I was just challenging the original posters assumption that his morals were unchangeable.
Nevertheless it is nonsense to refuse to weigh lives against each other. For example, in big building projects, there is presumably an inherent risk that innocent people will die in accidents during the building process. Yet the decision is often made to build (perhaps build a hospital?). Or take streets - thousands of people die in road accidents every year (and probably many more are killed by exhaust fumes), but apparently society has decided their lives are worth sacrificing. If the decision wasn't conscious, I'd argue it would be an improvement if the decision were made consciously.
Also, nuclear weapons are a real problem. They don't go away by simply not thinking about them. Frankly it might be a good thing that there are other people than feminists thinking about it.
Lastly, I think morals are just a poor workaround for having no sound theory for why a certain kind of behavior is beneficial. The more morals can be replaced by reason, the better for society, in my opinion.
Morals may have a good reputation, but in some other countries people get stoned to death for immoral behavior. Since morals have no scientific foundation, at times we might be ashamed about our own behavior a couple of years later, when understanding improves.
Your consequentialist philosophical views also have no "scientific foundation". Science reveals the world as it is, not as it should be.
You claim that somehow you are beyond values by applying this crude calculus of "lives saved". The truth is that you have not provided a foundation for your ethics. So what is it?
I agree that you do not understand what I'm getting at. Maybe we should just table this.
edited to add:
"what exactly has been justified by the "ticking time bomb" experiment?"
If you read The One Percent Doctrine, you will learn about the people the United States tortured to try to get intel about terrorist attacks, using the ticking time bomb justification. And hello, "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." We invaded Iraq using similar justifications about the risks of WMD.
I am also not using the ticking time bomb as a general example to support torture - I was just challenging the original posters assumption that his morals were unchangeable.
Nevertheless it is nonsense to refuse to weigh lives against each other. For example, in big building projects, there is presumably an inherent risk that innocent people will die in accidents during the building process. Yet the decision is often made to build (perhaps build a hospital?). Or take streets - thousands of people die in road accidents every year (and probably many more are killed by exhaust fumes), but apparently society has decided their lives are worth sacrificing. If the decision wasn't conscious, I'd argue it would be an improvement if the decision were made consciously.
Also, nuclear weapons are a real problem. They don't go away by simply not thinking about them. Frankly it might be a good thing that there are other people than feminists thinking about it.
Lastly, I think morals are just a poor workaround for having no sound theory for why a certain kind of behavior is beneficial. The more morals can be replaced by reason, the better for society, in my opinion.
Morals may have a good reputation, but in some other countries people get stoned to death for immoral behavior. Since morals have no scientific foundation, at times we might be ashamed about our own behavior a couple of years later, when understanding improves.