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Philosophy professor John Holbo had a blog post about ridiculously whimsical scenarios in philosophy under the delightful title Occam's Phaser:

https://crookedtimber.org/2012/02/25/occams-phaser/

There are good examples in the comments too, though I mostly recall it for getting into a heated argument with someone making utilitarian arguments for torture.



Interesting, thanks! My position on the whole 'using moral intuitions in applied cases to disprove fundamental moral theories' is basically what I said in this thread: https://twitter.com/samziz/status/1412198411579887622

Incidentally I wouldn't agree with utilitarian arguments for torture, but not - necessarily - because I don't agree with utilitarianism. I think it's certainly possible to make higher-order or rule-utilitarian arguments against torture, within the parameters of utilitarianism.




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