How I Scare Children for Money
I've spent a large part of the last couple of weeks doing summer school work for kids of around 15 years of age. Oddly, though the money helps, I did it for the love.

Part of what I do involves lying. Let me explain. There's a line of moral thought called "Consequentialism", which holds in essence that actions are right or good to the extent that they're optimific, and bad or wrong to the extent that they're pessimific. It's a nice, straightforward, commonsense account of moral decisionmaking, and, though real-life consequentialism can be quite nuanced, I give it to the kids (who've usually never before heard of philosophy) in the most basic form.

So: they generally accept that consequentialism is a plausible mode of moral decisionmaking. "Great," I say. "So you'll agree that it was OK for me to kill my flatmate."

I then launch into a story about an unpleasant flatmate whom I, with others, killed as students. We got rid of an unpleasant person, he didn't suffer (we made sure the death was painless), we got a spare room in our shared house, and the world became a better place as a result. Standard reductio ad absurdum thought experiment stuff.

The session'll go on. I need another thought experiment. This time it involves deciding not to rescue a drowning child because I'm running late and it'd mean ruining my new shoes. Again - standard stuff.

Generally, the kids get exactly what I'm up to, and why. They see the point of the games I'm playing.

But, at the end of almost every session, there'll be one kid who won't leave until he's asked me if I really killed my flatmate, and if I really left the girl in the pond. I always look offended and ask whether I'm being accused of lying.

Because, clearly, while I'm willing to stand by as innocents perish, making stories up for didactic purposes is just beyond the pale.

And that is how I scare children for money.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 18:10, 9 replies)

Aw, Enzyme
I know why they really want to stay behind...
( Madam Marlboro wonders if you've found her yet, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 18:27, closed)

I feel dim...
You teach this to 15-year olds? That last thought experiment was on my political theory course last semester! I'll add at this point that I am a second year student of law and politics at the University of Manchester, generally considered not half bad on the brainy stakes...

...no wonder people are saying education is "dumbed down".

Did you do the thought experiment that follows, where you compare the morality of leaving the drowning child with the morality of ignoring a charity letter asking for £20, without which at least one African child would die?

Some evil bastard makes these up to get everybody guilty, I swear. Bet he's Catholic.
(Holloway_Girl To err is to be human, to be a fool is to believe, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 19:02, closed)

Isn't that first one about the flatmate
the plot of The Secret History?

Have to say, this does sound like a good job...
(LongJohnBaldry, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 21:49, closed)

@Holloway girl
By Enzyme's standards, this is dumbed down. He's the cleverest b3tard there is*.

We need more like him!

*Other, as yet undiscovered, b3tards may be cleverer, but I've yet to find one.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Thu 10 Jul 2008, 22:31, closed)

@K2k6
nonsense! He's a profound retard- aren't you, Nigel?
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 1:19, closed)

@Holloway Girl
Have you read Singer's Famine, Affluence and Morality?, or Unger's Living High and Letting Die? They're rather uncomfortable...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 12:07, closed)

I've just googled 'pessimific' and it only returned one result
(a mono-googlewhack I suppose) which wasn't very helpful.

Could you elaborate?
( chenobble rocking his explorer beard on, Fri 11 Jul 2008, 17:25, closed)

Surely....
The definition of a googlewhack is that only one result is returned thus rendering the mono part somewhat redundant?

I had two results, but they both used big words so I didn't read them
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Mon 14 Jul 2008, 10:34, closed)

@TGB
A googlewhack must have more than one search term, and produce only one result.

Cheers.
( IHaveABadFeelingAboutThis most likely working from home on, Tue 15 Jul 2008, 17:38, closed)