Comments on: The Virtue of Silence

By: Scott F

Scott F — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 03:00:56 +0000

You perhaps jest, but there’s another framing of the Trolley problem where it’s a consequentialist doctor who has five patients in mortal need of organ transplants, and a healthy young traveller who has all five of those organs walks in the door of the doctor’s surgical transplant clinic for a routine physical checkup. The traveller writes down “no next of kin” and cheerfully jokes that he has to be careful not to get lost, because he has nobody to realise he’s missing.

I feel like there are perhaps a bunch of ethics philosophers exercising some of the Virtue of Silence in talking about trolleys and fat people on bridges – they would be gritting their teeth when their opponents argue that if a trolley could kill five people how could one fat person stop it, wanting really badly to throw this more realistic medical problem at them, but refraining because of the damage it might do to trust in the medical system.

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By: Leonard Cuff

Leonard Cuff — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 19:48:19 +0000

Yes, Susan Forward had her license suspended as a California Therapist for disclosures she made about Nicole Brown Simpson after Brown was murdered by O.J.

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By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 08:51:47 +0000

Good point — patients sometimes get to choose which doctor to trust, but criminal defendants never get to choose which judge and jurors to trust.

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By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 08:48:06 +0000

The gay drug user (unless he lives in a small and religious town, in which case where the hell did he find a partner?) could probably find a pro-gay, pro-drug doctor more easily than he could find one who didn’t read the New York Times.

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By: Highlights From My Notes From A Forensic Psychiatry Conference Last Week | Slate Star Codex

Mon, 11 Nov 2013 00:32:12 +0000

[…] Entitlement, Science, and Scientific Racism | Dread Lord von Kalifornen on The Virtue of Silence […]

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By: Entitlement, Science, and Scientific Racism | Dread Lord von Kalifornen

Entitlement, Science, and Scientific Racism | Dread Lord von Kalifornen — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 16:50:01 +0000

[…] some of them are free of it; others are tainted but will not be strongly affected. But it is for the populace, not the intellectual elite of the Right that I most fear the public discovery of the […]

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By: sixes_and_sevens

sixes_and_sevens — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 13:17:18 +0000

Is “angels-and-clockwork” a reference to something specific? This has been bugging me for the past three months, and I just realised I could ask you.

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By: Social Psychology Is A Flamethrower « Random Ramblings of Rude Reality

Social Psychology Is A Flamethrower « Random Ramblings of Rude Reality — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 05:44:29 +0000

[…] No criminal can see into the future to discover whether or not they will be punished; the only way certainty of punishment can influence crime is through public perception of certainty of punishment. That suggests that if you discover that an abominable crime has (contrary to popular perception) a very low chance of punishment, it would be an excellent time to practice the virtue of silence. […]

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By: Social Psychology Is A Flamethrower | Slate Star Codex

Social Psychology Is A Flamethrower | Slate Star Codex — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 02:10:17 +0000

[…] The Virtue of Silence […]

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By: Randy M

Randy M — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 22:46:47 +0000

Well, me neither, but I would also not be shocked to find doctors of various stripes violating patient confidentiality. The question isn’t what is surprising, but what is more morally repugnant.

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