I've never encountered SIA before, I'm trying to understand why it would be of value in ethics, is it because it can be used like expected value for an individual, except that it can be applied to a population?
How does it handle a simple case of immoral behaviour such as stealing? We understand that stealing is wrong a priori, although perhaps there are cases where it is morally permitted. For my purposes, I am just presupposing that generally speaking, we agree stealing is morally wrong.
So, using my understanding of SIA, if I steal something of value from someone else when there is an opportunity where I can reasonably believe it will never be known that I was the thief, I benefit from the action , and therefore can reason, like the reasoning in SIA, the belief that I will benefit implies there exist, in expectation, more people who will benefit. It serves the greater good.
That Person Directed Harm Principle you mention, which you say SIA supports, would give the opposite result. I am harming the person whose property I am stealing, by depriving them of something of value to them, which would then lead me to reason that there exist, in expectation, other people who would be worse off because of my action. It is contrary to the greater good.
Just in case my example sounds too hypothetical, perhaps I can state the example in more specific way. Let's say I am a taxi driver. Some very drunk person leaves their new iPhone in my car. The next day when I find it, I discover it is not locked with a pin code, and realise I could just reset the phone to factory, take the sim card out, put my own sim card in, deny that the phone was left in my cab and suggest it was lost elsewhere, and I've probably just got a free upgrade to my clunky old phone. SIA suggests, to my understanding, my predicted benefit from this action would actually allow me to reason lots of people will probably benefit, making it something that is really good to do.
I understand SIA to mean: I observe that I exist, and I am more likely to exist if other people exist, therefore I expect other people to exist.
In my example: I observe that I will benefit, and I am more likely to benefit if other people will benefit, therefore I expect other people to benefit.
I've never encountered SIA before, I'm trying to understand why it would be of value in ethics, is it because it can be used like expected value for an individual, except that it can be applied to a population?
How does it handle a simple case of immoral behaviour such as stealing? We understand that stealing is wrong a priori, although perhaps there are cases where it is morally permitted. For my purposes, I am just presupposing that generally speaking, we agree stealing is morally wrong.
So, using my understanding of SIA, if I steal something of value from someone else when there is an opportunity where I can reasonably believe it will never be known that I was the thief, I benefit from the action , and therefore can reason, like the reasoning in SIA, the belief that I will benefit implies there exist, in expectation, more people who will benefit. It serves the greater good.
That Person Directed Harm Principle you mention, which you say SIA supports, would give the opposite result. I am harming the person whose property I am stealing, by depriving them of something of value to them, which would then lead me to reason that there exist, in expectation, other people who would be worse off because of my action. It is contrary to the greater good.
Just in case my example sounds too hypothetical, perhaps I can state the example in more specific way. Let's say I am a taxi driver. Some very drunk person leaves their new iPhone in my car. The next day when I find it, I discover it is not locked with a pin code, and realise I could just reset the phone to factory, take the sim card out, put my own sim card in, deny that the phone was left in my cab and suggest it was lost elsewhere, and I've probably just got a free upgrade to my clunky old phone. SIA suggests, to my understanding, my predicted benefit from this action would actually allow me to reason lots of people will probably benefit, making it something that is really good to do.
I understand SIA to mean: I observe that I exist, and I am more likely to exist if other people exist, therefore I expect other people to exist.
In my example: I observe that I will benefit, and I am more likely to benefit if other people will benefit, therefore I expect other people to benefit.
How convincing would an empirical test have to be to convince you that less than infinite people exist?