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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Severus Alexander, post: 2794144, member: 84744&quot;]My reply is that an auction isn&#039;t relevantly like a type of bicycle race.&nbsp; If you have 30 people competing independently for a coin, it&#039;s an auction (we agree).&nbsp; If you have 10 &quot;teams&quot; of three friends competing independently for a coin... it&#039;s still an auction. (Here&#039;s one place where Ken and Sallent&#039;s important point clearly applies.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Reply 2: Kant&#039;s &quot;derive a contradiction&quot; procedure to figure out right from wrong isn&#039;t valid in the first place.&nbsp; In fact, it&#039;s extremely bizarre. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie43" alt=":droid:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t see how my logic is tortured. In a consequentialist analysis comparing two actions, you look at whether the two actions are expected to generate a different amount of well being in total. The better action is the one that&#039;s expected to generate a higher total amount of well being.&nbsp; In comparing the choice of cooperating with a few friends vs. avoiding such cooperation, there&#039;s no difference in the expected total amount of well being generated... it&#039;s just differently distributed.&nbsp; So there&#039;s no moral reason to choose one over the other. (Consequentialism doesn&#039;t privilege other peoples&#039; well being over one&#039;s own.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course, it may be that in particular cases it&#039;s slightly morally better not to cooperate, or slightly morally better to cooperate... or even a lot better. (E.g. the U.S. consignor needs the money to fund their child&#039;s cancer operation.) But in general, the participants are not in a position to judge this. They don&#039;t have enough information.&nbsp; Given the information we have, there&#039;s no moral difference between choosing to cooperate and choosing not to, no difference in the expected value of the consequences overall.</p><p><br /></p><p>Note I&#039;m not suggesting that cooperation is the morally best action overall.&nbsp; The morally best action overall (on a consequentialist analysis) is for all of us to sell all our coins and other worldly possessions, donate all that money, and volunteer our time towards famine relief (or something similar)!!&nbsp; But we were just comparing the two options: cooperating or not.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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