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0 pointsjjk1662y ago0 comments

He can say it's worth whatever he wants, but the fact is he is willing to cut off his finger in an effort to get £10, thus £10 must provide equal or greater utility.

> The finger is clearly a case where the utility disparity is obvious.

This is the erroneous assumption that leads to the false conclusion. There's no such thing as an obvious utility disparity. It's a decent heuristic that works fine in the real world, but in this imaginary scenario where a person would actually be willing to cut off their own fingers simply because they have not gained £10, it no longer holds true.

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hgomersall2y ago

He's not willing to do it. He explicitly does not want to do it and is only going to do it to lower overall utility by more than the £10 can provide to either party. That is, it only makes sense if he values his finger by more than £10.

jjk166OP2y ago

We're dealing with two different definitions of "willing." You're using willing to mean a desire to do it. I'm using willing to mean he will choose to do it. It's like I desire to quit my job, but I don't actually quit, because I'm not willing. I desire to be fit, but I'm not willing to give up desert.

It doesn't matter how much the mugger claims he doesn't want to lose his fingers, the fact that he will nevertheless choose a path that causes him to lose his fingers of his own volition means that he has set the utility as being lower.

Yes, the premise only makes sense if he values his finger more than £10, but he demonstrably does not, ergo the premise is contradicted.

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