I have a new survey that will test your moral intuitions. It should take no more than five minutes (probably less). Please consider taking it. You can take the survey by clicking here:
http://www.kwiksurveys.com?s=NIKEJN_70c5ab88
Later on, I'll write a post on what my intuitions are and why. Thanks in advance for your help.
It’s come to my attention that some people may misinterpret question 2 as implying that Abe cannot form the intention to enter 2-2. I’ve edited the question to make it explicit that he can form the intention to enter 2-2. If your answer to question 2 would be different than it was had you known this, then please take the survey again. But note that you’ll have to do so from a different computer or device.
Doug,
It seems to me to verge towards the absurd to say that Abe has an obligation to open the safe. Given the initial conditions you lay out, my sense of the matter is that Abe is obligated to try to open the safe but nothing beyond that. In other words, he has a 1 in 4 chance of getting it right. He has to try. But to say that he is obligated to effect the opening of the safe appears nonsensical to me given that, under the initial conditions, he doesn’t know the combination.
Am interested to find out what you think about the situation.
I don’t want to sign up to Kwiksurveys. Why not use surveymonkey?
@Gehenus: I’ll post what I think sometime next week. But I don’t want to say anything now that would bias the survey.
@Hazo: I wanted to use skip logic, which allows you to direct respondents to different pages depending on the responses to certain questions. The free version of surveymonkey doesn’t include skip logic. Do you have to sign up in order to take the survey with Kwiksurveys. I didn’t think so.
@Hazo: I checked. You don’t need to sign up to take the survey.