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[I love Bryan Caplan](flickr.com/photos/tripu/480543), but I think he's is naïve if he thinks can be solved by “divide and conquer”. The “simple cases” he provides as examples of “microethics” are anything but.

> _“Start with simple cases where right and wrong are obvious. Is it wrong to punish an escaped murderer by torturing his infant child? Is it wrong to welsh on a $20 bet? Is it wrong to steal an alcoholic’s liquor? To refuse to give all your surplus income away to needy strangers? Then build from there.”_

If only these were “obvious”!

Dilemmas in don't necessarily become easier when the cardinality of the set of individuals involved shrinks!

econlib.org/archives/2012/04/i