Let’s think of commitment as a promise. A constraint on possible future actions. A promise to rule out particular options. A promise not to ask certain questions. If you get married, you can’t just leave. --- What would you do, to save the life of someone you love? Would you let a stranger die? 10 strangers? 100? 10,000? At a certain point, if you say yes, you’re a monster. And yet. We almost never face such extreme scenarios, you might say. And yet we do, and they’re even more extreme. You can forgo a holiday, and save several statistical lives. Naively, act consequentialism says: ignore your attachments, take whatever action has the best consequences, impartially considered. But: no consequentialist thinks things are that simple. One approach is to narrow the range of possible actions by reference to the agents particular commitments. It is not realistic to ask a human to care equally about two strangers and one person they love. So the actions available to them, given the constraints of their commitments , do not involve treating the one they love as equal in value to a stranger. But you can’t destroy a city to save the one you love. --- Taleb on honour. Every man has his price. Very strong commitment. A commitment that, except in rare and extreme scenarios, goes unquestioned. Grounding commitment: what one’s life is about. Part of who I am. If such extreme scenarios arise, part of their tragedy is that an appropriate response requires self-destruction. Sometimes literally. If the choice was suicide or the death of 10,000 strangers, you should seriously consider the former. #inbox