Nozick's thought experiment is ineffective because it doesn't engage with common-sense moral intuitions. It's a problem that only arises if one is already deeply committed to a specific, extreme utilitarian framework, making it feel absurd and irrelevant to most people.

The initial power of a thought experiment lies in its ability to provoke a novel intuition. However, this value is often quickly drained by subsequent academic debates that over-analyze and dissect it, stripping it of its original interest.

Critics argue moral thought experiments are too unrealistic to be useful. However, their artificiality is a deliberate design choice. By stripping away real-world complexities and extraneous factors, philosophers can focus on whether a single, specific variable is the one making a moral difference in our judgment.

Elite thought experiments like Singer's Drowning Child are powerful because their scenarios are relatable and don't require suspending disbelief about complex conditions, unlike variations of the Trolley Problem that rely on a 'fat man' perfectly stopping a train.

The classic thought experiment is deemed ineffective because it doesn't genuinely probe a moral intuition. Instead, it merely restates the argument's premise—that people are only moral for instrumental reasons—packaging a conclusion as a speculative scenario.

The famous Trolley Problem isn't just one scenario. Philosophers create subtle variations, like replacing the act of pushing a person with flipping a switch to drop them through a trapdoor. This isolates variables and reveals that our moral objection isn't just about physical contact, but about intentionally using a person as an instrument to achieve a goal.

Frank Jackson's 'Mary the Color Scientist' is criticized because its central premise—that someone could know 'all the physical facts' about color—is fundamentally inconceivable. This makes it difficult to draw any reliable intuitive conclusions from the scenario.

When a Klansman claimed Black people have a "violence gene," Daryl Davis didn't argue facts. Instead, he created an analogy that all white people have a "serial killer gene." This forced the Klansman to confront the absurdity of his own logic from the other side.

To compare disparate causes like funding art vs. saving lives, use extreme hypotheticals. If someone agrees saving 100 children is better than a tiny chance of art for billionaires, they've conceded comparability. The debate then shifts to negotiating where the line is drawn, not whether one can be drawn.