Morality is subjective

[SVPD]

Ok. Let's see if we can fix this communication problem you seem to be having.

This isn't an appeal to anyone's authority. It's trying to get you to go look up the concepts relevant to this ethical discussion. In any debate, you ought to at least have a passing familiarity with the ethical terminology. In any discipline, there exists jargon you need to know to converse intelligently in that field. In ethics, you need to know personhood and the various definitions of it.

This is where we're having the communication problem. I do not recognize ethics as a field having terminology. Ethics is a topic that anyone can discuss at any time using everyday language. Special terminology is, as far as I have seen, nothing but a smoke screen to protect certain premises from being questioned.

eth·ic ( P ) Pronunciation Key (thk)
n.

A set of principles of right conduct.
A theory or a system of moral values: “An ethic of service is at war with a craving for gain” (Gregg Easterbrook).
ethics (used with a sing. verb) The study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral philosophy.
ethics (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession: medical ethics.

You'll note the first two definitions refer to "a set" and "a theory" as opposed to "the set" or "the theory". I don't see why the theory or set you're putting forth has to be accepted as correct.

I said apparently you missed that concept in school. This isn't an appeal to authority. It's stating "you don't know the definition and concepts." It is obvious you do not, since you are totally glossing over the entire concept and definition of personhood, which does not mean "human." I use a thought experiment to clairify this, but you ignore it because you dislike "hypotheticals." You don't understand the point and purpouse of hypothetical situations which is clear from your treatment of Surlethe's.

I understand the point of hyportheticals very well. I do not see any point in discussing them however, unless they are hypotheticals of situations that are reasonably likely to actually occur.

For example: A hypothtical very impaired person could really exist, and in fact quite a few do. However, a hypothetical dog that has human intelligence has never been observed and there is no reason to think it will be observed. Therefore, i see no point in including it in discussion. A given position might be inconsistent if we introduce this dog, but who cares? Why does it matter if a position is inconsistent with respect to things that don't exist and there is no reason to think will ever exist?

I also do not see why the definition of "personhood" that apparently is the norm in whatever ethical training you may have received is necessarily valid, or even if it is valid, is necessarily the only valid one.

You are also wrong in that it doesn't even defacto remove him from the species. It merely removes him from personhod. Now, if you understood the concept behind personhood, you would understand the difference between them.

I do not see any good reason to accept that the concepts are different.

Sure you have mentioned no "mistreating others." That also doesn't follow as much as your "killing wildly" comment follows. THere is no "mistreatment" either. To understand why, you would have to understand the concept of Utility and "equality of interests." I already explained that most Humans are senstient creatures, but they have a high degree of sentience to the point of Self-Awareness. This means they have very advanced (and a large quantity) of preferences. Ok?

I don't necessarily accept either utility or equality of interests as valid concepts either.

Your average dog has far more limited preferences and interests. However, there are some areas in which Humans and Dogs have similar welfare interests. There are some areas in which they are different. Many of the differences in interests and preferences stem from the intelligence/sentience levels of the two organisms. Some would exist even if the dog were on the same intelligence as the man.

Why do the interests of the dog matter at all?

Any ethical theory must have at least two criteria:

1. Objecive goals
2. Universalizability

I can accept objective goals, since Mike has already firmly established an objective that an ethical/moral code must necessarily help the species survive.

However, I don't see any reason the any ethical theory must universify (sp?) beyond humans. WE are the only species that can make an ethical code; I see no reason it must apply equally to any other.

The reason I believe this is that it is our species (specifically, the genetic data that dictates what our properties are) that give us these reasoning powers. We are observably different for an observable reason.

In the dogboy/normal human scenario, the latter is the critical criterion at hand. In order to be consistent and meet universalizability, all relevant moral criteria that govern personhood or the weighing of intersts must be applied to all beings that fit those criteria. This means that dogs and cats and other animals are on the same relative level of intrinsic moral value. Humans, though, due to their vast sentience, have greater moral value (again, because they have more interests, higher quality, more to lose).

Again, I don't see why the ethical code must extend to include the interests of any species other than the one that invented it and others that could also invent one, or comprehend the one that was invented.

further response below.

[SVPD]

You don't want to generalize, because that would defeat the entire purpouse of personhood. Not all members of a species will make the cut and attain personhood rights. Rights are arbitrary things we give or hand out when they reach certain levels of cognitive ability. For example: why do you think Humans have a right to life?

Again, I do not see a good reason to accept any of this as true. I see no purpose at all behind the concept of personhood.

Humans have a right to life because they have an INTEREST in continued living. Unlike some other animals, the high degree of sentience of Humans allows them to comprehend they exist independent of others; that they are individual units that exist over time (past, present, future). They can look foreward to the future, make plans, have foreward moving interests. Simply, they got an "interest" in continued life. Other animals that do not exhibit these characterists would have no continued desire for life, make future plans. (This depends on their proximity to the human level of cognitive development).

This seems highly circular to me.

Ok, humans have a right to life because they have an interest in continued life. Why do they have an interst in continued life? because they are sentient to the point of self awareness. but how do we know that they are self-aware? because they demonstrate an interest in continued life!

This is why a rat does not have a right to life. They do, however, have basic moral, just like cats. They have an aversion to pain and basic welfare intersts, regardless of their more temporal, immediate interests.
It really makes no sense to say that something has a right to life if it cannot even desire that life or continued life. We don't give a shit about the plant because it has no interests it formulates; it has no desire for continued life. You cannot violate the "life interest" of a plant because it has none!

Why doesn't it make any sense to do so?

Let's compare this to humans. Humans often do have a continued life interest. They are self-aware, rational beings. This cognitive level is one major reason why they have a "right" to life. Same thing with property. WE have a "right" to property because we have a desire or a "preference" or an "interest" to own property. We have a right to free speech for the same reason. It would never make sense to say a dog has a right to free speech, a right to life, or a right to anything other than what is directly related to its specific type of interest sets.

Okay....

Now, let's apply this to Surlethe's rockman example. The statue has no interests. It has not that capacity. It's like the plant, just not alive at all. On the otherhand, the "rockman", although human, has no capacity either. It makes no sense to give someone who has the mental capacity of a rock a right to anything. It has no personhood, as neither do dead people or people who are PVS or braindead.

Okay, but here is why your Terry Schiavo example is invalid as an attack on my position:

She was morally equivalent to a dead person. As far as I could tell, the question of whether to keep feeding her was silly because she was basically dead; the appearance of life being maintained mechanically. She suffered from a condition which had ended (permenantly to the best medical knowledge available) meaningful brain activity, with no good reason to think it would resume.

Now, let's look at the dogboy once more. Personhood is a concept that gives certain core rights and privlidges to the being who has them. Again, beings have rights insofar as they have the capacity to have that preference/interest/desire in the first place. The dog has no right to life or a right to property or free speech as far as I am aware. Someone please correct me, but I have never seen any legitimate ethical claim to a beagle's those, because I have been taught they don't possess that level of cognitive ability. It does, however, have interests: it can feel pain, experience pleasure. It is sentient. Many animals can, although they do not have personhood rights, desire and have an interest for pleasure and evade pain. It would therefore make sense to give them some rights interests for that. It's more immediate.

It would seem to me to make more sense to give them rights because ther is no objective reason to allow them to be arbitrarily killed. It serves no purpose to kill animals pointlessly.

Humans, on the other hand, due to their capacities, do quality for personhood and the core rights (most of which are enumerated in the UN declaration of HUMAN rights. Most of these rights are not given to other animals because those animals are not sufficiently like humans in mentality and cognitive development to even warrant respect of that interest. (Remember the plant and the rock). If, however, a dog WERE as intelligent and cognitively developed as a human, it would ALSO qualify for many of the same "human" rights, which are more accurately classified as "personhood" rights in modern ethics.

All right, for the sake of argument, if a dog were able to qualify as a "human" for purposes of rights, by virtue of intelligence, then we ought to give that dog such rights. I have no problem with that.

It also goes the other away. Since personhood is based on rational attributes, if a human is of the same mental capacity of a dog, it cannot formulate many of the interstests of other humans. It can some, yes. Therefore, it still deserves some. However, in areas in which its doglike cognition only allows for it to have similar interests to the dog, it should have those same interests respected.

It necessarily has to go the other way because...?

It is not mistreatment, since to mistreat, you would have to do something against the interests of the organism. It's not mistreatment to fulfil the preferences and interests that come with the cognitive level. Most retarded people have the same welfare interests as other humans, so most of them qualify as persons. However, in many areas, a dog-human would not. That's an extreme level of retardation.

Cesteris Paribus, and without extrinsic factors to influence the moral calculus, you treat individuals EQUALLY where equality is due. Now, as I PM'ed you, even if there were a dog-equivalent human, as rare as that is, the human would STILL be treated as a human would in several areas. Nutrionally, for example. (This is unrelated to personhood rights). You cannot treat a human body like you can a dog. You are not supposed to feed humans dogfood due to the nutrion factor. Even without personhood, humans who are dumb as dogs still have welfare needs like other humans. They will never BE dogs. They only have some like interests and rights.

They don't all count the same. The terry example is one example. Those that are incapable of said interests do not have to have that hypothetical, but nonexistent preference/welfare interest respected.

I

already explained why I think Terry is irrelevant.

I have given a very non-circular, reasonable justificaiton.

1. Humans have X mental characteristics that give Y interests

2. Dogs have X.1 mental characteristics that give them Z interests

3. Sometimes their interests will coincide

4. Sometimes they will not

5. When discussing Utility, you weigh the moral Interests available

5. To respect universalizability and the principle of equality of interests, where various creatures have similar interests due to similar cognitive characteristics, you treat them with the same respect for those interests

This is why it's circular. In 1 and 2 you mention interests and that they either coincide or differ. Then you say that "we weigh interests" in 5. WHY do we weigh interests?

It's not really that hard or unreasonable as you are making it sound. There was some obvious hyperbole going on earlier. You would not put a human in a kennel outside, because humans have no fur. Obviously, they have, in that regard, different welfare interests. However, many other interests would be the same (right to life, free speech, property rights etc).

All right, now we're getting somewhere. i'm afraid that the hyperbole was not as "obvious" as you say. It seemed quite serious at the time.

You might actually convince me to agree with you if you continue this line of reasoning without the hyperbole. I would agree for example, that the dog-boy has no right to vote; clearly he cannot even understand the concept of voting.

Ok. So your telling me that you don't care what google says an anacephalic infant or a hydatiform mole is? Correct? All that matters to YOU is that it is human. Ok.

An anecephalic infant is one that's born without the majority of its brain. It cannot think. It can't do anything but stay alive like a terry schivo automaton. It's totally useless.

Like Terry Schiavo, it would essentially be dead. It is technically alive, but it is morally equivalent to a dead person.

A hydatiform mole is a partially formed, parasitic human fetus. It is "superficially human" and has living material and human DNA. Therefore, it has personhood rights according to you becaues it is technically human. I even gave you the option of looking these terms up, since you are not familar with them in this debate. YOu basically told me to fuck off and you didn't "want" to look them up.

That would make it, according to my previous explaination, a part of the woman's body and not a separate being. As such it has no rights or interests any more than a severed limb would. You have glossed over my explaination of that. You seem to want to ignore that portion of my argument. The reason I refused to look them up was that I strongly suspected it was something of a nature I had already addressed; a suspicion you just confirmed.

This is a hydatiform fetus

<snip picture>
You don't care though. It's still technically a human fetus! Sentience doesn't matter!

No, it's not. It's part of the woman's body. I explained that already.

Sure he counts. He's sitll human! Dead people should count in your moral calculus too. They are human! You specifically said: membership in homo sapiens is what matters for personhood. Go check above and then backpeddal.[.quote]

No, he's not human. He's not even human by what you CLAIM my standards are; human DNA. the statue clearly lacks it.

Ok, I suppose I screwed up in not specifying LIVING members of homo sapiens, but it never occured to me I'd ahve to make such an obvious qualification.

Sorry chump. I tried to give you a chance.

A chance to what? To accept assertions without question?

What of the person who looses their faculties to accident? Is it ethical to then treat them in accordance with their now inferior mental capacity? I'm still seeking an answer.

You make some excellent points, but there are still too many assertions and assumptions that you want me to accept at face value.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

This is where we're having the communication problem. I do not recognize ethics as a field having terminology. Ethics is a topic that anyone can discuss at any time using everyday language. Special terminology is, as far as I have seen, nothing but a smoke screen to protect certain premises from being questioned.

Well, in that case, then we are at an impass. Every field has
terminology and concepts/principles/axioms to understand. English has it, Ethics has it, and all Sciences have it.

You can't being to disuss anything unless you know what people mean in ethics when they talk of "objectivism" "absolutism" "equality" etc. Personhood is a very important concept.

You'll note the first two definitions refer to "a set" and "a theory" as opposed to "the set" or "the theory". I don't see why the theory or set you're putting forth has to be accepted as correct.

My theory is not the only theory. It's just a very useful, good theory. Utilitarianism works very well in practical reality as it is designed to do so. It focuses on what matters: how you treat feeling creatures.

I understand the point of hyportheticals very well. I do not see any point in discussing them however, unless they are hypotheticals of situations that are reasonably likely to actually occur.

Hypotheticals are good whether they are likely or not, since it's not the actual event that is important, but the concept behind it. They are used to clarifiy a specific idea or point or logical notion. Did you ever look up or read the human cow example?

For example: A hypothtical very impaired person could really exist, and in fact quite a few do. However, a hypothetical dog that has human intelligence has never been observed and there is no reason to think it will be observed. Therefore, i see no point in including it in discussion. A given position might be inconsistent if we introduce this dog, but who cares? Why does it matter if a position is inconsistent with respect to things that don't exist and there is no reason to think will ever exist?

The point is that you should care if it is inconsistent. It doesn't have to be real. It is meant to show that, if said dog did exist, it would mean that the human concept of moral value (value because one is human and that ONLY), is not sufficient, because it would entail treating equals as inferiors simply because they are not human. The dog is imaginary. Most hypothetical are. It's the point that matters, not the imaginary figure.

The Cow/Human analogy shows or clarifies WHY we think humans are valuable. It makes it obvious what ought to be the case.

I also do not see why the definition of "personhood" that apparently is the norm in whatever ethical training you may have received is necessarily valid, or even if it is valid, is necessarily the only valid one.

Well, personhood isn't a very enigmatic issue. The problem is that the only real important moral criteria stem from sentience, but sentience is held by many creatures. To see the problem: it is amoral to kick a rock. It would be immoral to kick a dog. Why? What separates the rock from the dog? Sentience! You asked "why is experience important morally" earlier. That's exactly why. It can feel, it can think. It has interests. You ought to want to respect all like interests. Would it make sense to feel bad or morally obligated to take care of an inanimate, unfeeling rock? You can't hurt it. You can't make it feel bad. You can't do anything bad to it. You can a human and a dog.

The point is, experience matters because to have any interests to respect, you have to first be able to experience. It makes no moral sense to care about things that cannot experience in the first place--that have no interests.

Humans are sentient. They have interests. Their level of sentience is what makes them have more critical interests. Would you agree that right thing to do is to maximize the good/welfare interests?

I do not see any good reason to accept that the concepts are different.

Easily. Because personhood does not have to be "human." I expleained this via the notion of what rights are as well as what you need to have to have rights in the first place. You have to first be sentient to even be a candidate for rights. Rocks have no rights because they have no welfare interests. They experience nothing. Human rights come from human welfare interests. Would you expect something that did not have human welfare interests to have human rights? That wouldn't make sense!

Species is what biological group you belong to. Personhood is a philosphical concept dealing with the attachment of rights due to some morally relevant intrinsic property that is universalizable. Since no human is actually equal physically, the principle of equality actually means "equality of interests." You weigh like interests when making a moral decision. Persons, who have X higher level of interests due to their mental abilities, have more and more pressing rights. It is typically worse to kill a human than a dog because the human has far more to lose. The human also knows it exists as a being over time. This means it can formulate future life interstests. It has an interest in continued life. A rat does not. That's where the human with the mind of an animal comes into play. It would not make any sense to respect an interest the human does not have or cannot formulate any more than the dog can.

I don't necessarily accept either utility or equality of interests as valid concepts either.

And in ethics, no one can make you do anything. However, that non-acceptance does not make you right and me wrong. The value and validity of Utility stems from its great use as a theory. It has proved itself as valuable. It has an objective basis: interests and welfare of sentient creatures. It's almost nonsensical to be against "do the greatest good for the greatest number" and "respect the like interests of all feeling creatures." Wow. That's real horrific. Its absurd no to accept either principle. If we didn't respect like interests, the results would be quite dismal for the majority of people.

Respecting like interests ensures moral equity. What are you for? Doing the least good for the greatest number? Disrespecting the like interests of others?

Why do the interests of the dog matter at all?

Why do you think? Do you kick dogs in the face? If not, you can probably answer your own question. A dog has an interest not to be placed in unnecessary pain or kicked in the head or mutilated as do most humans. It would be inconsistant and ununiversalizable to state: only my pain matters, but not the pain I cause to other beings. The only way you can be consistant is to say that you are minimizing MORE pain and suffering by causing the suffering to another, but there is no justification for saying infininite quantity of X species is worth Y species. If minimizing pain is good, and maximizing welfare is good, then it is invalid to say only YOUR group's matters. It's invalid because it's not universalizable. If you make up a principle, you have to apply it to ALL similiar interests. I can't help you understand why "equality" and "fairness" and "consistency" are good and necessary elements of ethics any more than I can help a serial killer understand why killing people is wrong. Some people just don't get it.

I can accept objective goals, since Mike has already firmly established an objective that an ethical/moral code must necessarily help the species survive.

However, I don't see any reason the any ethical theory must universify (sp?) beyond humans. WE are the only species that can make an ethical code; I see no reason it must apply equally to any other.

The reason I believe this is that it is our species (specifically, the genetic data that dictates what our properties are) that give us these reasoning powers. We are observably different for an observable reason.

So you feel it is perfectly ok to do anything you want to other species, simply because they are not human. That's exactly what you imply when you state the moral code of behavior need not extend beyond other humans. Who makes the code does not matter. Just because Wong says it has to keep the survival of humanity does not mean that is the only purpouse. Moral codes are not just rules that government intraspecies affairs, but the conduct humans have toward others. If it is wrong to torture a human, it is also wrong to torture a cat. It may not be AS bad, but it's still bad. It doesn't become "OK" simply because the cat is not human. The moral rule against torture applies beyond humans. That means it is universalizable in any similar situation where similar interests

Obviously it isn't wrong to beat your dog to death. After all, the moral maxim against causing unnecessary pain and suffering only applies to other humans, since they are the only ones capable of making up moral codes. When jonny the sociopath in training is ripping the legs off frogs, he's acting immorally. According to your system, he's not, since he's not ripping the legs off humans. Thats the meaning of "to universalize."

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

This seems highly circular to me.

Ok, humans have a right to life because they have an interest in continued life. Why do they have an interst in continued life? because they are sentient to the point of self awareness. but how do we know that they are self-aware? because they demonstrate an interest in continued life!

It's not really circular if you understand that the terms subsume one another, so I will be more specific. We know they are self-aware because we scientific tests we use to figure that out. The fact, however, that you have a desire for continued exist, means you know you exist over time. The fact that you know you exist over time as a being is the very essense of self-awareness. Self-awareness means "you are aware of yourself." It would hopefully be obvious to you that these terms subsume one another.

Humans are sentient creatures, which means they can experience. There can be no interests at all without experience. So we know that rocks and shit do not have a desired future life or future preferences. Humans are also self-aware. We know this from tests (one of which is the mirror test).This means they know they exist as a being over time. This means they can understand they have a future. By understanding they got a future, they can formulate potentially fulfillable future preference. One of these preferences is and can be "a desire to continue living and fulfil future desires." A being that is not sentient, and especially sapient like humans, cannot begin to have such fulfillable future preferences.

It really makes no sense to say "why do they have a desire for continued life." Why do you? Humans are capable of making that prefernece, so it makes sense to protect an interest that can actually exist.

Why doesn't it make any sense to do so?

Why does it not make sense to give rights to a plant or a rock?

It makes no sense to give a right to life to something that does not have the capacity to formulate a preference/interest for continued life because it's a waste of time to respect the like interests of beings when those interests don't actually exist. Do you really need to ask why we should not respect the interests of rocks? It seems fairly obvious to me.

Okay, but here is why your Terry Schiavo example is invalid as an attack on my position:

She was morally equivalent to a dead person. As far as I could tell, the question of whether to keep feeding her was silly because she was basically dead; the appearance of life being maintained mechanically. She suffered from a condition which had ended (permenantly to the best medical knowledge available) meaningful brain activity, with no good reason to think it would resume.

She was not dead. You are proving my point very well for me unintentionally. You are saying she is "morally equivalent" to a dead person. She was not physically dead. Her body was functioning. The only thing gone was her higher brain functions. That's the point I am making ENTIRELY! Terry Schivo WAS her higher brain functions. That was her inteligence, her personality, her very being as an individual. Even though she was biologically alive and had basic functions, she was different in a moral way from other humans: she was missing the part of her brain that made her have most higher human interests. She had no rights to X, Y, and Z because she was no longer capable of having those preferences.

The same thing occures in the boy-dog case. If the boy is REALLY on the cognitive level of the dog, then he, like Terry, is not longer morally valuable due to that loss of human higher brain functions that make the man--the intelligence, the personality, the ability to formulate those human interests. Terry Shivo was dead "morally" as a person. The dog boy is also dead morally as a human person. He is physically and mechanically a living human, but that which makes him moraly valuable (his mind), is a dog. In both cases, that human being is gone.

It would seem to me to make more sense to give them rights because ther is no objective reason to allow them to be arbitrarily killed. It serves no purpose to kill animals pointlessly.

Why. Who cares if it is pointlses. Our moral principles do not move beyond humans. Remember? You can do anything to other animals according to your homocentric morality. The only thing that matters morally is that one is human, and morality only applies to human-human behavior.

All right, for the sake of argument, if a dog were able to qualify as a "human" for purposes of rights, by virtue of intelligence, then we ought to give that dog such rights. I have no problem with that.

Ok. So you admit that, if a dog were of the same cognitive capacity of humans, they would also deserve the same similar rights. That directly contradicts the notion that, regardless of the circumstances, only humans matter because they are human. If dogs smart as humans matter because of their intelligence level, then it does not follow that humans are valuable only because they are human. It is the intelligence level that is revered. Humans are just, in our world, the most intelligent creatures, but intelligence isn't only a human feature. Value the characteristic.

It necessarily has to go the other way because...

Because then you are respecting equality where equality exists. If you treated another being differently, even though it were really the same in said area, it would be inequitable. No one expects you to treat animals equally where they are not, in fact, equal. Only where they ARE equal or have equal interests. If you have being X and being Y, and they are 98% the same and have 98% equal interests, yet you treat X way better than Y, that is wrong. You should treat them equally where they ARE equal. Thi sis a basic premise of modern western thought. Equality is respected where it actually exists.

This is why it's circular. In 1 and 2 you mention interests and that they either coincide or differ. Then you say that "we weigh interests" in 5. WHY do we weigh interests?

First off, I don't know why I wrote x.1. Sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen. It should have read that both dogs and humans have characteristics that give them interests. Forget all the letters. That's fudged. My mistake.

In 1 and 2 is only there to show that soemtimes, beings have interests that are similar or that they are not (they coincide or they don't). This is fairly tautological. It's always true. 5 is very different and builds on that tautology. You weigh interests because that is the the natural result of respecting the principle of equality. In order to make any decision, you have to weigh the consequences of your action on all those who are affected. When you do this, you see whose preferences are violated, whose are not. THen you look to see whose have more value. Where they are equal interests, neither can valued more than the other unless it is a term of quantity over quality. Whover has more or higher quality preferences at stake wins and you find in favour of. That's how you maximise welfare and minimize suffering.

All right, now we're getting somewhere. i'm afraid that the hyperbole was not as "obvious" as you say. It seemed quite serious at the time.

You might actually convince me to agree with you if you continue this line of reasoning without the hyperbole. I would agree for example, that the dog-boy has no right to vote; clearly he cannot even understand the concept of voting.

Ok. That's fine. That's why I suggested googling the terminology. When I speak of personhood and equating interests, I am not saying that you literally treat them exactly the same all the time. If we are not using the same terminology, then we might as well be speaking a different language.

If the being cannot possibly formulate a preference for something, why give it a right? A dog would never have a right to vote. It doesn'. t have that human capacity for abstract thought, consent etc.

When I say "treat it like a dog" I don't mean completely. I specifically stated in relation to equality of interests. Only in some areas does it have interests similar to the dog. Not all. Even if the human is as smart as a dog, it has some biological needs a dog does not have. If you ever look at the label on dog food, for example, it is not intended for human consumption. It's a very crude form of nutrition. The human man have the mind of a dog, but it doesn't have the body. Mentality equality means that you treat them mentally the same where their mental capacities cross.

I hope that fixes that.


As an aside: I don't know if the political terminology has changed, but in college ethics and politology, I was taught that a right is a legal protection or a moral protection for a claim, and a claim is like an interest for or to something. I don't see that if a dog does not have a right in that sense, why would a human with the same level of claim/interests have one? I can understand why rocks and plants have no rights. They have no claims to anything--no interests or preferences

Like Terry Schiavo, it would essentially be dead. It is technically alive, but it is morally equivalent to a dead person.

Exactly. But apparently, I have a different reasoning for why I think it's as good as dead. There is no mind. I equate the mind with the person.

No, it's not. It's part of the woman's body. I explained that already.

Medically, it is a fetus. It's not part of the woman's body any more than a parasite is. It is a foreign object in their body according to medical science. It's a parasitic thing. Parasites are not part of the host.

What of the person who looses their faculties to accident? Is it ethical to then treat them in accordance with their now inferior mental capacity? I'm still seeking an answer.

You make some excellent points, but there are still too many assertions and assumptions that you want me to accept at face value.

What do you mean "lose their faculties." I assume that's some pretty severe mental loss, no?

If so, I believe I did answer this one, but it must have gotten lost. If they have no living will enumerating their future preferences, and if there are no extrinsic reasons to do otherwise, then yes. You ought to treat them in accordance with their inferior mental capacity if it actually makes them any different from before. They are obviously not the same nor as good as they were before. If they are bedridden and mindless zombines, which I take the above to mean, they are not as valuable as normal humans. I would rather save a chimp from a fire than that.

There are some assumptions yes. That's at the heart of any ethical system. Consequentialism, Deontology and other systems all have basic assumptions. I can't "prove" that causing pain to people is bad nor can I prove that it is morally wrong to torture kittens.

[SVPD]

Well, in that case, then we are at an impass. Every field has
terminology and concepts/principles/axioms to understand. English has it, Ethics has it, and all Sciences have it.

That's the thing; I don't see Ethics as as qualifying as a field along with those others.

You can't being to disuss anything unless you know what people mean in ethics when they talk of "objectivism" "absolutism" "equality" etc. Personhood is a very important concept.

Sure you can. You just have to use everyday language.

Every day people can discuss the law, for example, without having to use police jargon. When speaking with regular people I find it is important to avoid such jargon in order to make what I'm saying understandable.

My theory is not the only theory. It's just a very useful, good theory. Utilitarianism works very well in practical reality as it is designed to do so. It focuses on what matters: how you treat feeling creatures.

Ok...

Hypotheticals are good whether they are likely or not, since it's not the actual event that is important, but the concept behind it. They are used to clarifiy a specific idea or point or logical notion. Did you ever look up or read the human cow example?

The problem is that ou can keep inventing hypotheticals until any given system collapses due to inconsistency in one of them.

The point is that you should care if it is inconsistent. It doesn't have to be real. It is meant to show that, if said dog did exist, it would mean that the human concept of moral value (value because one is human and that ONLY), is not sufficient, because it would entail treating equals as inferiors simply because they are not human. The dog is imaginary. Most hypothetical are. It's the point that matters, not the imaginary figure.

The Cow/Human analogy shows or clarifies WHY we think humans are valuable. It makes it obvious what ought to be the case.

There's the problem. The "inconsistency" has no real effects. You said above:

Utilitarianism works very well in practical reality as it is designed to do so. It focuses on what matters: how you treat feeling creatures.

I have never seen anyone actually try to apply utilitarianism in actual reality. Not once. No one even refers to it in everyday life.

Well, personhood isn't a very enigmatic issue. The problem is that the only real important moral criteria stem from sentience, but sentience is held by many creatures. To see the problem: it is amoral to kick a rock. It would be immoral to kick a dog. Why? What separates the rock from the dog? Sentience! You asked "why is experience important morally" earlier. That's exactly why. It can feel, it can think. It has interests. You ought to want to respect all like interests. Would it make sense to feel bad or morally obligated to take care of an inanimate, unfeeling rock? You can't hurt it. You can't make it feel bad. You can't do anything bad to it. You can a human and a dog.

The point is, experience matters because to have any interests to respect, you have to first be able to experience. It makes no moral sense to care about things that cannot experience in the first place--that have no interests.

Ok.

Humans are sentient. They have interests. Their level of sentience is what makes them have more critical interests. Would you agree that right thing to do is to maximize the good/welfare interests?

Yes

Easily. Because personhood does not have to be "human." I expleained this via the notion of what rights are as well as what you need to have to have rights in the first place. You have to first be sentient to even be a candidate for rights. Rocks have no rights because they have no welfare interests. They experience nothing. Human rights come from human welfare interests. Would you expect something that did not have human welfare interests to have human rights? That wouldn't make sense!

No it would not, but the problem is that as a practical matter you DO have to be a human to have "personhood". Can you give me an example of any nonehuman thing that has ever actually had "personhood" (i.e. not a hypothetical)

Species is what biological group you belong to. Personhood is a philosphical concept dealing with the attachment of rights due to some morally relevant intrinsic property that is universalizable. Since no human is actually equal physically, the principle of equality actually means "equality of interests." You weigh like interests when making a moral decision. Persons, who have X higher level of interests due to their mental abilities, have more and more pressing rights. It is typically worse to kill a human than a dog because the human has far more to lose. The human also knows it exists as a being over time. This means it can formulate future life interstests. It has an interest in continued life. A rat does not. That's where the human with the mind of an animal comes into play. It would not make any sense to respect an interest the human does not have or cannot formulate any more than the dog can.

Should I construe this to mean, then, that exceptionally intelligent humans enjoy more rights than everyone else?

And in ethics, no one can make you do anything. However, that non-acceptance does not make you right and me wrong. The value and validity of Utility stems from its great use as a theory. It has proved itself as valuable. It has an objective basis: interests and welfare of sentient creatures. It's almost nonsensical to be against "do the greatest good for the greatest number" and "respect the like interests of all feeling creatures." Wow. That's real horrific. Its absurd no to accept either principle. If we didn't respect like interests, the results would be quite dismal for the majority of people.

Respecting like interests ensures moral equity. What are you for? Doing the least good for the greatest number? Disrespecting the like interests of others?

Why do you think? Do you kick dogs in the face? If not, you can probably answer your own question. A dog has an interest not to be placed in unnecessary pain or kicked in the head or mutilated as do most humans. It would be inconsistant and ununiversalizable to state: only my pain matters, but not the pain I cause to other beings. The only way you can be consistant is to say that you are minimizing MORE pain and suffering by causing the suffering to another, but there is no justification for saying infininite quantity of X species is worth Y species. If minimizing pain is good, and maximizing welfare is good, then it is invalid to say only YOUR group's matters. It's invalid because it's not universalizable. If you make up a principle, you have to apply it to ALL similiar interests. I can't help you understand why "equality" and "fairness" and "consistency" are good and necessary elements of ethics any more than I can help a serial killer understand why killing people is wrong. Some people just don't get it.

Look, this is where your whole system beaks down for me. You want to universalize across all species. I don't buy that it's valid to do so.

So you feel it is perfectly ok to do anything you want to other species, simply because they are not human. That's exactly what you imply when you state the moral code of behavior need not extend beyond other humans. Who makes the code does not matter. Just because Wong says it has to keep the survival of humanity does not mean that is the only purpouse. Moral codes are not just rules that government intraspecies affairs, but the conduct humans have toward others. If it is wrong to torture a human, it is also wrong to torture a cat. It may not be AS bad, but it's still bad. It doesn't become "OK" simply because the cat is not human. The moral rule against torture applies beyond humans. That means it is universalizable in any similar situation where similar interests

Obviously it isn't wrong to beat your dog to death. After all, the moral maxim against causing unnecessary pain and suffering only applies to other humans, since they are the only ones capable of making up moral codes. When jonny the sociopath in training is ripping the legs off frogs, he's acting immorally. According to your system, he's not, since he's not ripping the legs off humans. Thats the meaning of "to universalize."

Look, you make some really good points, but it's very clear that you don't understand what I'm getting at at all. You're so wrapped up in concern that my ideas are "speciesist" or don't "universify" that you apparently haven't paid a bit of attention. Or, maybe I've just done a crappy job of explaining.

My system is what, for lack of a better term, I would call the "benefit of the doubt" system.

In other words, any given individual creature gets treated according to the innate intelligence of the individual or of the species, whichever would afford a higher level of (to use your term) "personhood" to the individual in question.

For example: A regular dog has more rights and consideration than a regular bacteria because it is more intelligent. A rock has no rights because it has no intelligence.

A regular human has regular human rights. A human with a dog's intelligence has human rights because it is a human. This is the "benefit of the doubt" for want of a better term; the human should have had human intellect but was deprived of it. These rights are of course subject to the limits of the ability of the impaired person to exercise them in a meaningful fashion.

Now, the opposite. The dog with human intellect (or alien being or cow or whatever) is ALSO considered as a human. Again, they get the benefit of the doubt. If there were a bacteria with human awareness it would be considered human.

In this way we consistently treat all creatures according to the best set of circumstances that could be assigned to them, while avoiding unfairly reducing the "personhood" of any being simply because it wa the victim of genetic disease/accident/fetal alcohol syandrome/what have you.

[SVPD]

It's not really circular if you understand that the terms subsume one another, so I will be more specific. We know they are self-aware because we scientific tests we use to figure that out. The fact, however, that you have a desire for continued exist, means you know you exist over time. The fact that you know you exist over time as a being is the very essense of self-awareness. Self-awareness means "you are aware of yourself." It would hopefully be obvious to you that these terms subsume one another.

Ok, that would adequately resolve the circularity.

Humans are sentient creatures, which means they can experience. There can be no interests at all without experience. So we know that rocks and shit do not have a desired future life or future preferences. Humans are also self-aware. We know this from tests (one of which is the mirror test).This means they know they exist as a being over time. This means they can understand they have a future. By understanding they got a future, they can formulate potentially fulfillable future preference. One of these preferences is and can be "a desire to continue living and fulfil future desires." A being that is not sentient, and especially sapient like humans, cannot begin to have such fulfillable future preferences.

OK

It really makes no sense to say "why do they have a desire for continued life." Why do you? Humans are capable of making that prefernece, so it makes sense to protect an interest that can actually exist.

OK

Why does it not make sense to give rights to a plant or a rock?

It makes no sense to give a right to life to something that does not have the capacity to formulate a preference/interest for continued life because it's a waste of time to respect the like interests of beings when those interests don't actually exist. Do you really need to ask why we should not respect the interests of rocks? It seems fairly obvious to me.

OK

She was not dead. You are proving my point very well for me unintentionally. You are saying she is "morally equivalent" to a dead person. She was not physically dead. Her body was functioning. The only thing gone was her higher brain functions. That's the point I am making ENTIRELY! Terry Schivo WAS her higher brain functions. That was her inteligence, her personality, her very being as an individual. Even though she was biologically alive and had basic functions, she was different in a moral way from other humans: she was missing the part of her brain that made her have most higher human interests. She had no rights to X, Y, and Z because she was no longer capable of having those preferences.

I'm not really proving your point for you at all. What I'm proving is that you totally misunderstood my position. You siezed on the "species" thing without really understanding everything I was saying. See my reply above.

The same thing occures in the boy-dog case. If the boy is REALLY on the cognitive level of the dog, then he, like Terry, is not longer morally valuable due to that loss of human higher brain functions that make the man--the intelligence, the personality, the ability to formulate those human interests. Terry Shivo was dead "morally" as a person. The dog boy is also dead morally as a human person. He is physically and mechanically a living human, but that which makes him moraly valuable (his mind), is a dog. In both cases, that human being is gone.

This is where we differ. A dog is not "dead"; it has greater value than Terry did (on this I think we agree). Therefore dog-boy is not "dead" he's a dog.

Under my way of thinking he's still morally valuable as a human as long as he is the moral equivalent of some living being. If he were "dead" (like Terry) he wouldn't be. Therefore I give him the benefit of the doubt, and, insofar as it is practical to do so, I give hium human rights.

Why. Who cares if it is pointlses. Our moral principles do not move beyond humans. Remember? You can do anything to other animals according to your homocentric morality. The only thing that matters morally is that one is human, and morality only applies to human-human behavior.

Again, you totally misconstrue my position.

Ok. So you admit that, if a dog were of the same cognitive capacity of humans, they would also deserve the same similar rights. That directly contradicts the notion that, regardless of the circumstances, only humans matter because they are human. If dogs smart as humans matter because of their intelligence level, then it does not follow that humans are valuable only because they are human. It is the intelligence level that is revered. Humans are just, in our world, the most intelligent creatures, but intelligence isn't only a human feature. Value the characteristic.

Not contradictory at all. That's benefit of the doubt.

Because then you are respecting equality where equality exists. If you treated another being differently, even though it were really the same in said area, it would be inequitable. No one expects you to treat animals equally where they are not, in fact, equal. Only where they ARE equal or have equal interests. If you have being X and being Y, and they are 98% the same and have 98% equal interests, yet you treat X way better than Y, that is wrong. You should treat them equally where they ARE equal. Thi sis a basic premise of modern western thought. Equality is respected where it actually exists.

Once again, benefit of the doubt. I do not see how it is inequitable to the average dog if the dog-boy is treated as much like a human as possible. The dog has no interest in the dog-boy being treated like him; he is not even aware of it.

First off, I don't know why I wrote x.1. Sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen. It should have read that both dogs and humans have characteristics that give them interests. Forget all the letters. That's fudged. My mistake.

In 1 and 2 is only there to show that soemtimes, beings have interests that are similar or that they are not (they coincide or they don't). This is fairly tautological. It's always true. 5 is very different and builds on that tautology. You weigh interests because that is the the natural result of respecting the principle of equality. In order to make any decision, you have to weigh the consequences of your action on all those who are affected. When you do this, you see whose preferences are violated, whose are not. THen you look to see whose have more value. Where they are equal interests, neither can valued more than the other unless it is a term of quantity over quality. Whover has more or higher quality preferences at stake wins and you find in favour of. That's how you maximise welfare and minimize suffering.

OK. However the way I see it "benefit of the doubt" does a better job. We always assign the better of 2 circumstances to any individual, to the degree that it is physically possible.

Ok. That's fine. That's why I suggested googling the terminology. When I speak of personhood and equating interests, I am not saying that you literally treat them exactly the same all the time. If we are not using the same terminology, then we might as well be speaking a different language.

Indeed.

If the being cannot possibly formulate a preference for something, why give it a right? A dog would never have a right to vote. It doesn'. t have that human capacity for abstract thought, consent etc.

Naturally.

When I say "treat it like a dog" I don't mean completely. I specifically stated in relation to equality of interests. Only in some areas does it have interests similar to the dog. Not all. Even if the human is as smart as a dog, it has some biological needs a dog does not have. If you ever look at the label on dog food, for example, it is not intended for human consumption. It's a very crude form of nutrition. The human man have the mind of a dog, but it doesn't have the body. Mentality equality means that you treat them mentally the same where their mental capacities cross.

I hope that fixes that.

Quite

As an aside: I don't know if the political terminology has changed, but in college ethics and politology, I was taught that a right is a legal protection or a moral protection for a claim, and a claim is like an interest for or to something. I don't see that if a dog does not have a right in that sense, why would a human with the same level of claim/interests have one? I can understand why rocks and plants have no rights. They have no claims to anything--no interests or preferences

Under my way of thinking, benefit of the doubt. for example, dog-boy has the right to life because humans do, and he can exercise that right. However, being at the intellectual level of the dog, he can't exercise a right to bear arms, so he doesn't have it.

Exactly. But apparently, I have a different reasoning for why I think it's as good as dead. There is no mind. I equate the mind with the person.

Up to a point, I would agree.

Medically, it is a fetus. It's not part of the woman's body any more than a parasite is. It is a foreign object in their body according to medical science. It's a parasitic thing. Parasites are not part of the host.

We had a thread recently in which it was firmly established that a women's right to an abortion comes from the right to control her own body, and that a fetus is subject to that right becasue it is part of her body. How then, do you resolve the right to an abortion?

What do you mean "lose their faculties." I assume that's some pretty severe mental loss, no?

Yes, but it has happened.

If so, I believe I did answer this one, but it must have gotten lost. If they have no living will enumerating their future preferences, and if there are no extrinsic reasons to do otherwise, then yes. You ought to treat them in accordance with their inferior mental capacity if it actually makes them any different from before. They are obviously not the same nor as good as they were before. If they are bedridden and mindless zombines, which I take the above to mean, they are not as valuable as normal humans. I would rather save a chimp from a fire than that.

I would give them the "benefit of the doubt" to the greatest degree physically possible. It seems to me to be wildly unfair to assign different moral values based on who had the foresight to fill out a particular document.

There are some assumptions yes. That's at the heart of any ethical system. Consequentialism, Deontology and other systems all have basic assumptions. I can't "prove" that causing pain to people is bad nor can I prove that it is morally wrong to torture kittens.

Of course they do. You've done a very good job of defending the majority of them. However, I'm rather surprised that you have (apparently) never had to defend them before.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I have never seen anyone actually try to apply utilitarianism in actual reality. Not once. No one even refers to it in everyday life.

Well, I don't see how that is possible. The entire animal welfare movement is based on Utilitarianism. Most fields and issues that deal with the welfare of people are also related to utility. The design of buildings, welfare programmes, public education, mental hospital reform, sanitation reform.

There are a litany of 19th and early 20th century laws and regulations that came into effect in England because of Utilitarian theory. Many of the 19th century sanitation laws, prision reforms, and ways in which the mentally rtarded were housed/treated were altereted because of utilitarianism. I can give specific laws if you want. One I know of is the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Lots of people refer to it. Utilitarianism was the dominant public form of legislation in many nations in the 19th century. It is now combined with modern concepts of liberalism.

No it would not, but the problem is that as a practical matter you DO have to be a human to have "personhood". Can you give me an example of any nonehuman thing that has ever actually had "personhood" (i.e. not a hypothetical)

Well, there are several animal species that are being studied now bioethicists are debating. The bonobo chimpanzee as well as various other Great Apes. They are likely candidates, and that is being debated now.

Should I construe this to mean, then, that exceptionally intelligent humans enjoy more rights than everyone else?

Only if it means they have different interests. I would think highly intelligent and average intelligence individuals have really the same exact welfare interests as well as interests that lead to rights. Both have the same ability to desire future preferences, to make interests. Stephen Hawking has the ability to desire future life and make plans just as joe blow does. However, the same cannot be said of people so retarded as to be mentally nonexistent.

They might be smarter, but they are both in the same level of self-awareness/sentience. They are more intelligent, yes. THey don't have different core welfare interests though due to that cognitive level.



I will try to get to the rest tomorrow, but it might be late. I have some English to do and I am forced to go to a really boring party.

[Darth Wong]

I have never seen anyone actually try to apply utilitarianism in actual reality. Not once. No one even refers to it in everyday life.

The Engineering Code of Ethics is based on utilitarianism, moron. Everywhere you look are structures and systems designed by people who employed this form of ethics.

[Spoonist]

I have never seen anyone actually try to apply utilitarianism in actual reality. Not once. No one even refers to it in everyday life.

I would agree that most people don't refer to utilitarianism in their everyday life but I'd say that its principle is used all over the place and all of the time.

Doctors rationalizing about who to treat first.
Teachers balancing how they should spend their time with their students.
Aid orgonaisations distributing resources.
etc etc

It would be impossible to live your whole life dogmatically following it but in everyday actions people make everyday choices based on this principle.

[Surlethe]

<snip whining bitching lying and semantic game playing snip>

Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. You got caught in 3 lies, and you just keep making up bullshit and playing semantic games to get out of it. You don't believe in honest debate. You want to simply ask questions and have someone answer them while treating your own position as fact needing no defense. When you're ready to give up the double standard, let me know.

Suck my cock, shitwit. You have not presented a shred of support for your position: you evade hypotheticals which you know would put it to the lie; you ignore genetic reasoning; your argument to pragmatism hass been reduced ad absurdum; your claim human genetics is the source of inherent moral superiority is utterly demolished by the example of a fetus, or even a small child; you claim assigning different moral values to individuals removes them from the species, a fact with incredibly quickly runs up agains the counterexample of a fetus, again; you would defend Terri Schiavo from being unplugged; and you have evaded genetic arguments demonstrating people who contribute to the species will be valued less. In short, you're a dishonest, generalizing fuckstick who has delusions of grandeur. An extension of moral value based on superficial characteristics leads to contradictions, and so, by basic logic -- a concept with which, I am sure, you are completely unfamiliar -- we shouldn't extend moral value based on those superficial characteristics, which is a fact you are apparently incapable to grasp.

[b00tleg]

If we break my premise down to the root definitions of the words I used, this is what you get

"A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct that exists in actuality, that has life or reality, taking place within the mind and modified by individual bias." www.dictionary.com

[SVPD]

I have never seen anyone actually try to apply utilitarianism in actual reality. Not once. No one even refers to it in everyday life.

Well, I don't see how that is possible. The entire animal welfare movement is based on Utilitarianism. Most fields and issues that deal with the welfare of people are also related to utility. The design of buildings, welfare programmes, public education, mental hospital reform, sanitation reform.

There are a litany of 19th and early 20th century laws and regulations that came into effect in England because of Utilitarian theory. Many of the 19th century sanitation laws, prision reforms, and ways in which the mentally rtarded were housed/treated were altereted because of utilitarianism. I can give specific laws if you want. One I know of is the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Lots of people refer to it. Utilitarianism was the dominant public form of legislation in many nations in the 19th century. It is now combined with modern concepts of liberalism.

No it would not, but the problem is that as a practical matter you DO have to be a human to have "personhood". Can you give me an example of any nonehuman thing that has ever actually had "personhood" (i.e. not a hypothetical)

Well, there are several animal species that are being studied now bioethicists are debating. The bonobo chimpanzee as well as various other Great Apes. They are likely candidates, and that is being debated now.

Should I construe this to mean, then, that exceptionally intelligent humans enjoy more rights than everyone else?

Only if it means they have different interests. I would think highly intelligent and average intelligence individuals have really the same exact welfare interests as well as interests that lead to rights. Both have the same ability to desire future preferences, to make interests. Stephen Hawking has the ability to desire future life and make plans just as joe blow does. However, the same cannot be said of people so retarded as to be mentally nonexistent.

They might be smarter, but they are both in the same level of self-awareness/sentience. They are more intelligent, yes. THey don't have different core welfare interests though due to that cognitive level.

I will try to get to the rest tomorrow, but it might be late. I have some English to do and I am forced to go to a really boring party.

No need to waste your time. Since you resolved the circularity issue pretty well, defended your assertions, cleared up the hyperbole issue, and generally did a good job of defending your own position, I have no further problems with your ethical system. I'll conceed at this point.