I have zero chance of becoming a cow in my lifetime. I have a non-zero chance of suffering an accident which puts me in a vegetative state. Ergo, I have a personal interest in how people in vegetative states are treated.
Feel free to bite the bullet and say that if you end up in a vegetative state, you grant the state full permission to harvest your organs for someone else's use.
I have zero chance of becoming a cow in my lifetime. I have a non-zero chance of suffering an accident which puts me in a vegetative state. Ergo, I have a personal interest in how people in vegetative states are treated.
Feel free to bite the bullet and say that if you end up in a vegetative state, you grant the state full permission to harvest your organs for someone else's use.
I think the state should punish violent criminals. But I could become a violent criminal! Oh no I've been debunked by someone who clearly believes in her moral precepts enough to argue in good faith!
I don't understand your point, and your sarcasm isn't helping.
Am I incorrect in my assumption that you would like for your body to be treated with respect and care in the unlikely event you ended up in a vegetative state?
Human beings slaughter cows and pigs. At some point humanity says "Who cares?" with respect to the desires of cows and pigs.
On the other hand just about everyone agrees that even if violent criminals should be locked up their wishes with regards to humane imprisonment should be honored.
Murderers also slaughter humans. At some point, humanity says "who cares?" with respect to their desires to be free. On the other hand, just about everyone agrees that even though we slaughter cows and pigs, we should probably grant them a little more freedom to move than they currently tend to receive.
I don't understand why the existence of a moral boundary in one place would preclude the existence of a moral boundary in another place -- yes, humans regard humans as different from cows and pigs, but that doesn't mean that innocents regard innocents as different from criminals (if anything, it implies that drawing such moral boundaries is normal).
But we do not say "Who cares?" with regards to the desires of a murderer to not be crammed into a cell filled with human feces, or to be housed in a 10x10 cell with five other people, etc. Even for somebody on death row there is typically some consideration towards ensuring that they are housed in a humane setting prior to their execution.
What did that cow do to deserve being rounded up with thousands of other cows and sent to an abattoir? I can't imagine that's a very pleasant way to die.
Human beings regard other humans as being categorically different from animals, and that includes the vegetative and non-verbal.
I'm not sure how much plainer I can make it -- yes, there are moral boundaries between animals and humans; but as I've already repeatedly said, this doesn't mean that we can't also draw moral boundaries within humanity. It's just bizarre how "maybe disabled people don't have the same ethical rights as the nondisabled, just as we care more about cows than fish" is repeatedly understood as "oh well i guess that means you'd love to filet the disabled and eat a nice barbecue rib dish made from their bodies at a fine restaurant." You can have whatever morals you want, by definition; but the willful blindness people have about how they come to these conclusions is just baffling.
"maybe disabled people don't have the same ethical rights as the nondisabled, just as we care more about cows than fish"
It's a big country. You can find people here that believe that the world is hollow and filled with lizard people, or that the earth is flat. I have no doubt that you could find individuals who believe that people in vegetative states have fewer human rights than everyone else.
But that is a minority view. The idea that intellectual capacity or disability means fewer rights is as bizarre to the average citizen as the idea that the earth is flat.
Firstly: people generally seem to think "more intelligence is better"; they generally consider "you're so smart" to be a compliment, but "you're so stupid" to be an insult; they would generally prefer their children to have more IQ, rather than less. But, secondly, the motte-and-bailey here is tremendous: I ask why one should assume that human intellect isn't relevant to rights; people respond that human intellect isn't relevant to rights, because animal intellect is relevant to rights; I ask why the latter precludes the former; and they say that I'm the one trying to convince them -- when I know why I believe what I believe, and I'm just asking why they seem to think that I should believe what they do! I guess I should've known better than to look for intelligent arguments in a conversation where I ask others why they don't think intelligence matters...
I just posted that the majority of people see a categorical difference between humans and animals, a difference not of degree but of kind. At that point the intelligence of the animal is irrelevant--what matters is that you are discussing a cow or a pig and not a human being and the relative intelligence of the two is meaningless.
If you want to construct a spectrum of animal intelligence where a healthy cow would score higher than a vegetative human being, be my guest. But it's pretty clear where society and the law come down.
You have a non-zero chance of empathically expanding to care a lot more about animal suffering than you currently do. (We all do, I mean.) The self is flexible, because empathy is. And so you could someday have more self-interest in how cows are treated. Their mistreatment will hurt you, too.
I agree, but I still have zero chance of becoming a cow in my lifetime. While I may one day care far more about the welfare of cows than I currently do, to the point that the existence of abattoirs will deeply upset me, my concern for the welfare of cows will never be based in the self-preservation instinct.
Yet political heroes, and mothers, are often willing to die for those in their circle of care. The object of our instinct for self-preservation can enlargen as the self does.
Of course, I'm not denying that people are capable of putting other entities' interests before their own. I'm simply making the distinction between "caring about bad things happening to people you care about" and "caring about bad things happening to you". I think it's fair to say the latter is far more fundamental to living creatures than the former, even instinctual. It's a useful lens though which to examine moral problems: the category of "bad things which could happen to me, (however unlikely)" will always be smaller than the category of "bad things which could happen to someone whose welfare I care about, or which COULD HAVE happened to me were it not for my good fortune", and I imagine this category distinction has some predictive power regarding people's intuitions about policy proposals.
I think it's a bit of a reach to say the self can enlargen. A mother does not throw herself in front of a car to prevent her son from being killed because she thinks of her son as part of herself - she does so because she loves her son and is willing to sacrifice her life to save his.
I don't think it a semantic stretch, but I concede that it's a practical stretch. The small Paul has a lot of gravitational pull. And my empathy for X is based, in part, on a chain of my perceptions & inferences re X, a chain looser than my own off-the-shelf nervestrings!
I have zero chance of becoming a cow in my lifetime. I have a non-zero chance of suffering an accident which puts me in a vegetative state. Ergo, I have a personal interest in how people in vegetative states are treated.
Feel free to bite the bullet and say that if you end up in a vegetative state, you grant the state full permission to harvest your organs for someone else's use.
I think the state should punish violent criminals. But I could become a violent criminal! Oh no I've been debunked by someone who clearly believes in her moral precepts enough to argue in good faith!
Remember, kids: if you have a personal interest in something, then it becomes a metaphysical right which grants you moral superiority!
I don't understand your point, and your sarcasm isn't helping.
Am I incorrect in my assumption that you would like for your body to be treated with respect and care in the unlikely event you ended up in a vegetative state?
Human beings slaughter cows and pigs. At some point humanity says "Who cares?" with respect to the desires of cows and pigs.
On the other hand just about everyone agrees that even if violent criminals should be locked up their wishes with regards to humane imprisonment should be honored.
Murderers also slaughter humans. At some point, humanity says "who cares?" with respect to their desires to be free. On the other hand, just about everyone agrees that even though we slaughter cows and pigs, we should probably grant them a little more freedom to move than they currently tend to receive.
I don't understand why the existence of a moral boundary in one place would preclude the existence of a moral boundary in another place -- yes, humans regard humans as different from cows and pigs, but that doesn't mean that innocents regard innocents as different from criminals (if anything, it implies that drawing such moral boundaries is normal).
But we do not say "Who cares?" with regards to the desires of a murderer to not be crammed into a cell filled with human feces, or to be housed in a 10x10 cell with five other people, etc. Even for somebody on death row there is typically some consideration towards ensuring that they are housed in a humane setting prior to their execution.
What did that cow do to deserve being rounded up with thousands of other cows and sent to an abattoir? I can't imagine that's a very pleasant way to die.
Human beings regard other humans as being categorically different from animals, and that includes the vegetative and non-verbal.
I'm not sure how much plainer I can make it -- yes, there are moral boundaries between animals and humans; but as I've already repeatedly said, this doesn't mean that we can't also draw moral boundaries within humanity. It's just bizarre how "maybe disabled people don't have the same ethical rights as the nondisabled, just as we care more about cows than fish" is repeatedly understood as "oh well i guess that means you'd love to filet the disabled and eat a nice barbecue rib dish made from their bodies at a fine restaurant." You can have whatever morals you want, by definition; but the willful blindness people have about how they come to these conclusions is just baffling.
"maybe disabled people don't have the same ethical rights as the nondisabled, just as we care more about cows than fish"
It's a big country. You can find people here that believe that the world is hollow and filled with lizard people, or that the earth is flat. I have no doubt that you could find individuals who believe that people in vegetative states have fewer human rights than everyone else.
But that is a minority view. The idea that intellectual capacity or disability means fewer rights is as bizarre to the average citizen as the idea that the earth is flat.
Firstly: people generally seem to think "more intelligence is better"; they generally consider "you're so smart" to be a compliment, but "you're so stupid" to be an insult; they would generally prefer their children to have more IQ, rather than less. But, secondly, the motte-and-bailey here is tremendous: I ask why one should assume that human intellect isn't relevant to rights; people respond that human intellect isn't relevant to rights, because animal intellect is relevant to rights; I ask why the latter precludes the former; and they say that I'm the one trying to convince them -- when I know why I believe what I believe, and I'm just asking why they seem to think that I should believe what they do! I guess I should've known better than to look for intelligent arguments in a conversation where I ask others why they don't think intelligence matters...
I just posted that the majority of people see a categorical difference between humans and animals, a difference not of degree but of kind. At that point the intelligence of the animal is irrelevant--what matters is that you are discussing a cow or a pig and not a human being and the relative intelligence of the two is meaningless.
If you want to construct a spectrum of animal intelligence where a healthy cow would score higher than a vegetative human being, be my guest. But it's pretty clear where society and the law come down.
You have a non-zero chance of empathically expanding to care a lot more about animal suffering than you currently do. (We all do, I mean.) The self is flexible, because empathy is. And so you could someday have more self-interest in how cows are treated. Their mistreatment will hurt you, too.
I agree, but I still have zero chance of becoming a cow in my lifetime. While I may one day care far more about the welfare of cows than I currently do, to the point that the existence of abattoirs will deeply upset me, my concern for the welfare of cows will never be based in the self-preservation instinct.
Yet political heroes, and mothers, are often willing to die for those in their circle of care. The object of our instinct for self-preservation can enlargen as the self does.
Of course, I'm not denying that people are capable of putting other entities' interests before their own. I'm simply making the distinction between "caring about bad things happening to people you care about" and "caring about bad things happening to you". I think it's fair to say the latter is far more fundamental to living creatures than the former, even instinctual. It's a useful lens though which to examine moral problems: the category of "bad things which could happen to me, (however unlikely)" will always be smaller than the category of "bad things which could happen to someone whose welfare I care about, or which COULD HAVE happened to me were it not for my good fortune", and I imagine this category distinction has some predictive power regarding people's intuitions about policy proposals.
I think it's a bit of a reach to say the self can enlargen. A mother does not throw herself in front of a car to prevent her son from being killed because she thinks of her son as part of herself - she does so because she loves her son and is willing to sacrifice her life to save his.
I don't think it a semantic stretch, but I concede that it's a practical stretch. The small Paul has a lot of gravitational pull. And my empathy for X is based, in part, on a chain of my perceptions & inferences re X, a chain looser than my own off-the-shelf nervestrings!