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One should err on the side of caution and assume consciousness for sake of ethical decision-making, whenever possible. That said, it's incredibly presumptuous
by xamuel 8y ago
One should err on the side of caution and assume consciousness for sake of ethical decision-making, whenever possible.
That said, it's incredibly presumptuous to assume everything has consciousness just because you do. We are not all alike. You might have had a fever when you were young, and your consciousness emerged because of that fever. And people who didn't have that fever, don't have consciousness. A pretty silly possibility, but no sillier than "consciousness emerges from sufficiently many interacting neurons". Right now we basically have no clue, and it's arrogant to pretend otherwise.
To all the virtue-signallers in this thread talking about how cruel it is to kill animals, I would say: what's your stance on late-term abortion? Funny how a lot of the people who claim to believe cockroaches have consciousness, actually think it's virtuous to support killing unborn children.
- leetcrew 8y ago> To all the virtue-signallers in this thread talking about how cruel it is to kill animals, I would say: what's your stance on late-term abortion? Funny how a lot of the people who claim to believe cockroaches have consciousness, actually think it's virtuous to support killing unborn children. this is not necessarily as hard of a moral conundrum as it seems. some people draw a distinction between deliberately killing a being that can survive on its own and withdrawing support that a being requires to live. this is somewhat analogous to the trolley problem: is it worse to kill than to allow to die?
- xamuel 8y agoThanks, when you put it that way, it's not as clear-cut as I thought.
- get_off_my_lawn 8y agoIsn't it, though? By that same logic, I can walk into a hospital, go to someone on life support who can't currently "survive on their own", and unplug their systems, thus "withdrawing the support they require to live". If they die, is it really any different from killing them any other way? To make the analogy even more accurate, let's say you are in a coma and will come out of it in 9 months. You can't survive without support now, but we know for a fact that you will come out of the coma after the 9 months have passed and will then be able to do so. Is it fine for me to shut down your life support half way through?
- leetcrew 8y agoto clarify, by "withdrawing support" I meant withdrawing support that you personally are providing, not just running around yanking ladders out from under people. in the specific case of pregnancy, the support is given at significant personal cost and risk, which is not captured in either of your analogies.
- get_off_my_lawn 8y agoFair enough, let's assume that in the previous analogy I am actually the parent footing the hospital bill. If I know for certain that you are going to recover, and I can afford it, but decide to let you die anyway, is that really significantly better? However, I do acknowledge that there are exceptional circumstances, such as the birth posing a health risk to the mother, both mother and child being likely to die if delivery is attempted, etc. That would be the case of "not being able to afford it" in my analogy, or the significant personal risk you mention (at least I assume that's what you mean, as normal pregnancy is nowhere near a significant risk, with the current maternal death rate being 1 in 10,000). In those cases, I'd be willing to agree with you.
- xamuel 8y agoGood point. To make it closer to leetcrew's point, we could further imagine that while I'm lying in bed in the 9-month coma, you're the one paying my medical bills, and it's almost driving you bankrupt. Or: you need a heart transplant or you will die, and my heart is the only viable candidate.
- siedes 8y agoIt's less that they think it's virtuous or support killing unborn children, and more that they believe a woman's right to choose to do so trumps the rights of those unborn children to be born.