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I wonder about the implications of believing animals and insects to be agents with subjective experiences. Would that not imply some form of moral culpability f

I wonder about the implications of believing animals and insects to be agents with subjective experiences. Would that not imply some form of moral culpability for animals? If animals inflict untold amounts of suffering on each other and we consider them to be beings capable of experiencing subjective experiences, would the most logical path not somehow be to eliminate all animals and insects?

chr1 7y ago
That assumes that suffering by itself is inherently bad, but there is no evidence for this. As far as we understand brain can be simulated on a computer, so pain and joy are simply computations, and minimizing one kind of computation isn't all that nobel goal. I would say not living is much worse than suffering.
- IdiocyInAction 7y ago
  With suffering I mean the subjective experience of "bad" feelings, which I fo think is inherently bad. I'd imagine you try to optimize your life in a way such that you avoid "bad" feelings.
  - chr1 7y ago
    If that was my main goal i would use drugs, or just kill myself. Maximize "good" feelings is a better heuristic because most people accept arbitrary large amount of "bad" feelings, if that promises something good at the end. If a theory leads to conclusion that you should kill someone to help it, then something in its axioms is clearly wrong. Though looking at your username i am not sure if you were suggesting the above seriously or simply were trolling people who think that way.
  - Kaiyou 7y ago
    You cannot get rid of bad feelings just like you cannot get rid of poor people. No matter how much you improve, there will always be someone getting a shorter stick than someone else. I think that's how we got the insanity that are "micro-aggressions". Can't have light without shadow.
thatcat 7y ago
The logical argument could be made for preservation of all species in the food web because they contain unique genetic material documenting robust metabolic pathways. These pathways also involve the manufacture of unique proteins and enzymes that could be very valuable - theoretically utilizing them could reduce suffering in some way.

chr1 7y ago

That assumes that suffering by itself is inherently bad, but there is no evidence for this. As far as we understand brain can be simulated on a computer, so pain and joy are simply computations, and minimizing one kind of computation isn't all that nobel goal. I would say not living is much worse than suffering.

IdiocyInAction 7y ago
With suffering I mean the subjective experience of "bad" feelings, which I fo think is inherently bad. I'd imagine you try to optimize your life in a way such that you avoid "bad" feelings.
- chr1 7y ago
  If that was my main goal i would use drugs, or just kill myself. Maximize "good" feelings is a better heuristic because most people accept arbitrary large amount of "bad" feelings, if that promises something good at the end. If a theory leads to conclusion that you should kill someone to help it, then something in its axioms is clearly wrong. Though looking at your username i am not sure if you were suggesting the above seriously or simply were trolling people who think that way.
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  You cannot get rid of bad feelings just like you cannot get rid of poor people. No matter how much you improve, there will always be someone getting a shorter stick than someone else. I think that's how we got the insanity that are "micro-aggressions". Can't have light without shadow.

thatcat 7y ago

The logical argument could be made for preservation of all species in the food web because they contain unique genetic material documenting robust metabolic pathways. These pathways also involve the manufacture of unique proteins and enzymes that could be very valuable - theoretically utilizing them could reduce suffering in some way.