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It's nice when you can set an impossibly high bar before which you can dismiss all your personal responsibility. Does this argument work equally well for human

It's nice when you can set an impossibly high bar before which you can dismiss all your personal responsibility. Does this argument work equally well for human slavery for you? We haven't met that bar for humans either. Is wondering about my consciousness waffle or do I get a pass in your book?

causal 15d ago
Your arguments seem bad faith but I'll take the bait... > an impossibly high bar Not impossibly high. An imperfect testable theory is achievable, agreeing upon it might be the challenge. > dismiss all your personal responsibility. You are staking a moral position. Be careful, you are probably guilty of mistreating other unknowably-conscious entities whilst casting judgment upon others for their position. And the person you are a responding to probably is conscious.
- collingreen 15d ago
  It's not bad faith but it certainly is pointed. Parent says it's not worth discussion until there is a test. I stand by my sentiment that refusing to engage with the morality of something just because we don't all have a clear, agreed upon test is a shirking of responsibility. I think you agree somewhat in that based on your softening to an imperfect, testable theory. I'm not sure what your goal is with the rest - even if I'm the world's most evil hypocrite casting judgement on all the conscious beings out there I don't see what that changes about the point that we can and should engage with the morality of a concept even if we don't have a perfect test for that concept. If you think I'm doing that and you think that is bad then I guess we agree again on the point but are just adding friction for fun? Unrelated: I'm quite certain OP is conscious but I guess on the internet nobody knows you're a ~dog~ ai.
sobiolite 15d ago
No, I would say that any for or against slavery that is rooted in arguments about the presence of absence of consciousness is meaningless pseudoscience. It is the modern equivalent of Phrenology. If you want to make those arguments you need a genuine science of consciousness. Or you need to base your morality in something other than the presence of consciousness.
- collingreen 15d ago
  Thanks for the reply! I'm not sure I agree that consciousness (or sentience if we're making that distinction) is worthless when considering the morality of exploiting something/someone. I do agree there are more angles than that but they seem on top of something's ability to perceive not instead/despite of it. Do you have some examples of other things that go into your own moral opinions about slavery?
  - ozozozd 15d ago
    So, slavery of a human would be ok if enough of us decide (no test, too high a bar) that this human is not conscious? Of course not. Therefore, lacking or possessing consciousness means very little. Perhaps mostly because we don’t have a test for it, but even so.

causal 15d ago

Your arguments seem bad faith but I'll take the bait... > an impossibly high bar Not impossibly high. An imperfect testable theory is achievable, agreeing upon it might be the challenge. > dismiss all your personal responsibility. You are staking a moral position. Be careful, you are probably guilty of mistreating other unknowably-conscious entities whilst casting judgment upon others for their position. And the person you are a responding to probably is conscious.

collingreen 15d ago
It's not bad faith but it certainly is pointed. Parent says it's not worth discussion until there is a test. I stand by my sentiment that refusing to engage with the morality of something just because we don't all have a clear, agreed upon test is a shirking of responsibility. I think you agree somewhat in that based on your softening to an imperfect, testable theory. I'm not sure what your goal is with the rest - even if I'm the world's most evil hypocrite casting judgement on all the conscious beings out there I don't see what that changes about the point that we can and should engage with the morality of a concept even if we don't have a perfect test for that concept. If you think I'm doing that and you think that is bad then I guess we agree again on the point but are just adding friction for fun? Unrelated: I'm quite certain OP is conscious but I guess on the internet nobody knows you're a ~dog~ ai.

sobiolite 15d ago

No, I would say that any for or against slavery that is rooted in arguments about the presence of absence of consciousness is meaningless pseudoscience. It is the modern equivalent of Phrenology. If you want to make those arguments you need a genuine science of consciousness. Or you need to base your morality in something other than the presence of consciousness.

collingreen 15d ago
Thanks for the reply! I'm not sure I agree that consciousness (or sentience if we're making that distinction) is worthless when considering the morality of exploiting something/someone. I do agree there are more angles than that but they seem on top of something's ability to perceive not instead/despite of it. Do you have some examples of other things that go into your own moral opinions about slavery?
- ozozozd 15d ago
  So, slavery of a human would be ok if enough of us decide (no test, too high a bar) that this human is not conscious? Of course not. Therefore, lacking or possessing consciousness means very little. Perhaps mostly because we don’t have a test for it, but even so.