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> Any number of moral thought experiments should immediately demonstrate how absurd that would be (e.g. would you refuse to sacrifice 2 ants to save 1 human?).
by PavlovsCat 13y ago
> Any number of moral thought experiments should immediately demonstrate how absurd that would be (e.g. would you refuse to sacrifice 2 ants to save 1 human?).
Ahh, but don't stop there. Make such though experiments with humans (Would you sacrifice one 80 year old to save two 40 year olds? Would you sacrifice 3 illiterate children to save one wunderkind? Is a person you know worth 1.3 or rather 2.7 people you don't know?) quickly shows that those are equally absurd, so the absurdity in one case proves nothing.
- jere 13y agoNo, I don't think so. Just because you've chosen silly numbers doesn't mean those are absurd. Moral thought experiments are useful for understanding what value people tend to place on human life. See, even with your trolling questions, most people would have a queasy feeling in their stomach when considering sacrificing a human being. But when I ask you to compare the value of ant life to human life, there's no comparison. You wouldn't hesitate. They aren't equal at all.
- pavelrub 13y agoThere is nothing absurd about any of those scenarios. Those are perfectly valid questions, and to answer them might be difficult - that's why it's not at all obvious that 40 year olds are more morally "important" than 80 year olds (for me they obviously aren't). However, to answer the original question is very easy: Human > Rat. Defending the opposite position is absurd, and although some people might feel Human=Rat - it's a fallacy to compare this to "Black human = White human", or to "Jew=Non-Jew".