tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post114162204594845390..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: When Death Doesn't Harm YouRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1144938681337511162006-04-13T10:31:00.000-04:002006-04-13T10:31:00.000-04:00Not much. But who said anything about selfishness?...<A HREF="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/09/red-pill-ethics-rationality.html" REL="nofollow">Not much</A>. But who said anything about selfishness? I've assumed throughout that we shouldn't harm others. (Nothing "irrational" about that.) My argument is instead that for non-personal entities, death doesn't harm them.<BR/><BR/>You write: "<I>I don't base morality on harms</I>"<BR/><BR/>But how could it be wrong to do something harmless?Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1144002921935869182006-04-02T14:35:00.000-04:002006-04-02T14:35:00.000-04:00Yes, I agree death wouldn't harm me, and yes I don...Yes, I agree death wouldn't harm me, and yes I don't base morality on harms. It seems to me that morality does not need an explanation, but immorality does, and I base my explanation of immorality on self and precisely the projection of desire and fear into the future. It's a fairly old idea of a 'fall' into knowledge, the separation of self awareness. As soon as thought creates a separate self, separate selfish interests arise and with them immorality. Morality is then the rejection of all that. Hense all this strange 'irrational' stuff about loving your neighbour, whether your neighbour is a baby, a chicken or a selfish human. What is so rational about being selfish?unenlightenedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09711296867159960861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1143851056891671152006-03-31T19:24:00.000-05:002006-03-31T19:24:00.000-05:00I'd be very surprised if that were truly your situ...I'd be very surprised if that were truly your situation; but if you genuinely don't have any future-directed concerns, goals, or interests, then surely it's right to say that death wouldn't harm you. (How could it? It doesn't thwart any of your desires.)<BR/><BR/>Unless one can address these arguments, it doesn't seem legitimate to stubbornly hold to one's prejudices/intuitions and object that it "exposes the danger of basing morality on self-hood". Obviously I wouldn't expect anyone to <I>initially</I> believe that baby farming could be acceptable. It is rather a conclusion that is rationally forced upon us (or so I argue) once we become more reflective about our moral judgments.<BR/><BR/>Are you instead proposing that morality should be based on something other than harms? But that seems awfully <A HREF="http://pixnaps.blogspot.com/2005/08/red-pill-arbitrary-ethics.html" REL="nofollow">arbitrary</A>.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1143823755177338812006-03-31T11:49:00.000-05:002006-03-31T11:49:00.000-05:00Unfortunately, just before I read this, I read htt...Unfortunately, just before I read this, I read http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2006/03/12/self-deception-and-self-construction/ (too stupid to make a proper link, sorry). So I no longer think I have a real stable self. Having read this piece, I now think I am a chicken/candidate for the baby farm. This is no problem to me as I do not care too much about the person that I will be by the time I have finished this comment, but I wonder how you would feel about eating a chicken that thinks the same (Given the weirdness of the internet, I'm not even going to suggest eating me)? Seems to me your argument exposes the danger of basing morality on self-hood - I don't even begin to think baby farming is acceptable - interesting though. Cheers, bob.unenlightenedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09711296867159960861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1142810558105900032006-03-19T18:22:00.000-05:002006-03-19T18:22:00.000-05:00I feel so proud.I feel so proud.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1142787860498707722006-03-19T12:04:00.000-05:002006-03-19T12:04:00.000-05:00Congratulations! You're number 1 google hit of 'c...Congratulations! You're number 1 google hit of 'chicken pleasure'.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1142344894312949922006-03-14T09:01:00.000-05:002006-03-14T09:01:00.000-05:00ah, yes, the baby farm. i suppose that is -- in p...ah, yes, the baby farm. i suppose that is -- in part -- what the stem cell research hoopla is about. yes, stem cells come from fetuses, and these, so far, are by-product of abortion; but fetuses could be MANUFACTURED to make stem cells (that was one of the accusations in the recent Korean fiasco); thats a sort of -- baby farm -- in embryo, right?<BR/>personally, i am all for baby farms and growing clones to harvest organs. just grow them without frontal lobes, please. ;-)Sir Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07953581535133000686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1142344663039423462006-03-14T08:57:00.000-05:002006-03-14T08:57:00.000-05:00yes, i have been thinking about that while up on t...yes, i have been thinking about that while up on the mountain. the question is, i suppose, how do we know that chickens have a merely fleeting mental life? Research shows that they form both lasting enmities and alliances(friendships is what we humans call them)--so they seem to have a sort of memory. But how would we test whether or not they are capable of planning for the future?<BR/>Also, where does this put humans with short term memory loss? The feedlot? ;-)Sir Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07953581535133000686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1142033857357158022006-03-10T18:37:00.000-05:002006-03-10T18:37:00.000-05:00Gawain, I'm actually assuming that chickens are co...Gawain, I'm actually assuming that chickens <I>are</I> conscious. That's why I think animal cruelty is wrong. (If they couldn't feel anything, then presumably we could do anything at all to them and they could never be harmed by any of it.) My argument was more limited. Although inflicting pain harms creatures with a fleeting mental life (i.e. moment-to-moment consciousness but no mental identity binding these experiences, and in particular no future-directed desires), death itself is no harm to them. That's what I was arguing.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1142029903984568742006-03-10T17:31:00.000-05:002006-03-10T17:31:00.000-05:00> and would probably not eat Genius.that's good t...> and would probably not eat Genius.<BR/><BR/>that's good to know!Geniushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11624496692217466430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1142003967646253742006-03-10T10:19:00.000-05:002006-03-10T10:19:00.000-05:00oh, i remembered: Damasiooh, i remembered: DamasioSir Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07953581535133000686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1142003900172148712006-03-10T10:18:00.000-05:002006-03-10T10:18:00.000-05:00no, of course not. i eat chicken and would probab...no, of course not. i eat chicken and would probably not eat Genius. but i think it would be very hard to establish beyond discussion when a person is not/no longer "there". which is to say: i don't think your arguments hold.<BR/>par example:<BR/><BR/>"(1) qualities of experience - e.g. pleasure and pain - that can affect any conscious being; and"<BR/><BR/>we do not know that chickens do not feel pain (they certainly fear it and cry out when hurt); nor do we know that they are not conscious; they possess the same consciousness-making apparatus -- remarkably similar in any case -- as we do. (i forgot the reference, an american MD With an italian-sounding name, starts with a D).Sir Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07953581535133000686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1141893189171160702006-03-09T03:33:00.000-05:002006-03-09T03:33:00.000-05:00"I think it's beyond question that people exist in..."I think it's beyond question that people exist in some sense. If there's another "certain sense" in which they don't, then so much the worse for that sense of the term...."<BR/><BR/>This is just like some religious arguments. both invulnerable and elusive.<BR/><BR/>Still with this sort of fuzzy aproach I find it hard to see how you can be so absolutist with the clear line you can draw here with humans and chicken.Geniushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11624496692217466430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1141795474739128762006-03-08T00:24:00.000-05:002006-03-08T00:24:00.000-05:00I think it's beyond question that people exist in ...I think it's beyond question that people exist in some sense. If there's another "certain sense" in which they don't, then so much the worse for <I>that</I> sense of the term.<BR/><BR/>There is something very different between the mental lives (and continuity) of people and chickens. Whatever that difference is (and it surely has some neurological underpinnings), it's that I'm pointing to here.<BR/><BR/>I don't think you could plausibly hold that there's no difference here, and that we're thus all "free game".Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1141794966427526092006-03-08T00:16:00.000-05:002006-03-08T00:16:00.000-05:00Richard:i think that in a certain sense there isn'...Richard:<BR/><BR/>i think that in a certain sense there isn't anyone here anyway (if you take seriously the new neurological ideas of brain structure). if the ego is an illusion, we are all free game? <BR/><BR/>gawainSir Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07953581535133000686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1141712007089841762006-03-07T01:13:00.000-05:002006-03-07T01:13:00.000-05:00Yeah, I guess that softer distinction would do the...Yeah, I guess that softer distinction would do the trick. Thanks for the suggestion.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1141702103600240822006-03-06T22:28:00.000-05:002006-03-06T22:28:00.000-05:00Richard: When you propose your distinction betwee...Richard: When you propose your distinction between the two sorts of harm/benefits, in what sense do you do mean the distinction to be true? ie. is it just a sort of template that we place over the great disordered mass of lived experience, to find some order in it, as we say "apples are either red or green"; or do you mean the distinction to be more precise and formal than that? I ask this because I am not sure that there is any such thing as an instantaneous experience, isolated from all past and future experiences, which (as I understand it) you attribute to chickens and idiots. Also, I am not sure that you can talk about fully globalised desires, because when we try to think about what we want in our "whole" lives, we are bound to miss out some parts of it.<BR/><BR/>My instinct is to think that it would be safer to say something like: one of the variables involved in harms is the scope/extent/breadth (or any such term) of the desires that the harmful act interferes with.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1141636194962580572006-03-06T04:09:00.000-05:002006-03-06T04:09:00.000-05:00Raza, the infant has no such "future capacity". Wh...Raza, the infant has no such "future capacity". Whether the physical body is killed or not, the infant's mentality will not survive beyond infanthood. It is not the sort of entity capable of such persistence. Perhaps the infant will be replaced by a person, or perhaps it will simply die. In neither case does the infant <I>itself</I> have a future.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1141628408414139052006-03-06T02:00:00.000-05:002006-03-06T02:00:00.000-05:00I chicken may very well be no more than a number o...I chicken may very well be no more than a number of consecutive and largely unrelated 'chicken experiences', but im not sure an infant can be considered to not be harmed by death, as unlike chickens, they are definately losing their future capacity to enjoy the 'qualities of a life' like you say.<BR/><BR/>Interesting thought for the abortion debate?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com