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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31630 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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Even on this forum, I don't often see people mentioning that IQ differences shouldn't imply differences in moral worth -- which suggests to me that many people here do actually have an unarticulated, possibly subconscious, belief that this is the case.

Consider a negative-infinity IQ person, i.e. a corpse, or a bipedal-seeming rock. Do they have moral worth? Not really. Okay, what about a cow? Cows can certainly 'feel', pain, they have desires, some intelligence, etc. If you say 'not at all' - why, given that? If you say 'yes, as much as humans' ... what about fish? Plants? Bacteria? If you say 'somewhere in between' - okay, intelligence and capability relate to moral worth.

More directly, the "worth" of a human can't come from anywhere else than their experiences, actions, or other specifics of their life - is there anything else? And more intelligence or capability enables/ and causes better versions of the former. This is intuitive in the lesser - a downs' syndrome person clearly has much less of all of life than a person, for the same reasons a cow does. What is one protecting when one says Einstein and a person-of-Downs are the same, "morally"?

If moral worth comes from intelligence, then there is always someone smarter than you, and so they have the right to kill you/abuse you because "you clearly have much less of all of life than I do".

This is the exact attitude I was getting at, with old assumptions that the poor were just of coarser grade than their betters, so they could more easily endure pain and disappointment because they were too stupid and too insensitive to feel suffering in the same, elevated, rarified way their superiors with their more delicate constitutions and refined senses did.

And naturally, if they are inferior in sensibility, they are inferior all round so it's okay to mistreat, exploit and abuse them since they don't feel it, you know. Not like we do:

(Madred has brought his daughter to work, and a pet in a cage. Picard is sitting slumped in the chair, wearing a loose tunic)

MADRED: I want you to be very careful with your wompat from now on, Jil Orra. Now that she's separated from her mother, she depends on you.

JIL ORRA: I will, father. Do humans have mothers and fathers?

MADRED: Yes, but human mothers and fathers don't love their children as we do. They're not the same as we are.

JIL ORRA: Will you read to me tonight?

MADRED: Yes, of course I will. I'll see you later.

(Jil leaves carrying her pet)

PICARD: Your daughter is lovely.

MADRED: Yes, I think so. And unusually bright. It's amazing, isn't it, the way they're able to sneak into your heart. I must admit, I was completely >unprepared for the power she had over me from the moment she was born.

PICARD: I'm surprised that you let her come in here.

MADRED: Why?

PICARD: To expose a child to this. To someone who is suffering. To see that it is you that inflict that suffering.

MADRED: From the time Jil Orra could crawl she's been taught about the enemies of the Cardassians, and that enemies deserve their fate.

PICARD: When children learn to devalue others, they can devalue anyone, including their parents.

If moral worth comes from intelligence, then there is always someone smarter than you, and so they have the right to kill you/abuse you because "you clearly have much less of all of life than I do".

This isn't fair at all. At best you could claim that they have the right to kill you to save their own life. Nobody has the right to cause suffering just because they're more morally valuable. Humans are worth more than cows; that doesn't mean we have the rightto torture them.

If moral worth comes from intelligence, then there is always someone smarter than you, and so they have the right to kill you/abuse you because "you clearly have much less of all of life than I do".

Yeah, if you posit 'killing is always wrong and everyone has equal moral worth', you can conclude that 'killing is always wrong and everyone has equal moral worth'. Except for cows, apparently. Seriously, how do cows, or rabbits, or fish fit into this equation? Evolution very cleanly demonstrates they're mostly the same as us, mechanically - just a lot dumber. Yet we're free to kill them, or at least let them perish painfully by the billions in the wild, because ... ? I respect EA for taking the ideas they believe seriously!

Moral worth is about capacity for suffering. Most people have the intuition that the welfare of children should be prioritized over that of adults, even though children are often less intelligent than adults, have less experience, few life specifics, and take few actions. That's because kids suffer more easily. Since people with Downs, and different human races, have equal capacity for suffering, they also have equal moral worth.

Okay, but plants and fish can suffer just like we can. Yeah, plants! Plants have coordinated physical responses to harmful stimuli. What makes this not 'suffering'?

That's because kids suffer more easily

What do you mean, exactly? Kids cry when they suffer to get the attention of adults, because they're weak and need to be protected while they mature. That's also where the intuition that the welfare of children matters more comes from. Adults cry less because they can explicitly solve problems. Does this necessarily correspond to a 'depth of suffering'?

Okay, but plants and fish can suffer just like we can. Yeah, plants! Plants have coordinated physical responses to harmful stimuli. What makes this not 'suffering'?

This is definitely a legitimate perspective that EAs consider. Shrimp welfare is big in the EA movement for example. I don't know if plants have qualia though.

What do you mean, exactly?

I mean if you take the exact same negative event, and consider its impact on you as an adult vs as a kid, its impact is gonna be lower on you as an adult. E.g. getting a shot at the doctor's office -- it is gonna cause a lot more distress to kid-you than adult-you.

Is distress the measurement of moral worth? For one, if you instantly die, that doesn't cause distress. If a kid was an experienced meditator and didn't cry at age 3 because they understood the empty nature of suffering, that wouldn't make killing them better. All of the other experiences in life are worth causing, and 'preventing a death' causes all of them to continue.

All of the other experiences in life are worth causing, and 'preventing a death' causes all of them to continue.

Agreed, assuming an individual's life has more experiences to celebrate than experiences to mourn. E.g. I'm pro-choice because my guess is that on expectation, an unwanted child will have more experiences to mourn than experiences to celebrate

Most people have the intuition that the welfare of children should be prioritized over that of adults, even though children are often less intelligent than adults, have less experience, few life specifics, and take few actions.

Pretty sure it's the other way around. We prioritize children because they have more life left to life. They have a full lifetime of adult intelligence awaiting them, plus their remaining childhood.

If that were true, there wouldn't be things like Make a Wish to help kids who are about to die be happy.

Nah, same thing. Their deaths are particularly sad, so we make extra efforts to cheer them (and ourselves) up.

That may be, but I think we still prioritize child welfare in other ways -- even ways that don't impact their chance of survival to adulthood.

But those of the least moral worth are people we want to suffer.

Um... in the context of the EA movement at least, we don't want anyone to suffer.

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