Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on July 3, 2012 at 1:11pm

Naaah, better not - I was informed last night by a moderator that I had called one of our members "senile," when it should be obvious that I simply made a general statement of fact, with which no one beyond the age of forty can disagree.

I've been told that when senility creeps up on you, one tends to nod off at inappropriate times - case in point --

I'm not sure how I can be responsible for the assumptions of others, but I'd never call you that - anyway, it's time for my na

Permalink Reply by Unseen on July 6, 2012 at 12:20pm

If that's true in some strictly technical way, they are still instincts in common parlance. Even so, I don't see how the distinction changes anything.

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on July 6, 2012 at 10:02am

What do instincts have to do with a baby's value?

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Permalink Reply by Pope OoO (Out of Order) on July 7, 2012 at 1:22pm

I just ran across this, but haven't read it, yet:

• 1 The Original Visual Cliff Study
• 2 Human Infants Studies
  • 2.1 Preterm Infants
  • 2.2 Prelocomotor Infants
  • 2.3 Maternal Signaling
• 3 The study in different species
  • 3.1 Rats
  • 3.2 Cats/Kittens
  • 3.3 Turtles
  • 3.4 Cows
  • 3.5 Chicks

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Permalink Reply by John Major on July 2, 2012 at 1:30pm

@Unseen. So, let me see if I am understanding you. Babies, the senile and insane, all incapable of considering the value of their own lives, have no value other than that provided by others. If I'm following you, if there is no one to value a baby, etc, then their life has no value. Where a baby etc have no one to value them, they may be dispensed with, perhaps slaughtered like a farm animal?

As a determinist, you do what it is in your nature to do. Just like the other animals? You say that accepting the value of survival after EVALUATION is a horse of a different colour, because of the choice we make. But you repeatedly say that as a determinist, you do what is in your nature. That 'choice' was not a choice was it, just you following your nature. You are failing to make clear how you are any different to any other meat automaton.

Now we have a greater understanding of the term parsimony, I believe you are being unparsimonious in labelling all other animals as meat automatons. It sounds, like Descartes, you see humans as special, apart from other species when in fact evolution shows us that we exist in a continuum.

Other creatures are capable of more than you allow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_cognition

I fear your comments exhibit discrimination based on species. I am unsure whether dogs contemplate suicide. But as would be expected given an understanding of evolution, the sharp divide between those with dominion and the others, is a prejudice held to exploit.

Life does have an innate value even with brain death, but enormously less so. But the value it has does give us pause to stop and think what the right thing to do is in the interests of patient.

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on July 2, 2012 at 3:51pm

So, let me see if I am understanding you. Babies, the senile and insane, all incapable of considering the value of their own lives, have no value other than that provided by others. If I'm following you, if there is no one to value a baby, etc, then their life has no value. Where a baby etc have no one to value them, they may be dispensed with, perhaps slaughtered like a farm animal?

It would depend upon whether the baby, the senile person, or the insane person is capable of conducting a process of evaluation to arrive at a decision. When it comes to people who can't do that (fetuses, comatose people, senile people, and insane people), they are cared for by other people who place a value on their lives. If we didn't value their lives, they would be killed or allowed to die. I should think that's very obvious!

As a determinist, you do what it is in your nature to do. Just like the other animals? You say that accepting the value of survival after EVALUATION is a horse of a different colour, because of the choice we make. But you repeatedly say that as a determinist, you do what is in your nature. That 'choice' was not a choice was it, just you following your nature. You are failing to make clear how you are any different to any other meat automaton.

You got it. As a determinist I hold that while we make choices, we choose what we choose because there was no other choice supported by the entire state of affairs that led to the choice. Savvy? That choice is due to who we are our physical person and in terms of our brain state) and the influences on us at the time we make the choice. I know you'd like to think we can make the choice truly freely but I have no idea what truly freely could possibly mean. Randomized perhaps? If that feels like freedom to you, more randomization to you. There is no middle ground, unless you believe that God gave you free will.

Now we have a greater understanding of the term parsimony, I believe you are being unparsimonious in labelling all other animals as meat automatons. It sounds, like Descartes, you see humans as special, apart from other species when in fact evolution shows us that we exist in a continuum.

Well, people are basically meat automatons, too. Isn't that what a determinist would believe?

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Permalink Reply by John Major on July 2, 2012 at 4:25pm

Ok. Neither the baby, senile person or insane person are capable of considering how they value their lives. The baby too young, the others lacking cognitive ability. You are doing your best to avoid the question, so I'll put it another way. A baby is born in an alleyway, unwanted. The mother cares not and leaves. The baby is incapable of assigning it's own value to it's own life. Does the baby's life have a value? Could a passer by, unconcerned about the baby, and certainly placing no value on its life, take the baby's life? It would seen that in your book, there would be nothing unethical about the killing given the life is valueless.

On the second issue, what you first described as a horse of a different colour, you now concede is a horse of an identical colour. You now accept that we all, humans and other animals, are meat automatons. The flimsy distinction you first made, about a choice (which you now accept is not really a choice) only humans make about the post evaluation of value derived from survival, is no different between humans and other animals. In short, all creatures, including humans, are meat automatons acting according to their nature. You put forward NO reason to think that humans are any different than animals in their ability to value their own lives, either acting according to their nature.

Your arguments blatantly contradict each other. Sober yet?

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on July 2, 2012 at 6:13pm

A baby is born in an alleyway, unwanted. The mother cares not and leaves. The baby is incapable of assigning it's own value to it's own life. Does the baby's life have a value?

If someone gives it value. You seem to be asking if value can somehow inhere in something without someone giving it a value. If gold existed, but no people, how valuable would it be? It wouldn't have a value. What makes a life any different?

You mean no one cares about the baby? What about legislators who have passed laws against murder?

Could a passer by, unconcerned about the baby, and certainly placing no value on its life, take the baby's life? It would seen that in your book, there would be nothing unethical about the killing given the life is valueless.

Why is it only the passerby's evaluation that counts here? Surely people care about abandoned babies in alleys.

Anyway, it might be nice if everyone's life had value, but I don't know how you could make that work without going beyond what a consistent atheist could believe.

On the second issue, what you first described as a horse of a different colour, you now concede is a horse of an identical colour. You now accept that we all, humans and other animals, are meat automatons. The flimsy distinction you first made, about a choice (which you now accept is not really a choice) only humans make about the post evaluation of value derived from survival, is no different between humans and other animals.

I never flip-flopped on MY meaning of choice. YOU forgot what I mean by choice.

In short, all creatures, including humans, are meat automatons acting according to their nature. You put forward NO reason to think that humans are any different than animals in their ability to value their own lives, either acting according to their nature.

An elephant may exhibit what looks on the surface (an impenetrable surface, BTW) a bit like human behavior, but you have no more evidence that evaluation is in the elephant's repertoire than that grief is!

You aren't saying that animals have free will, are you? After all, if you believe, as you profess, that people have free will making them responsible for their actions, and if animals have behaviors which look like human behaviors, then it would seem to follow that predatory animals need to be held responsible for their predation.

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Permalink Reply by John Major on July 3, 2012 at 2:54am

@Unseen. OK. We have slightly more clarity. Forget legislators. We are talking about your ethical outlook. The baby in the alleyway lacks inherent value in your world. That is clear now.

Your argument did flip flop when you had to concede that both we and the other animals are meat automotons, forced into this admission by your determinist position.

The struggle for life gives the creature innate value and i apply my ethics accordingly.

Again your views on the capacities of other animals are unparsimonious, should we not, in the knowledge of evolution,
expect similarity?

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Permalink Reply by Unseen on July 3, 2012 at 8:50am

@John Major

NOTHING has innate value. It has the value people give it, be it gold or babies. For value to be innate, you need a deity.

My argument never flip-flopped. I thought you understood my position well enough to know that humans aren't an exception to determinism. What do you think our free will discussions have been about?

So, you think animals have free will? I don't think anything does. But according to your similarity theory, we need to hold animals to account for the harm they do, don't we?

Permalink Reply by John Major on July 4, 2012 at 1:34pm

OK, we'll agree to disagree. Doesn't seem capable of proof. The evidence for me comes from evolution. The struggle to survive, to preserve life, marks its value. You came close to agreeing with me when you said that the struggle for survival is valuable. Why would it be vauable if that which it sought to preserve, the life, was not itself valubale?

Permalink Reply by David Conrad on July 2, 2012 at 4:50pm

I'm sorry if someone has already said this, but in my opinion (I should rather say "in my understanding") what makes us human is a certain amount of genetic similarity to one another and a certain amount of genetic difference from our pre-human ancestors and from our nearest primate relatives.

I don't think that the human question is in any way related to the abortion issue, which for me is about whether women should be required to give birth against their will (and the answer to that, of course, is no.)

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