It was trying to argue for 2. I think that if we give up any side constraints, which is what my piece argued for, we get something very near utilitarianism--at the very least consequentialism. Infinitarian ethics is everyone's problem.
Thanks for the reply! I was focusing on the most common animals that Americans eat, though I should perhaps have noted that. I disagree that the focus was very much on physical suffering--I talk about sleep deprivation and the sadness of being separated from parents, to give a few examples.
Thanks for the comment. What I said was "Anyone who is not a moral imbecile recognizes that it’s wrong to contribute to senseless cruelty for the sake of comparatively minor benefits." The point is that it's obvious that one shouldn't cause lots of torture for the sake of minor benefits. If, as I claim, that is what happens when one eats meat, then this is a good case against eating meat.
I think I just disagree about what reasoning is. I think that reasoning does not just make our existing beliefs more coherent, but allows us to grasp new deep truths. For example, I think that an anti-realist who didn't originally have the FTI irrational intuition could grasp it by reflection, and that one can, over time, discover that some things are just not worth pursuing and others are.
2 I agree that it would depend on how the being is constructed. My claim is that it's plausible that they'd be moral by default just by virtue of being smart.
3 I think there is a sense in which I have--and most modern people have--unlike most people historically, grasped the badness of slavery.
I think our disagreement is that I think that superintelligences would be rational and avoid FTI for the same reason they'd be epistemically rational and good at reasoning in general.
I agree one could have that value in theory. My claim is that if one were very rational, they would not. Note that, contrary to your indication, they do have experience on Tuesday, and their suffering feels just as bad on a Tuesday as on another day. They just have a higher order indifference to future suffering. I claim that what is objectively worth pursuing is indifferent to the day of the week.
It was trying to argue for 2. I think that if we give up any side constraints, which is what my piece argued for, we get something very near utilitarianism--at the very least consequentialism. Infinitarian ethics is everyone's problem.
If we reject any side constraints--which my argument supports--then we get something very near utilitarianism.
Thank you!
Thanks for the reply! I was focusing on the most common animals that Americans eat, though I should perhaps have noted that. I disagree that the focus was very much on physical suffering--I talk about sleep deprivation and the sadness of being separated from parents, to give a few examples.
Thanks for the comment. What I said was "Anyone who is not a moral imbecile recognizes that it’s wrong to contribute to senseless cruelty for the sake of comparatively minor benefits." The point is that it's obvious that one shouldn't cause lots of torture for the sake of minor benefits. If, as I claim, that is what happens when one eats meat, then this is a good case against eating meat.
I think I just disagree about what reasoning is. I think that reasoning does not just make our existing beliefs more coherent, but allows us to grasp new deep truths. For example, I think that an anti-realist who didn't originally have the FTI irrational intuition could grasp it by reflection, and that one can, over time, discover that some things are just not worth pursuing and others are.
I think 1 is right.
2 I agree that it would depend on how the being is constructed. My claim is that it's plausible that they'd be moral by default just by virtue of being smart.
3 I think there is a sense in which I have--and most modern people have--unlike most people historically, grasped the badness of slavery.
I think our disagreement is that I think that superintelligences would be rational and avoid FTI for the same reason they'd be epistemically rational and good at reasoning in general.
I agree one could have that value in theory. My claim is that if one were very rational, they would not. Note that, contrary to your indication, they do have experience on Tuesday, and their suffering feels just as bad on a Tuesday as on another day. They just have a higher order indifference to future suffering. I claim that what is objectively worth pursuing is indifferent to the day of the week.
I agree with everything you've said after the sentence "This is not what Parfit is arguing." But how does that conflict with the things I said?