Vegan views on abortion

[brimstoneSalad]

I disagree with you.

This promises to be interesting.

I don't think interests can exist independent of subjective experience, a world without sentient beings is a world without interests.

I mentioned before that I'm not a utilitarian. That's in part because I don't see pleasure or pain as the sole metrics of value.

If you only give interests value because the satisfaction of them produces pleasure, and the failure to satisfy them produces pain, then that would be true.

I value interests in and of themselves, regardless of that. For me it's the other way around -- pleasure and pain have certain values because the animal is interested in those experiences.

If you only value pleasure and pain, then it would be innately moral to take people against their wills, strap them down to tables and pump them full of euphoric drugs to live out the rest of their lives in a blissful stupor.

That conclusion also means it's also not a problem to kill any human or animal instantly and painlessly provided that action has no net negative effects on the living afterwards and provides someone (or many) at least as much net pleasure as one could anticipate that being experiencing for the rest of its life otherwise.

In that case, it doesn't matter how much you don't want to die, since you'll never even know you've been killed.

Interests without sentience are just concepts without a foundation.

Interests are only created by sentience, but once they are they are concepts. It's only true that they are without value foundation if you assume they are without value in themselves, and that they are dependent on perception of pleasure and pain to give them value, as I mentioned above.

When somebody dies, their interests quite literally vanish with them.

No they don't. We quite clearly have interests in what happens while we're dead, anesthetized, asleep, etc.
Both humans and non-human animals act under that premise in the case of self-sacrifice, which is extremely common behavior.

The relevance of the interests would only vanish if you only value them based on their capacity to generate pleasure or pain when the organism is aware of their realization.

It just feels wrong. I think this is only moral intuitions playing a role here.

I don't think it feels particularly wrong. I'm not an intuitionist. It's only consistent to value interests.

Without doing so, all you're left with is valuing maximal pleasure and minimal pain.

In that case, if you see life as innately containing more suffering than good, you might want to destroy all life on Earth as a moral course. Or if you see life as containing more pleasure, you might argue to the moral prerogative to maximize reproduction.

In this case they do matter, but I think so for another reason than you do. It's because of her subjective experience that can be retrieved, and in this future subjectivity this interest is getting weight again.

What? That's completely irrelevant to what you were talking about.

Future potential interests? No. That's the same bad argument Marquis made. You'd have to also take into account the future subjectivity of the fetus becoming conscious as a child and obtaining the interest to not have been killed. And it doesn't follow from any value basis; it's just an added arbitrary premise.

Well, imagined... Whether they are just imaginations or should become real is the thing we are discussing. With a consequentialistic outlook you're always interested in future outcomes.

Not of current interests in the future (even a fraction of a second) for which the being holding those interests won't be around if you base the value of interests upon realization and experience of pleasure or pain due to them.
That holds for negative interests too, like not being killed -- which would mean killing is never inherently wrong, only the pain or fear and awareness of death.

In either case, you're not really valuing interests at all; you're just valuing the pleasure or pain experiences. And that's a big problem.

[Volenta]

This promises to be interesting.

It's not the first time we disagree, you just always win the argument. But I'll keep trying. (I learn a lot because of it)

I mentioned before that I'm not a utilitarian. That's in part because I don't see pleasure or pain as the sole metrics of value.

If you only give interests value because the satisfaction of them produces pleasure, and the failure to satisfy them produces pain, then that would be true.

I value interests in and of themselves, regardless of that. For me it's the other way around -- pleasure and pain have certain values because the animal is interested in those experiences.

The reason a sentient being has interests is generally because the subject thinks it's beneficial to their own or others' well-being. It may be the case that someone has a certain interest that's going to lead to a decrease of their own (or that of others) well-being, should we still take that interest seriously? I don't think so. It will always come down to the well-being of sentient creatures.

Take for example an old woman with dementia that has in interest in walking to the other side of the street. It isn't safe for this woman to walk to the other side, because many cars are driving by. So it benefits the woman to stop her from trying to walk to the other side.

Of course you're going to argue that the woman actually had an interest in getting stopped even though she isn't aware of it, but in that case you're trying to define somebody's interests for them based on the improvement they'll bring on their well-being. Which of course is true, but in that case you could also just skip the interests layer and go straight to the well-being of the woman; the outcome is the same.

Before going further I want to point out that I don't dismiss interests as not useful, I just think they are ultimately always related to the improvement of well-being. It's still a meaningful concept in that sense.

If you only value pleasure and pain, then it would be innately moral to take people against their wills, strap them down to tables and pump them full of euphoric drugs to live out the rest of their lives in a blissful stupor.

Then we need to discuss what we really mean by well-being (just pleasure and pain might be too narrow for me). I don't think well-being means being artificially euphoric for the rest of your life while your body is getting destroyed at the same time. Well-being is more complex than just having lots of dopamine, oxytocin and other neurotransmitters circulating in your brain.

That conclusion also means it's also not a problem to kill any human or animal instantly and painlessly provided that action has no net negative effects on the living afterwards and provides someone (or many) at least as much net pleasure as one could anticipate that being experiencing for the rest of its life otherwise.

In that case, it doesn't matter how much you don't want to die, since you'll never even know you've been killed.

You don't have to have the interest constantly in your consciousness to obtain moral weight. The interest is real as long as there is an ability to have this interests consciously being violated or fulfilled. In all cases a mininum requirement is being sentient, and for certain issues extends to a personal identity or other capabilities (like the death question). A coherent personal identity can exist in a continuity of consciousness, and ends with death.

When being in a state of having no consciousness but still having a potential future consciousness, you're entering a gray area. You somehow still need to take in consideration the interests when the continuity of consciousness is getting interrupted, otherwise you could just hit someone unconscious before taking her life (unless hitting someone into unconsciousness is considered equal to killing, but I don't think it is). I think all I can argue for is the possibility of future sentience that gives the interest of continuing to live any value. If the state of being unconscious is irreversible, then the interest wouldn't have any meaning anymore. The moral status of that 'person' would essentially become that of death or insentient life with no (potential) future of sentience. (I'll go deeper into this later on)

Then the death question. When a sentient being has a concept of future, has an interest in having a future/continuing to live, and maybe even planned something in the future, those interests are being violated when getting killed. And thus future well-being is lost.

Interests are only created by sentience, but once they are they are concepts. It's only true that they are without value foundation if you assume they are without value in themselves, and that they are dependent on perception of pleasure and pain to give them value, as I mentioned above.

Yes, I think that's the only coherent view. Otherwise it indeed will lead you into still respecting the interests of long-dead civilizations.

Although I also have to say that respecting people's death wishes is generally a good thing to do, but that's out of respect for the relatives. Also living in a society where there is respect for the death is a more desirable place to live.

No they don't. We quite clearly have interests in what happens while we're dead

We have those interests not while we are dead, only before we are dead about what happens after our death.

And by saying 'quite clearly', you're making me even more skeptical.

anesthetized, asleep, etc.

These are different from death in that there is still a quite real possibility of future well-being. Not only that, but when anesthetized or asleep the continuity of consciousness isn't even interrupted. Being in a type of brain state where there is no consciousness anymore is a different matter though, which I'll deal with somewhere below. If we someday find a way of making the dead alive again, you could somewhat bundle the interrupted continuity of consciousness and death together.

Both humans and non-human animals act under that premise in the case of self-sacrifice, which is extremely common behavior.

I don't see why it's relevant that it's common behavior in this discussion. It could still be instrictive feeling about justice that doesn't fit with the real value of interests.

In that case, if you see life as innately containing more suffering than good, you might want to destroy all life on Earth as a moral course. Or if you see life as containing more pleasure, you might argue to the moral prerogative to maximize reproduction.

I think the question about the destruction of all life on earth (I suppose you mean all simultanously) hangs together with the ethics of killing someone without any relationships that could also be harmed. I already dealt with the death question, but I'll say a bit more. I think killing is wrong either way, also when the subject doesn't have any who cares about her. The subject values his or her own life, and has an interest in continuing to live. Continuing to live is a strong desire most sentient life has, even when their life mostly consists out of suffering (otherwise suicide numbers would be higher). This isn't always the case of course, and that's why I think euthanesia is ethical when there is unbearable suffering and no interest in continuing to live. It's true that the interest vanishes after being killed, but it has moral weight when the subject is still alive.

If life generally contains more suffering than pleasure, then maximizing reproduction surely doesn't make any sense, population growth itself making things even worse.

If life were generally more about pleasure than suffering, I still wouldn't consider abortion or not procreating as immoral, because you aren't doing any harm or violating any interests. A non-existing sentient creature can't be harmed, while a sentient potential mother can. You are just not committing yourself to create more consciousness that would inhered pleasure. That's not to say that procreating can't be something noble to do, under the condition that the child's impact on the world would increase well-being—it totally depends on the context in which consequences take place, which can be hard to really know. But here it's essentially becoming the antinatalism vs. natalism discussion.

It should also be noted that a fetus isn't in the same position as the person in coma. When the person in coma is waking up, the level of sentience that is inherited at that instant is enormous compared to a slow gradual increase in sentience that grows together with the growth of the fetus.

Also, we shouldn't forget that abortion is mostly done in situations where there isn't much trust in the future well-being of the potential child and that of their own. Women that want to get an abortion aren't pregnant for the fun of aborting it.

What? That's completely irrelevant to what you were talking about.

Why? My proposition was/is that interests have moral weight in presence of consciousness, then I feel to need to explain how I deal with the coma issue.

Future potential interests? No. That's the same bad argument Marquis made. You'd have to also take into account the future subjectivity of the fetus becoming conscious as a child and obtaining the interest to not have been killed. And it doesn't follow from any value basis; it's just an added arbitrary premise.

Well, I kind of misspoke there. I'm not really interested in future potential interests, but potential future well-being and I'll explain why.

If the consequences of one's action is going to lead to something beneficial for the well-being of sentient creatures, you are doing something morally good. The consequences are always going to be in the future, hence it's called 'consequences'.

As for potentiality we should make a distriction between two types of potentiality. The first being something concrete that might or might not happen, and the second being something that might happen that we not yet know of what it is. We should always try to get rid of the second type of potentiality where we can when making an ethical statement and try to get something concrete to argue for, but in practice there are of course lots of situations where it's hard to really pinpoint actual future well-being enhancers.

The case of the woman in coma is a though dilemma. If the woman was getting in a persistent vegetative state, it would be a much easier situation. In that case the woman would in some sense become a plant: no sentience but in need of nutrition to stay alive. She'll never get her sentience back, and that's why the lives of people that have been in this situation (in real life) in the past were ended with permission of involved people (although in my hypothetical example there even aren't any relatives). So going back to the example of a temporarily coma, it could only be the future sentience and resuming personal identity of the women that's of any importance and is making the difference with a persistent vegetative state situation.

I can understand why you give moral weight to interests independent of subjectivity once they have been created in the presence of subjectivity, but for me it looks more like a clever work-around to deal with the abortion question.

The main difference between our positions seems to be that you value interests created in the past no matter the consequences, where I only care about the well-being the future can and has to bring. The past is gone and can't be changed, and that's why I'm only interested in consequences (which are by definition in the future), because that's the only thing that still has an effect on the world.

In either case, you're not really valuing interests at all; you're just valuing the pleasure or pain experiences. And that's a big problem.

That's right, all I really care about is the well-being of sentient creatures, and that can be achieved through not violating or fulfilling interests with moral weight. I don't see why that is a problem.

[brimstoneSalad]

The reason a sentient being has interests is generally because the subject thinks it's beneficial to their own or others' well-being.

Not really, interests define what well-being means. If you're defining interests relative to well beings, you're tasked with figuring out what well-being means objectively, which really isn't your job, but the job of the being itself to decide.

It may be the case that someone has a certain interest that's going to lead to a decrease of their own (or that of others) well-being, should we still take that interest seriously? I don't think so. It will always come down to the well-being of sentient creatures.

Well-being is undefined if you don't consider it the state of being able to satisfy one's interests.

And yes, we should take all interests seriously, but consider the ideal cases of those interests that are corrected for misinformation. Ideal interests. Yes, even if that interest is self destructive or damaging to others (which is why you have to weigh interests against each other when there is conflict).

Take for example an old woman with dementia that has in interest in walking to the other side of the street. It isn't safe for this woman to walk to the other side, because many cars are driving by. So it benefits the woman to stop her from trying to walk to the other side.

She doesn't have an interest in crossing the street, she has an interest in visiting her grandchildren, but they're off in college and she won't find them across the street. Yes, help her, she is mistaken.

Of course you're going to argue that the woman actually had an interest in getting stopped even though she isn't aware of it, but in that case you're trying to define somebody's interests for them based on the improvement they'll bring on their well-being.

No, you're correcting wrong information, which is exactly what you would want.

Well-being is meaningless.

Which of course is true, but in that case you could also just skip the interests layer and go straight to the well-being of the woman; the outcome is the same.

It isn't the same, because well-being is meaningless without being defined as realization of interests. You'd end up with circular reasoning.

Then we need to discuss what we really mean by well-being (just pleasure and pain might be too narrow for me). I don't think well-being means being artificially euphoric for the rest of your life while your body is getting destroyed at the same time. Well-being is more complex than just having lots of dopamine, oxytocin and other neurotransmitters circulating in your brain.

Well, let me know when you figure out what you think it means.

I'll tell you now, it's only coherent when we explain it in terms of the interests that being has.

You don't have to have the interest constantly in your consciousness to obtain moral weight. The interest is real as long as there is an ability to have this interests consciously being violated or fulfilled.

One can not be conscious of something that happens instantly and without expectation.

When being in a state of having no consciousness but still having a potential future consciousness, you're entering a gray area.

It's not a gray area is you treat it consistently; e.g. by giving interests value.

I think all I can argue for is the possibility of future sentience that gives the interest of continuing to live any value.

That interest doesn't exist in that moment, remember? You're giving the interest intrinsic value, and you should, if you're referencing a past interest which can not exist in the now.

Of course possibility of future sentience is relevant IF you give the past interest intrinsic value. If it's impossible to realize an interest, it can not be violated. But the fact is that this assumes (correctly, as I said originally) that the interest has value in itself.

Then the death question. When a sentient being has a concept of future, has an interest in having a future/continuing to live, and maybe even planned something in the future, those interests are being violated when getting killed. And thus future well-being is lost.

Which is it, the loss of potential future well-being 'goods' (as Marquis argued), or is it that past, non-present, interests (which still have intrinsic value) are being violated (as I did)?

This is why this is a gray area for you - you're kind of half way between two concepts.

It's only true that they are without value foundation if you assume they are without value in themselves, and that they are dependent on perception of pleasure and pain to give them value, as I mentioned above.

Yes, I think that's the only coherent view. Otherwise it indeed will lead you into still respecting the interests of long-dead civilizations.

For reasons I explained, it's in incoherent view. It leads you to being OK with killing people instantly, provided they don't know it's coming. It's the rationale most people use for eating meat, because they don't care about interests in themselves (and on top of that lie to themselves about the quality of life of the animal, which isn't hard to do if you've disregarded the value of interests already).

Respecting the dead, is that such a terrible thing?

Let's compare some of the metrics we've discussed.

Value only sense experience:
Drugged up Euphoria: Good
Suffering: Bad
Instant Kill: Neutral
Respecting the wills of the dead: Indifferent
Early term abortion: Neutral

Value interests in and of themselves
Drugged up Euphoria: Usually bad (unless somebody genuinely wants it as an informed choice)
Suffering: Bad
Instant Kill: Bad (unless somebody, as an informed choice, didn't want to live)
Respecting the wills of the dead: Good
Early term abortion: Neutral

Value potential goods (well being)
Drugged up Euphoria: Good
Suffering: Bad
Instant Kill: Bad
Respecting the wills of the dead: Indifferent
Abortion (of any kind): Bad

Although I also have to say that respecting people's death wishes is generally a good thing to do, but that's out of respect for the relatives. Also living in a society where there is respect for the death is a more desirable place to live.

When you die, would you like people to respect your wishes?
That's the only thing that needs to be asked.

It doesn't matter if you were a vagabond with no friends or family, a million miles away from any civilization. It's right to respect people's wishes when we can easily do so. Obviously we have to weigh any interest against others, and the dead won't always win. But because we want our wishes respected, we should respect others.

We have those interests not while we are dead, only before we are dead about what happens after our death.

Correct, we quite clearly have those interests. Just as somebody going under general anesthetic has an interest in waking up BEFORE he or she falls unconscious, and not during.

Death is one of many forms of unconsciousness.
Unless you assert that interests ONLY have value because of the sense experience they create, then it shouldn't matter. And if you we assert that, either you value potential experience (in which case you have a problem with abortion), or you only value current experience (in which case killing somebody instantly who doesn't know it's coming and doesn't have family is fine).

Not only that, but when anesthetized or asleep the continuity of consciousness isn't even interrupted.

That's silly. Continuity of consciousness is like free will. You'll have better luck nailing jello to a wall.

I think killing is wrong either way, also when the subject doesn't have any who cares about her. The subject values his or her own life, and has an interest in continuing to live.

Not when dead.

It's true that the interest vanishes after being killed, but it has moral weight when the subject is still alive.

Instant kill. The subject is never aware of its interests being violated. It doesn't know it's being killed. Sense experience of this violation never exists.

A non-existing sentient creature can't be harmed, while a sentient potential mother can. You are just not committing yourself to create more consciousness that would inhered pleasure.

If you're valuing potential goods, then it is being denied this. It's harm to the potential future.

It should also be noted that a fetus isn't in the same position as the person in coma. When the person in coma is waking up, the level of sentience that is inherited at that instant is enormous compared to a slow gradual increase in sentience that grows together with the growth of the fetus.

What? Irrelevant.

Well, I kind of misspoke there. I'm not really interested in future potential interests, but potential future well-being and I'll explain why.

All you're done is taken the same thing, and defined it less rigorously so it makes less sense...

So going back to the example of a temporarily coma, it could only be the future sentience and resuming personal identity of the women that's of any importance and is making the difference with a persistent vegetative state situation.

Same with a fetus.

I can understand why you give moral weight to interests independent of subjectivity once they have been created in the presence of subjectivity, but for me it looks more like a clever work-around to deal with the abortion question.

That's not what it's for.

This is why: Occam's razor

The main difference between our positions seems to be that you value interests created in the past no matter the consequences,

Not at all, all interests have to be weighed against each other. Dead are not more important than the living, and wasting undue resources on them is usually not conducive to helping the sum total of interests. Dead have no business being particularly demanding.

That's right, all I really care about is the well-being of sentient creatures, and that can be achieved through not violating or fulfilling interests with moral weight. I don't see why that is a problem.

Instant kill. Drugged up euphoria. Or well-being inherently undefined or circular.

[Volenta]

A lot of your criticism is totally valid and I actually agree with you on many points. I do think you did ignore some important points I made, but I'm not really interested in those anymore at the moment, mostly because I'm now pretty busy with thinking out my position. And that's why I'm not really interested in defending my position anymore, until I've really though it out.

But I won't leave it there, because I do have some issues with your position as well that I really want to address, because I don't consider it to be valid and waterproof.

Not really, interests define what well-being means. If you're defining interests relative to well beings, you're tasked with figuring out what well-being means objectively, which really isn't your job, but the job of the being itself to decide.

[...]

Well-being is undefined if you don't consider it the state of being able to satisfy one's interests.

And yes, we should take all interests seriously, but consider the ideal cases of those interests that are corrected for misinformation. Ideal interests. Yes, even if that interest is self destructive or damaging to others (which is why you have to weigh interests against each other when there is conflict).

How are you dealing with interests that are based on false information or are in conflict with the well-being (either pleasure and pain or otherwise) of others? Is there nothing to say to a farther in Somalia about how wrong he is in having the interest of his daughter getting circumcised? Isn't it our task to persuade this man that he's wrong in valuing such immoral thing? (Sam Harris' third project: the persuasion project)

You're talking about ideal interests, but how do you know which interests are ideal without appealing to some sort of underlying well-being again? Do you really think a sadist is less likely to value pain being inflicted on others when you inform him about the experience of pain, empathy, his disorder, etc?

Suppose you lived in a world where everyone was persuaded that homosexuality is extremely immoral and that homosexuals are horrifying people and should be stoned to death. Homosexuals themselves are in a serious minority. The interests of homosexuals could be balanced out by the great majority, does that make stoning homosexuals moral?

Well-being is meaningless.

I think I find this statement as troubling as you find my statement about only caring about well-being troubling.

Well, let me know when you figure out what you think it means.

I will. I currently really don't know what it is—it is a much more complex subject then I think you are willing to admit. Just look at the history of people trying to answer exactly this question.

Respecting the dead, is that such a terrible thing?

[...]

Not at all, all interests have to be weighed against each other. Dead are not more important than the living, and wasting undue resources on them is usually not conducive to helping the sum total of interests. Dead have no business being particularly demanding.

Respecting the dead isn't terrible for the reasons I've explained, but I just can't understand why their interests should have any intrinsic moral weight. I understand you do it because of consistency, but do you really think your position is right when it leads you to something like this? But I really want to get some more information about your claim because you are saying that the dead shouldn't be demanding: could you emphasize some more on how much moral weight you actually prescribe to the dead compared to that of the living (and while you're at it: those that are asleep or in coma)? And how did you determine that?

Value only sense experience:
Drugged up Euphoria: Good
Suffering: Bad
Instant Kill: Neutral
Respecting the wills of the dead: Indifferent
Early term abortion: Neutral

I don't agree with 'Drugged up Euphoria' being necessarily good, it depends on the definition of well-being. I think well-being also touches on the ability of tracking what's really going on in reality. But I don't want to go too deep into this because I haven't thought it trough yet, but I do see alternatives here.
I think I do grant you the instant kill though. (and the rest seems to be correct too)

Value interests in and of themselves
Drugged up Euphoria: Usually bad (unless somebody genuinely wants it as an informed choice)
Suffering: Bad
Instant Kill: Bad (unless somebody, as an informed choice, didn't want to live)
Respecting the wills of the dead: Good
Early term abortion: Neutral

I don't agree with suffering being necessarily bad. What about people who like hurting themselves? Or again, the interest of the great majority of seeing a minority suffer outweighing that of the small minority's interest? Or are you defining suffering as the inability to realize/fulfill interests?

Value potential goods (well being)
Drugged up Euphoria: Good
Suffering: Bad
Instant Kill: Bad
Respecting the wills of the dead: Indifferent
Abortion (of any kind): Bad

The same thing here about 'Drugged up Euphoria'. Also abortion being bad isn't necessarily the case as I actually already argued: you have to demonstrate that the potential well-being of the child is actually going to turn out to be good. And I do recognize that this is also the case with coma patients, which could be a real problem.

***

I also want to give you a challenge on something you earlier said about the abortion issue.

When I asked you about what it is that gave the comatose women any value other than potentiality, you argued that the interest still exists without her conscious awareness of it. Once the interest has been consciously created, it lives no matter the state of the brain. I hope I'm not misrepresenting you thus far, you can correct me if I'm wrong about your position.

So the challenge I want to give you is this. Suppose you could replicate the women. We all consist out of matter, so maybe it's one day possible to make copies of ourself. The clone of the women is exactly identical to the original women, the only difference being the history that original women has gone through. They both share the same memory and brain structures, and arguably would have the same interests when they would wake up. The clone did not have any interests in the past, so wouldn't her moral status equal that of a fetus according to your theory, and not that of the original women?

[brimstoneSalad]

How are you dealing with interests that are based on false information or are in conflict with the well-being (either pleasure and pain or otherwise) of others?

Interests conflict with others all of the time.

You could weigh them against each other in the typical way, directly, or you can follow a consequentialism that maximizes good, rather than maximizing satisfaction of interests directly- which is to say, one that weighs selfish interests less, and reduces consideration of an interest that is doing harm in the world.

In regards to false information; there is a notion of idealized interests, which take into account false information. However, this only goes so far; sometimes people will have irrational and destructive interests despite having correct information.

You're talking about ideal interests, but how do you know which interests are ideal without appealing to some sort of underlying well-being again? Do you really think a sadist is less likely to value pain being inflicted on others when you inform him about the experience of pain, empathy, his disorder, etc?

You appeal only to the interest, corrected for simple cases of false information. And no, the sadist probably would not change his or her mind on the matter. Some people are just kind of evil.

If you weigh the interest of the sadist to cause harm and the interest of a victim to not be harmed, the victim's interests are usually going to be stronger.
You can also evaluate consequentialism in terms of maximizing good, which is even more useful to this end. It's a slightly more indirect way of valuing interests that considers relative context, but more valid and comprehensive.

Suppose you lived in a world where everyone was persuaded that homosexuality is extremely immoral and that homosexuals are horrifying people and should be stoned to death. Homosexuals themselves are in a serious minority. The interests of homosexuals could be balanced out by the great majority, does that make stoning homosexuals moral?

Corrected for misinformation, if the majority still felt that way, that would be permissible in a strict utilitarianism. This is like the utility monster, just crowd sourcing its terrible will.

I follow a second order derivation, of maximizing good, however. Letting people do that selfish evil isn't a maximization of good.

That may be another topic, though.

Is there nothing to say to a farther in Somalia about how wrong he is in having the interest of his daughter getting circumcised? Isn't it our task to persuade this man that he's wrong in valuing such immoral thing? (Sam Harris' third project: the persuasion project)

These are cases where people need correct information, usually.

Well-being is meaningless.

I think I find this statement as troubling as you find my statement about only caring about well-being troubling.

Why? I mean it literally has no meaning without appealing to interests. If you have a coherent definition, then you should define "well-being". As it stands, it's highly subjective and could mean almost anything depending on whatever arbitrary existential ideal you impose on the subject.

Respecting the dead isn't terrible for the reasons I've explained, but I just can't understand why their interests should have any intrinsic moral weight.

Why should they not? Unless your sole metric of value is based on sense experience (pleasure and pain), then it's irrelevant whether somebody is dead, in a coma, asleep, or has something done to them without being aware of it.

I understand you do it because of consistency, but do you really think your position is right when it leads you to something like this?

Yes. You follow valid reasoning to where it leads you, not the other way around. If you've already decided what the conclusions are, why bother with logic and reason?

could you emphasize some more on how much moral weight you actually prescribe to the dead compared to that of the living (and while you're at it: those that are asleep or in coma)? And how did you determine that?

An artist dies to protect his masterpiece, his life's work. Destroying this life's work is more immoral than killing the artist.

HE decided that. Not me, not you, not anybody else. It's his life, his choice, his values.

It's just a painting, so why care? He cared. Enough to give his life. It was more valuable to him than his own life. It's wrong to destroy it.

Weighing interests against each other occurs like any other. When somebody has absurd or unreasonable interests, they were clearly never at risk of being seriously satisfied, so there's little or no opportunity cost.

But I don't want to go too deep into this because I haven't thought it trough yet, but I do see alternatives here.

OK, but please do me a favor: hold off on claiming things like this until you're ready to support them.

Or are you defining suffering as the inability to realize/fulfill interests?

Mostly. Somebody who likes pain isn't suffering that pain.

If greater interests outweigh suffering, that suffering is still bad, it has just been overruled by a greater good.
The idea that one thing can outweigh another is pretty basic to all consequentialism.

Also abortion being bad isn't necessarily the case as I actually already argued: you have to demonstrate that the potential well-being of the child is actually going to turn out to be good. And I do recognize that this is also the case with coma patients, which could be a real problem.

Well, if you make the assumption that life is going to be bad, you're obligated to kill people in general. Coma patients are the least of your worries.

So the challenge I want to give you is this. Suppose you could replicate the women. We all consist out of matter, so maybe it's one day possible to make copies of ourself. The clone of the women is exactly identical to the original women, the only difference being the history that original women has gone through. They both share the same memory and brain structures, and arguably would have the same interests when they would wake up. The clone did not have any interests in the past, so wouldn't her moral status equal that of a fetus according to your theory, and not that of the original women?

You'd have to ask her. It's her information that has been copied. Does she (or would she, given the information) care if her clone is destroyed? If not, fine. If so, then it inherits identity and moral value.

Make sense?

The thing is, you don't just pull the value of something out of thin air and arbitrarily apply it to all cases; it actually depends on something empirically true (at some point), that it was valued, or would have been considering idealized interests.

[Volenta]

Some people are just kind of evil.

How do you determine what evil is? Is it when the interest of subject 1 is in conflict with an interest of subject 2, and the interest of subject 1 having less moral significance then that of the interest of subject 2? And is that only the case when subject 2 isn't valuing that interest based on incorrect information? (can you still follow it?) Or what is it?

Corrected for misinformation, if the majority still felt that way, that would be permissible in a strict utilitarianism. This is like the utility monster, just crowd sourcing its terrible will.

I follow a second order derivation, of maximizing good, however. Letting people do that selfish evil isn't a maximization of good.

It sounds like a great fix, but it really isn't fixing it. What if we add a third party to the scene? Let's take the government in the example I gave. The government doesn't have the same interests that the majority has (so it wouldn't make it selfish), but might think it's the right choice to give more weight to the heaviest end of the balance of the conflicting interests. So the government makes stoning homosexuals a legal act, and is even willing to do it for the majority group to satisfy their interests. What is there to say against them?

Yes. You follow valid reasoning to where it leads you, not the other way around. If you've already decided what the conclusions are, why bother with logic and reason?

Well absolutely. But you might want to make really sure whether your premises are actually true when the outcome is leading you to somewhere that seems to be incorrect.

That's also why you pointed out to me that my argument was leading to instant kills being fine. I could also have said: well, yeah, but that's just where reason lead me, maybe instant kill is totally fine. But I don't think it is, so that's why I'm now reconsidering my premises and rethinking my position.

You'd have to ask her. It's her information that has been copied. Does she (or would she, given the information) care if her clone is destroyed? If not, fine. If so, then it inherits identity and moral value.

Make sense?

The thing is, you don't just pull the value of something out of thin air and arbitrarily apply it to all cases; it actually depends on something empirically true (at some point), that it was valued, or would have been considering idealized interests.

So it's pretty similar to the moral status of a fetus if I understand you correctly (where moral value depends on that of the parents). But then I'm really confused about what it is that you're allocating interests to.

It is the material construction of the original women that is important? Every atom in our body is someday going to be replaced by another one, they can't have any meaning in themselves. If I were to destroy the body of the original women, and the clone is waking up someday. It has exactly the same memory and is composed out of the same kind of atoms. There is no fundamental material difference, and the clone would think that she actually is the original women. So the history that the material construction has been through can't be it, right?

You also seem to dismiss the continuity of consciousness earlier in this discussion. You also can't appeal to some kind of nonsense like a soul. So what is it that makes the original women have moral value and the clone having that which the original women wants it to be? I think you can only argue for something metaphysical at this point...

[brimstoneSalad]

How do you determine what evil is? Is it when the interest of subject 1 is in conflict with an interest of subject 2, and the interest of subject 1 having less moral significance then that of the interest of subject 2? And is that only the case when subject 2 isn't valuing that interest based on incorrect information? (can you still follow it?) Or what is it?

All other things being the same,
Good is in helping others realize their interests, not yourself.
Evil is in sabotaging those interests of others.

When your own interests are meaningfully at stake, then we get into the realm of amorality, and issues of justification.

Most people don't set out to make others suffer as a matter of course, but rather it is the results of ignorance, and inconsideration, and bad information or irrational behavior, but some times people do just want others to suffer -- which is a rare form of more existential evil.

It sounds like a great fix, but it really isn't fixing it. What if we add a third party to the scene? Let's take the government in the example I gave.

I wasn't aware you were considering the government a sentient being with interests of its own. I thought it was a collection of individuals who have individual interests.

If you do consider it a collective consciousness, like an ant colony, then you must realize that its level of sentience is somewhere around that order of magnitude as well, and it is not a being of substantial moral value as is an individual.

It is the material construction of the original women that is important?

You mean woman.

No, it's that she had interests.

Selfhood is not a concrete concept. She is what she thinks she is. If she identified equally with the clone, then the clone would be as much her as the original body. If she considered the clone to be something other, then it would be.

[Volenta]

I wasn't aware you were considering the government a sentient being with interests of its own. I thought it was a collection of individuals who have individual interests.

If you do consider it a collective consciousness, like an ant colony, then you must realize that its level of sentience is somewhere around that order of magnitude as well, and it is not a being of substantial moral value as is an individual.

You're just avoiding the question. You know very well that I meant a collection of individuals when I said government. The level of sentience is irrelevant either way, the point is that it's easy to add a third party to the scene and your position are just as fragile as utilitarianism.

You mean woman.

Oh, stupid mistake, thanks. I used to get it right...

No, it's that she had interests.

Selfhood is not a concrete concept. She is what she thinks she is.

There is no she present at the moment of being in a coma. That's why you argued the interests live on after consciousness, but it seems you aren't able to answer my question about what it is that matters.

If she identified equally with the clone, then the clone would be as much her as the original body. If she considered the clone to be something other, then it would be.

They are two completely autonomous individuals, how can the moral status depend fully on what the original woman wants it to be? You'll have better luck nailing jello to a wall.

[brimstoneSalad]

You're just avoiding the question.

No, a collection of individual interests is self interested. It's no different from dealing with an individual.

When a third party is acting against one party in favor of another (and not itself), then the right or wrong they are doing is relative to the interests being satisfied vs. violated, and the opportunity costs involved.

When you look at the second order of consequences -- e.g. enabling evil or good in the world by acting as a proxy -- it becomes very difficult to justify harming one for the selfish gains of another.

There is no she present at the moment of being in a coma.

There wasn't a "she" before she was in a coma either. There is no me, there is no you.

The fact of what we are is determined by what we think we are at any given moment; it's a delicate illusion.

When she possessed self interest, she had a particularly concept of "self" in mind (explicitly or implicitly) that made those interests relevant to something. You'd have to look back to that concept.

it seems you aren't able to answer my question about what it is that matters.

I did answer it. Now twice.

Self doesn't exist except in concept. When something has interests, it formulates a notion of what those interests are in regards to, and when they're self interests, it formulates a concept of self -- it's that concept, and only that concept, that is relevant.

What did she think, or what would she have thought, about a clone? That's what matters.

They are two completely autonomous individuals, how can the moral status depend fully on what the original woman wants it to be? You'll have better luck nailing jello to a wall.

Because how she loosely defined "self", which IS a bit like nailing jello to a wall, is the only thing that gave her self interest context.

[Jebus]

Brimstonesalad. In your consequentialist mind, how can abortion possibly be better than giving birth to the baby and then giving him/her away for adoption?

Unless of course you are considering the probability that the baby will become a life long non-vegan?