You keep acting as if the fact a rule generally benefits humans is not a good enough reason to view it as a moral rule. But why? If a rule is universally good when applied to humans, and breaks down only when applied to any nonhumans, why is that a bad rule from a human POV?
But again, we’re not talking about my dividing line. We’re talking about why biological humanity is not a good dividing line. You have basically dodged that point.
Why is that a bad place to draw the line? Why should I draw it somewhere else? What good does it do us to draw it somewhere else?
No LLM can reason. At best it can produce a simulacrum of reasoning.
And babies will be capable of reasoning. More importantly, it is in my interest to consider them de jure moral agents. Because I was once a baby and looking back I know that’s how I would have wanted to be treated.
I think that’s selling people with intellectual impairments short. Plenty of developmentally disabled people aren’t capable of complex math but are capable of distinguishing right from wrong.
That they can communicate and reciprocate.
That’s exactly my point. My dividing line *is* “employs sophisticated moral reasoning.”
See, but my objection to your position is the same. People with profound intellectual disabilities lack the requisite cognitive abilities to qualify but may retain their moral agency.
But I disagree that mutualism depends on cognition, and that genetics are a bad distinguishing principle. Cognition does not imply the ability to do moral reasoning (e.g. we see tool use in the animal kingdom without morality).
But by the same token the fact that something is a human construct doesn’t imply it should apply to others. We’re not talking about scientific ideas in a vacuum, we’re talking about relational ideas. And the fact that one half of that relationship cannot even recognize the relationship is important
As I said elsewhere, the genetic argument isn’t mine. I just don’t think it’s bad.
My argument isn’t. But I don’t think species chauvinism is a bad argument. Hence my second comment.
Though to be clear, if your position was “who cares they’re still not human” I’m not particularly inclined to argue with them.
Then they would be capable of communication, and thus moral reciprocation, and would be persons.
Again, I return you to the notion that morality only exists because we say it does. It makes sense to conclude it applies to us, all of us, without subdivision. Concluding it applies to others doesn’t.
Or we could just read them all to mean what they most obviously mean. Why are we bothering with watching our souls rather than just accepting the obvious?
What?
Morality is a fundamentally human construct. Why should it apply to nonhumans?
The argument is that I’m human and I don’t particularly care about any other species, and haven’t yet heard an argument for why. You insist that stunting weak, but why?
See below. You are asserting that moral language cannot refer only to the speaker. But IMO I don’t think it can refer to anyone who is not likewise capable of understanding it. Nonhuman animals can’t understand morality and owe me no duties. Why should I owe them any?
Like, it seems clear to me that *moral agency* matters here. I owe other human beings moral duties because they owe reciprocal moral duties to me. No human animals don’t share that, and can’t.
Chimps are persons*
And I would find it equally absurd to conclude chimps are human because they are related to our genetic ancestors.
I really don’t see why species chauvinism is a morally indefensible position. You keep insisting it is, but not really justifying that position.
But isn’t that precisely what a cognition argument is doing? You’re just picking an arbitrary metric that fits your priors same as any other. Why should cognition matter?
Because you’re human. I don’t see why practicality isn’t a good argument. I also don’t think the arguments I proposed are strictly practical; I was simply posing them and then asserting they were superior because they were practical and otherwise equal.
It’s not like doing so undermines our reproductive rights arguments. “Biological humans are the only persons once they’re born” OR “biological humans are the only persons, including fetuses, but the pregnant person’s rights outweigh” are both perfectly cromulent positions.
See, I think the cognitive argument is weak. We can’t measure cognition, and even if we could smarter animals like pigs might actually qualify. It seems much more straightforward to tie it to biological humanity, and it also doesn’t cost us anything to do so.
By this logic the only ethical position towards nonhuman animals would require a radical reorganization of society well past even what most vegans would support. I think it’s pretty clear that personhood only applies to biological humans.
The amendment process is, unfortunately, another one of the flaws in the constitution, yes.
I don’t disagree that Congress could sack up. But we’ve got 80+ years of evidence showing they won’t. At some point you can’t keep castigating them for lacking willpower, you’ve got to change the system so it doesn’t require so much willpower.
