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The Ethics of Consciousness Hunting

nautil.us

11–12 of 12 posts

Re: The Ethics of Consciousness Hunting

#11
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That jumped out at me too.

Can you imagine listening to your doctor and loved ones discussing taking you off life support and you're just not able to move? Then a lot of times, they just starve the patient to death, thinking they're basically not feeling anything, so then you starve to death while your family sits by your side. That's hell. We need to do a lot more research on conciousness and what makes a person or "animal" have that spark.

[deleted]

Re: The Ethics of Consciousness Hunting

#12

How much consciousness is enough to justify living? They make the point that this can prevent unnecessary care but ignore this. It's unlikely to be a simple yes or no.

This won't answer the question directly, but these sorts of discussions always bring to my mind the famous quote from Jeremy Bentham: "The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"
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