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Confessions of a bitter cripple (2015)

politicalphilosopher.net

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Re: Confessions of a bitter cripple (2015)

#21

Post by jl6 »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #5

I can understand where the author is coming from, but this is the cruel reality of the world. > "I have sat in philosophy seminars where it was asserted that I should be left to die on a desert island if the choice was between saving me and saving an arbitrary non-disabled person" I would compare this to situations where you are choosing a person with high IQ vs low IQ, or to choosing someone very attractive vs very…

I don’t find these hypothetical choice situations very illuminating, because (a) they tend to involve spherical cows rather than real humans, and (b) it’s possible to come up with arbitrarily morally tricky scenarios.

Better to spend energy on the actual decisions people face.

Re: Confessions of a bitter cripple (2015)

#23

Post by AQXt »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #5

I can understand where the author is coming from, but this is the cruel reality of the world. > "I have sat in philosophy seminars where it was asserted that I should be left to die on a desert island if the choice was between saving me and saving an arbitrary non-disabled person" I would compare this to situations where you are choosing a person with high IQ vs low IQ, or to choosing someone very attractive vs very…

> I can understand where the author is coming from, but this is the cruel reality of the world.

This article was written in 2015, when this kind of dilemma (who would you save) was purely theoretical.

Fast-forward to 2020/2021, and it became real: we had to decide how to allocate scarce, life-saving resources -- COVID-19 vaccines -- and we decided to distribute them to the elder and most vulnerable first.

I hope this decision -- replicated in most countries around the world -- will put an end to this attempt to calculate the value of human lives.

Re: Confessions of a bitter cripple (2015)

#24

Post by rhn_mk1 »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #13
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #5

I can understand where the author is coming from, but this is the cruel reality of the world. > "I have sat in philosophy seminars where it was asserted that I should be left to die on a desert island if the choice was between saving me and saving an arbitrary non-disabled person" I would compare this to situations where you are choosing a person with high IQ vs low IQ, or to choosing someone very attractive vs very…

Is a person on the spectrum or with aspergers or with asthma more worthy of immediate death alone on an island compared to a "typical" person? You might have unexamined biases and assumptions about the nature of reality. You might also be a little falling into the is/ought fallacy. The decision you find easy, rational and ethical, is only so if you have one of a few particular views of human value and you hold it str…

If you define having a particular value system, as a bias, then I agree. But I'm not seeing any fallacy here. The grandparent is stating that as long as we have a belief/value system where IQ/beauty is valued, then in a situation where all other things are equal, then IQ/beauty should be valued more.

That's not an unexamined or implicit belief, and intellectual rigour is in this case only relevant when applying it.

Where is the is/ought fallacy in that reasoning?

Re: Confessions of a bitter cripple (2015)

#25

Post by bserge »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #5

I can understand where the author is coming from, but this is the cruel reality of the world. > "I have sat in philosophy seminars where it was asserted that I should be left to die on a desert island if the choice was between saving me and saving an arbitrary non-disabled person" I would compare this to situations where you are choosing a person with high IQ vs low IQ, or to choosing someone very attractive vs very…

Yeah, such is the world and it is pointless to get angry about it (although often hard not to).

What gets me personally is the hypocrisy around it. "Don't worry, you're just as good as everyone else", "you can do it", "you can fix it".

But you know they don't mean it. So why say it? Ever think it makes the person feel worse rather than better? Probably makes you feel better, I guess that's enough of a reason to sugarcoat the truth.

Re: Confessions of a bitter cripple (2015)

#26

Post by concordDance »

An abhorent attitude caused by flawed reasoning about counterfactuals.

I have bad knees. It would be better if I had good knees or if my parents had taken a test for bad knees (which exists in this hypothetical but not reality) and aborted babies with bad knees so they could have a child with good knees. If I could get my knees fixed I would. My life is nonetheless valuable and productive and killing me would be bad.

None of those statements are in conflict.

Improvement is change, yes. But that doesn't mean it's bad. Giving everyone infrared vision might be considered destroying non-infrared vision people and their culture but it's a positive overall (so many less burns!).

Re: Confessions of a bitter cripple (2015)

#27

Post by bserge »

AQXt wrote: post #23
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #5

I can understand where the author is coming from, but this is the cruel reality of the world. > "I have sat in philosophy seminars where it was asserted that I should be left to die on a desert island if the choice was between saving me and saving an arbitrary non-disabled person" I would compare this to situations where you are choosing a person with high IQ vs low IQ, or to choosing someone very attractive vs very…

> I can understand where the author is coming from, but this is the cruel reality of the world. This article was written in 2015, when this kind of dilemma (who would you save) was purely theoretical. Fast-forward to 2020/2021, and it became real: we had to decide how to allocate scarce, life-saving resources -- COVID-19 vaccines -- and we decided to distribute them to the elder and most vulnerable first. I hope this…

Yeah, sounds encouraging until you realize it was more likely because the elderly have the money and vote the "right way", plus 80%+ of the young adults had mild to no symptoms.

The whole "lockdowns for everybody or grandpa might kick it" became a farce 6 months in, too. Why not just isolate the elderly and vulnerable then?

And there actually were unofficial DNR orders in the NHS, for example, and likely around the world, with people on Reddit supporting them.

Perhaps I'm overly pessimistic.

Re: Confessions of a bitter cripple (2015)

#28

Post by JetSetWilly »

AQXt wrote: post #23
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #5

I can understand where the author is coming from, but this is the cruel reality of the world. > "I have sat in philosophy seminars where it was asserted that I should be left to die on a desert island if the choice was between saving me and saving an arbitrary non-disabled person" I would compare this to situations where you are choosing a person with high IQ vs low IQ, or to choosing someone very attractive vs very…

> I can understand where the author is coming from, but this is the cruel reality of the world. This article was written in 2015, when this kind of dilemma (who would you save) was purely theoretical. Fast-forward to 2020/2021, and it became real: we had to decide how to allocate scarce, life-saving resources -- COVID-19 vaccines -- and we decided to distribute them to the elder and most vulnerable first. I hope this…

That's a fallacy though. If COVID killed the youngest and most able among us equally or more than the most vulnerable, then vaccine distribution would have been different.

Vaccine distribution was given to those most likely to suffer negative effects. If covid struck entirely randomly there's no reason to prioritise it on the elderly and vulnerable, you'd look at maximising QALYS instead.

Re: Confessions of a bitter cripple (2015)

#29

Post by xyzzy123 »

One interesting perspective I've seen along these lines is that on a long enough time scale, disability is a problem for most people.

That is, there are those with a disability and everyone else is just "not disabled yet".

The same sorts of utilitarian arguments that have us euthanising the disabled would also dictate that the world would be better off without the elderly, injured veterans and workers and everyone else subject to the whims of time and fortune. They're breathing valuable air that could go to the young and healthy.

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