21–30 of 134 posts
In his book “Practical Ethics” he recommends infanticide up to 2 years old as a logical extension to abortion.
In his book “Practical Ethics” he recommends infanticide up to 2 years old as a logical extension to abortion.
Yes. Do you have a point to add to that? Do you feel there’s some reason he’s obviously wrong for example?
> why he might side with aliens over humans, He's sitting on the fence about being a species traitor?
Maybe this is just pure projection on my part, but I’m having a hard time imagining this species being eco-friendly, animal rights upholding, etc. considering Singer’s standards. But again, I only have one species to go by (currently).
Utilitarianism and consequentialism are very dangerous; they make it too easy for people to justify murder by doing a little moral arithmetic and (consciously or subconsciously) putting their finger on the scale by selectively considering or ignoring some outcomes. Peter Singer has demonstrated this himself, having seen fit to justify the murder of children for the greater good. This is why good moral philosophies ha…
Note that I probably agree with you, but the solution isn’t as simple as you think.
I’m disappointed he projects some sort of idealised aloof moral superiority on anything non human, as though humans are obviously morally inferior to any possible other species. That our failings are somehow objectively inexcusable. He chooses dolphins. The primary reproductive strategy of many dolphins is to gang up on a female, beat her into submission and gang rape her. They also routinely murder the infants of ri…
Can you pinpoint where you got that impression? Note that it's not him that "chooses" dolphins, but it's the interviewer that asks him about what would it look like if we had an LLM that works with dolphins.
I’m disappointed he projects some sort of idealised aloof moral superiority on anything non human, as though humans are obviously morally inferior to any possible other species. That our failings are somehow objectively inexcusable. He chooses dolphins. The primary reproductive strategy of many dolphins is to gang up on a female, beat her into submission and gang rape her. They also routinely murder the infants of ri…
"moral agent" is someone whose actions are actions are eligible for moral consideration.
Non-human animals are usually considered "moral subjects" or *"moral patients". Moral agents must treat them well because they can suffer, but they don't have moral agency themselves. They can be purely amoral. Their acts can be horrible, but they don't have concepts of morally right or wrong.
In the middle-ages pigs were were tried and sentenced to death for murdering humans, but today attributing moral responsibility to non-moral agents is usually considered wrong. Within humans, insanity or young age can limit moral agency. Little children are moral subjects.
Utilitarianism and consequentialism are very dangerous; they make it too easy for people to justify murder by doing a little moral arithmetic and (consciously or subconsciously) putting their finger on the scale by selectively considering or ignoring some outcomes. Peter Singer has demonstrated this himself, having seen fit to justify the murder of children for the greater good. This is why good moral philosophies ha…
Close but no cigar, that deontology begs the question _why_ should we not murder people. Utilitarianism gives a consistent, albeit simple, answer. Note that I probably agree with you, but the solution isn’t as simple as you think.
Except it doesn't. The "simple" cases of utilitarianism (i.e. happiness-maximizing or unhappiness-minimizing) are both supportive of killing people if their expected remaining lifetime happiness is negative or if their death would result in others being happier - see the infamous organ donor problem. Worse, by following that philosophy you eventually get to the Repugnant Conclusion[0], which is a world of as many minimally-happy humans as possible. The complex cases result in complex epicycles of propagating out utilitiarian ideals to the rest of society and eventually asserting that heuristics of the moral value of actions would actually be best in most cases because the effects of actions are impossible to quantitatively evaluate for anyone. Those heuristics essentially boil down to deontological principles.
[0]: The fact that many public utilitarian philosophers are so unable to find a way out of this, yet so enamored with the idea of utilitarianism that they can't imagine it being wrong, that they signed a public statement saying that actually the Repugnant Conclusion is totally fine and people should still push for population ethics that lead to it is wild to me. See https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/utilitas/article/wha...
In his book “Practical Ethics” he recommends infanticide up to 2 years old as a logical extension to abortion.