If I create a child out of my DNA and my labor, then I don't own it, right?
If I make an android who is as smart as a human, then do I own it or not?
If I genetically engineer a chimpanzee to be as smart as a human, then do I own it?
What happens if the android or superchimp decides to work for someone else and pay its own way through the world? Does my right as creator prevail over its right to be free?
Susana: If I create a child out of my DNA and my labor, then I don't own it, right? If I make an android who is as smart as a human, then do I own it or not? If I genetically engineer a chimpanzee to be as smart as a human, then do I own it? What happens if the android or superchimp decides to work for someone else and pay its own way through the world? Does my right as creator prevail over its right to be free?
Right, no, no, kudos to Mr. Chips.
Assuming "smart as a human" means "conscious, moral agent", for which the scenario in the last sentence would be defacto proof. You have no property rights as a creator of a consciousness, whether the raw material is DNA or silicon.
The state won't go away once enough people want the state to go away, the state will effectively disappear once enough people no longer care that much whether it stays or goes. We don't need a revolution, we need millions of them.
histhasthai:Assuming "smart as a human" means "conscious, moral agent", for which the scenario in the last sentence would be defacto proof. You have no property rights as a creator of a consciousness, whether the raw material is DNA or silicon.
Does that also mean that a chimp who is born smart should get the same rights as a human?
Many kids these days work and I think do a worse job than some chimps would.
Susana:Does that also mean that a chimp who is born smart should get the same rights as a human?
Not only the same rights, he should become the master of all humans. Like in Planet of the Apes.
I qualified it with "conscious, moral agent". Being one of those is where rights come from, so, yes. Anything that can "decide[] to work for someone else and pay its own way through the world" is a moral agent - "decide" being the key word - or, if somehow not, you have no way to tell the difference anyway.
liberty student: Susana:Does that also mean that a chimp who is born smart should get the same rights as a human? Not only the same rights, he should become the master of all humans. Like in Planet of the Apes
Not only the same rights, he should become the master of all humans. Like in Planet of the Apes
That's enough spamming the board to push your own agenda, Dr Zeus.
histhasthai:I qualified it with "conscious, moral agent".
OK. When I build Frankenstein then I'll make sure he's a conscious, immoral agent. That way he remains my slave. I'll just program him not to turn on me.
If another being has the ability to reason like a human being, then it should have the rights of a human being. Animals don't have the same rights has humans because they don't have any concept of rights. Please see Ethics and Economics of Private Property by Hans Hoppe.
Susana: histhasthai:I qualified it with "conscious, moral agent". OK. When I build Frankenstein then I'll make sure he's a conscious, immoral agent. That way he remains my slave. I'll just program him not to turn on me.
You mistake the meaning of "moral agent", but then I'm beginning to doubt the seriousness and good faith of your efforts here.
histhasthai: You have no property rights as a creator of a consciousness, whether the raw material is DNA or silicon.
You have no property rights as a creator of a consciousness, whether the raw material is DNA or silicon.
I presume you mean that you have no property rights as a creator of consciousness if that consciousness has the ability to reason like a human. Otherwise I would say if you create a conscious being that has no ability to reason, you do have property rights in it.
Susana:If I make an android who is as smart as a human, then do I own it or not?
It may process information as fast and as accurate as a human, but to the extent it doesn't have conscious, emotions and all that, it's still a machine.
But to the point, if your creation has the capacity of claiming freedom, then I'd say you have to let it go. Just like a child can ask for emancipation from its parents.
With regard to any abuse to those creations, I certainely agree with having laws against animal cruelty, and it's certainely legitimate to provide protections against unnecessary force to those creations. How reaching they should be is very much into debate.
Equality before the law and material equality are not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time. -- F. A. Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty
BlackSheep:But to the point, if your creation has the capacity of claiming freedom, then I'd say you have to let it go. Just like a child can ask for emancipation from its parents.
I agree; that's essential point. If it knows what freedom is, and claims it, you have no right to keep it.
leonidia:if that consciousness has the ability to reason like a human.
I'm meaning consciousness to subsume reason as well - I don't think they are seperable. It's certainly an arguable point, but when I say consciousness, that's how I mean it. And I did hedge a bit even then by including moral agency. And, actually, moral agency is enough on it's own, even if it could somehow exist sans reasoning faculties.
histhasthai:I'm meaning consciousness to subsume reason as well - I don't think they are seperable.
I don't see how you can say consciousness and reason are inseperable. An ant has consciousness, but it cannot reason. Its motions are instinctual, not the result of a process of ratiocination. It cannot act in the way a human does because action (in the praxeological sense) involves reason, and therefore it cannot claim any rights for itself. It has absolutely no means to understand the concept of rights, nor the means to claim them.
What I understand you to be saying is that the crucial test is whether the creature is either:
1) a conscious moral agent - i.e. (?) a creature that knows the difference between right and wrong (histhasal)2) has a concept of rights (leonidia)3) has the ability to reason like a human (leonidia)4) has the capacity to claim freedom (BlackSheep)
I find it hard to fit a baby into these of these categories. Can the test be made to exclude babies (without provoking a heated debate about abortion).
leonidia: histhasthai:I'm meaning consciousness to subsume reason as well - I don't think they are seperable. I don't see how you can say consciousness and reason are inseperable. An ant has consciousness, but it cannot reason. Its motions are instinctual, not the result of a process of ratiocination. It cannot act in the way a human does because action (in the praxeological sense) involves reason, and therefore it cannot claim any rights for itself. It has absolutely no means to understand the concept of rights, nor the means to claim them.
You're arguing against the wrong side of it. I don't think ants are conscious, nor are dogs and cats. Chimps are a little greyer of an example, but I lean toward no. My definition of consciousness is the ability to conceptually place one's self in alternate future circumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued exernal state. By "conceptually", I mean without actually performing the actions and changing any state in the external world.
A prerequisite for that is self-awareness, but self awareness by itself is not consiousness. Another pre-requisite is reason, and if anything, while I don't think consciousness is possible without reason, it may be true that reason is possible without consciousness - an exact reversal of the relationship your argument starts from. But if so, reason alone is not sufficient for consciousness, and not sufficient for moral agency and rights.
Consciousness by this definition, is sufficient for moral agency, and thus for rights.
Susana:I find it hard to fit a baby into these of these categories.
A baby is a human and has the potential to do all of those things. While it is unable to argue for itself, it is in a custodial relationship with its guardian who has the ability to claim and exercise rights on its behalf. The same applies to someone who is mentally incapacitated.
The fact that a baby is unable to engage in argumentation does not provide any moral grounds for abortion. That's a completely separate issue.
Susana:Can the test be made to exclude babies
I think you meant include babies, since you seem to be claiming that the tests already exclude them.
I've been taking a bit of a shortcut since I didn't think it would be relevant, but since you have made it so, I'll try to explain.
The idea of inherent rights is a fallacy. Rights do not inhere to an individual, they are a requirement on the part of a moral agent for the kind of behavior that can be directed toward another moral agent. A baby has the capacity for moral agency, but it does not yet have the intellectual contents in its mind to exercise that capacity. But since another's consciousness, and the contents of it, are entirely inaccessible to another person - whether the subject is an adult or a baby - we cannot actually know the difference between capacity and concrete ability. All we have to go on is a categorical definition of what kind of entities have the capacity - we cannot make that judgment based on the concrete contents of another consciousness
Further, parents are a proxy for the interests of a child until the child can excercise his own moral agency. In that sense, a baby has not only the capacity, but the concrete instantiation of moral agency, even if only by proxy. Since they have it, aggression would be a violation of it. The extension of rights to babies without such a proxy is just a more complicated formulation.
I was replying to your question on the "right to be free". A baby can't claim it. I guess a small child could though, and it would be most likely irresponsible to just let him go because he didn't like to be grounded... Would be interesting to know how maturity is evaluated for emancipation purposes. I guess you need to show you understand what being free, responsible for yourself, implies...
Anyway, if you are talking about property, I think there are some restrictions and responsabilities you have to take when we are speaking of animals. Like if you abandon them inside your house to die, you certainely should be punished. Likewise, your paper as a guardian of some baby, small child, human in vegetable state, a challenged adult, etc also has restrictions and responsabilities. It's hard to say what constitutes abuse and what not though...
histhasthai:You're arguing against the wrong side of it. I don't think ants are conscious, nor are dogs and cats. Chimps are a little greyer of an example, but I lean toward no. My definition of consciousness is the ability to conceptually place one's self in alternate future circumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued exernal state.
Well, your defintion of consciousness is very different to mine then. My defintion of consciouseness is simply awareness of ones surroundings-- the ability to sense ones surroundings-- and it's strictly confined to the present. A dog, a cat and , yes, even an ant is aware of its surroundings. The ability to "conceptually place oneself in alternate future crcumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued external state" is called reasoning, and it is a completely different thing. Consciousness is required for reasoning, but reasoning is not required for consciousness.
BlackSheep:Anyway, if you are talking about property, I think there are some restrictions and responsabilities you have to take when we are speaking of animals. Like if you abandon them inside your house to die, you certainely should be punished.
Why? It's not very nice thing to do, but animals are property. It's as simple as that.
leonidia:Well, your defintion of consciousness is very different to mine then.
I don't see that causing a major problem here. I'm fine with tolerating different definitions of terms, so long as each others' definitions are clearly stated. I think "moral agency" works for both of us as the basis of and criteria for rights, no?
Of course, I would find it an interesting debate for another time.
leonidia: BlackSheep:Anyway, if you are talking about property, I think there are some restrictions and responsabilities you have to take when we are speaking of animals. Like if you abandon them inside your house to die, you certainely should be punished. Why? It's not very nice thing to do, but animals are property. It's as simple as that.
I mean animals that have complex nervous systems and so are sensitive to physical pain like humans. Any cruel aggression should be punished -- whether they are your property or not. If you take them from their environment and cage them to die, I would consider that cruelty as well.
histhasthai: leonidia:Well, your defintion of consciousness is very different to mine then. I don't see that causing a major problem here. I'm fine with tolerating different definitions of terms, so long as each others' definitions are clearly stated. I think "moral agency" works for both of us as the basis of and criteria for rights, no? Of course, I would find it an interesting debate for another time.
If "moral agency" means the "ability to reason" or "conceptually place oneself in alternate future circumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued external state" then I am 100% in agreement. I simply object to your use of the word "consciousness" as a synonym for this. I think by most people's definitions, consciousness has a much narrower meaning.
BlackSheep:animals [...] are sensitive to physical pain like humans. Any cruel aggression should be punished
Not like humans. Humans can conceptualize pain - animals can only react to it. Humans can conceptualize future pain, can fear it - animals can only alert to an immediate threat, real or percieved. But more to the point, the imposition of pain - or the threat of it - interferes with humans' moral agency. This is the basis of the right not to have pain imposed by force. Animals have none.
It is morally wrong to be cruel to animals, but should never be legally wrong. Society should shun people who are deliberately cruel to animals - either imposing pain for pain's sake because they get some benefit from the pain itself, or out of wanton negligence - because it is likely that person will also be a threat to other humans, but nobody should ever forcibly punish animal cruelty.
leonidia:If "moral agency" means the "ability to reason" or "conceptually place oneself in alternate future circumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued external state" then I am 100% in agreement.
Close enough, let's go with that.
leonidia:I simply object to your use of the word "consciousness" as a synonym for this. I think by most people's definitions, consciousness has a much narrower meaning.
Most people would be hard pressed to give any definition of consciousness, let alone one that is in any way consistent with the other concepts they hold surrounding the issue. Not one single person I've ever heard or read has given a definition that is fully consistent with those other concepts.
I hope you don't mind if I dismiss your objection. I'll continue my use of the term, but will try to be aware of the disagreement when doing so.
And, as an aside, I remembered one academic theory of consciousness that does claim that reason came before consciousness: Jaynes' theory of the bicameral mind.
BlackSheep:I mean animals that have complex nervous systems and so are sensitive to physical pain like humans. Any cruel aggression should be punished -- whether they are your property or not. If you take them from their environment and cage them to die, I would consider that cruelty as well.
No question that that would be cruel, and anyone who behaves like that deserves public condemnation in my opinion. However, my opinion is a subjective moral position. Animals do not have natural rights. Therefore punishing someone for hurting an animal would be an initiation of agression and a violation of natural rights. And natural rights, which are grounded in a rational objective ethic, have to take precedence over my subjective feeling on the matter.
leonidia: histhasthai:You're arguing against the wrong side of it. I don't think ants are conscious, nor are dogs and cats. Chimps are a little greyer of an example, but I lean toward no. My definition of consciousness is the ability to conceptually place one's self in alternate future circumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued exernal state. Well, your defintion of consciousness is very different to mine then. My defintion of consciouseness is simply awareness of ones surroundings-- the ability to sense ones surroundings-- and it's strictly confined to the present. A dog, a cat and , yes, even an ant is aware of its surroundings. The ability to "conceptually place oneself in alternate future crcumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued external state" is called reasoning, and it is a completely different thing. Consciousness is required for reasoning, but reasoning is not required for consciousness.
I think histhasthai's definition is much closer to what "consciousness" really is.
Some quotes from the first chapter of Jaynes' Origin of Consciousness:
To begin with, there are several uses of the word consciousness which we may immediately discard as incorrect. We have for example the phrase "to lose consciousness" after receiving a blow to the head. But if this were correct, we would then have no word for those somnambulistic states known in clinical literature where an individual is clearly not conscious and yet is responsive to things in a way in which a knocked-out person is not. Therefore, in the first instance we should say that the person suffering a severe blow on the head loses both consciousness and what I am calling reactivity, and they are therefore different things. [...] In other words, reactivity covers all stimuli my behaviour takes account of in any way, while consciousness is something quite distinct and a far less ubiquitous phenomenon. We are conscious of what we are reacting to only from time to time. And whereas reactivity can be defined behaviourally and neurologically, consciousness at the present state of knowledge cannot. [...] But let us go further. Consciousness is a much smaller part of our mental life than we are conscious of, because we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of. How simple that is to say; how difficult to appreciate! It is like asking a flashlight in a dark room to search around for something that does not have any light shining upon it. The flashlight, since there is light in whatever direction it turns, would have to conclude that there is light everywhere. And so consciousness can seem to pervade all mentality when in fact it does not. [...] Examples of how little we are conscious of our everyday behaviour can be multiplied almost anywhere we look. Playing the piano is a really extraordinary example. Here a complex array of various tasks is accomplished all at once with scarcely any consciousness of them whatever: two different lines of near hieroglyphics to be read at once, the right hand guided to one and the left to the other; ten fingers assigned to various tasks, the fingering solving various motor problems without any awareness, and the mind interpreting sharps and flats and naturals into black and white keys, obeying the timing of whole or quarter or sixteenth notes and rests and trills, one hand perhaps in three beats to the measure while the other plays four, while the feet are softening or slurring or holding various other notes. And all this time the performer, the conscious performer, is in a seventh heaven of artistic rapture at the results of all this tremendous business [...] Of course consciousness usually has a role in the learning of such complex activities, but not necessarily in their performance, and that is the only point I am trying to make here. Consciousness is often not only unnecessary; it can often be quite undesirable. Our pianist suddenly conscious of his fingers during a furious set of arpeggios would have to stop playing. [...] A third important misconception of consciousness is that it is necessary for learning. [...] Signal learning (or classical or Pavlovian conditioning) is the simplest example. If a light signal immediately followed by a puff of air through a rubber tube is directed at a person's eye about ten times, the eyelid, which previously blinked only to the puff of air, will begin to blink to the light signal alone, and this becomes more and more frequent as trials proceed. Subjects who have undergone this well-known procedure of signal learning report that it has no conscious component whatever. Indeed, consciousness, in this example the intrusion of voluntary eye blinks to try to assist the signal learning, blocks it from occurring. [...] Solution learning (or instrumental learning or operant conditioning) is a more complex case. Usually when one is acquiring some solution to a problem or some path to a goal, consciousness plays a very considerable role in setting up the problem in a certain way. But consciousness is not necessary. Instances can be shown in a which a person has no consciousness whatever of either the goal he is seeking or the solution he is finding to achieve that goal. [...] And to say that consciousness is not necessary for thinking makes us immediately bristle with protest. [...] But the matter is really not that clear at all. [... description of Marbe and Watt experiments too long to type out ...] This was a remarkable result. Another way of saying it is that one does one's thinking before one knows what one is to think about. [...] Thinking, then, is not conscious. Rather, it is an automatic process following a struction and materials on which the struction is to operate. [...] The long tradition of man as the rational animal, the tradition that enthroned him as Homo sapiens, rests in all its pontifical generality on the gracile assumption that consciousness is the seat of reason. Any discussion of such an assumption is embarrased by the vagueness of the term reason itself. [...] My point here is that, for such natural reasoning to occur, consciousness is not necessary. The very reason we need logic at all is because most reasoning is not conscious at all. [...] Let us review where we are, for we have just found our way through an enormous amount of ramous material which may have seemed more perplexing that clarifying. We have been brought to the conclusion that consciousness is not what we generally think it is. It is not to be confused with reactivity. It is not involved in a host of perceptual phenomena. It is not involved in the performance of skills and often hinders their execution. It need not be involved in speaking, writing, listening or reading. It does not copy down experience, as most people think. Consciousness is not at all involved in signal learning, and need not be involved in the learning of skills or solutions, which can go on without any consciousness whatever. It is not necessary for making of judgements or in simple thinking. It is not the seat of reason, and indeed some of the most difficult instances of creative reasoning go on without any attending consciousness. And it has no location except an imaginary one! The immediate question therefore is, does consciousness exist at all? But that is the problem of the next chapter. Here it is only necessary to conclude that consciousness does not make all that much difference to a lot of our activities. If our reasonings have been correct, it is perfectly possible that there could have been a race of men who spoke, judged, reasoned, solved problems, indeed did most of the things that we do, but who were not conscious at all. This is the important and in some ways upsetting notion that we are forced to conclude at this point. [...]
To begin with, there are several uses of the word consciousness which we may immediately discard as incorrect. We have for example the phrase "to lose consciousness" after receiving a blow to the head. But if this were correct, we would then have no word for those somnambulistic states known in clinical literature where an individual is clearly not conscious and yet is responsive to things in a way in which a knocked-out person is not. Therefore, in the first instance we should say that the person suffering a severe blow on the head loses both consciousness and what I am calling reactivity, and they are therefore different things.
[...]
In other words, reactivity covers all stimuli my behaviour takes account of in any way, while consciousness is something quite distinct and a far less ubiquitous phenomenon. We are conscious of what we are reacting to only from time to time. And whereas reactivity can be defined behaviourally and neurologically, consciousness at the present state of knowledge cannot.
But let us go further. Consciousness is a much smaller part of our mental life than we are conscious of, because we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of. How simple that is to say; how difficult to appreciate! It is like asking a flashlight in a dark room to search around for something that does not have any light shining upon it. The flashlight, since there is light in whatever direction it turns, would have to conclude that there is light everywhere. And so consciousness can seem to pervade all mentality when in fact it does not.
Examples of how little we are conscious of our everyday behaviour can be multiplied almost anywhere we look. Playing the piano is a really extraordinary example. Here a complex array of various tasks is accomplished all at once with scarcely any consciousness of them whatever: two different lines of near hieroglyphics to be read at once, the right hand guided to one and the left to the other; ten fingers assigned to various tasks, the fingering solving various motor problems without any awareness, and the mind interpreting sharps and flats and naturals into black and white keys, obeying the timing of whole or quarter or sixteenth notes and rests and trills, one hand perhaps in three beats to the measure while the other plays four, while the feet are softening or slurring or holding various other notes. And all this time the performer, the conscious performer, is in a seventh heaven of artistic rapture at the results of all this tremendous business [...] Of course consciousness usually has a role in the learning of such complex activities, but not necessarily in their performance, and that is the only point I am trying to make here.
Consciousness is often not only unnecessary; it can often be quite undesirable. Our pianist suddenly conscious of his fingers during a furious set of arpeggios would have to stop playing.
A third important misconception of consciousness is that it is necessary for learning. [...]
Signal learning (or classical or Pavlovian conditioning) is the simplest example. If a light signal immediately followed by a puff of air through a rubber tube is directed at a person's eye about ten times, the eyelid, which previously blinked only to the puff of air, will begin to blink to the light signal alone, and this becomes more and more frequent as trials proceed. Subjects who have undergone this well-known procedure of signal learning report that it has no conscious component whatever. Indeed, consciousness, in this example the intrusion of voluntary eye blinks to try to assist the signal learning, blocks it from occurring.
Solution learning (or instrumental learning or operant conditioning) is a more complex case. Usually when one is acquiring some solution to a problem or some path to a goal, consciousness plays a very considerable role in setting up the problem in a certain way. But consciousness is not necessary. Instances can be shown in a which a person has no consciousness whatever of either the goal he is seeking or the solution he is finding to achieve that goal.
And to say that consciousness is not necessary for thinking makes us immediately bristle with protest. [...] But the matter is really not that clear at all.
[... description of Marbe and Watt experiments too long to type out ...]
This was a remarkable result. Another way of saying it is that one does one's thinking before one knows what one is to think about.
Thinking, then, is not conscious. Rather, it is an automatic process following a struction and materials on which the struction is to operate.
The long tradition of man as the rational animal, the tradition that enthroned him as Homo sapiens, rests in all its pontifical generality on the gracile assumption that consciousness is the seat of reason. Any discussion of such an assumption is embarrased by the vagueness of the term reason itself. [...] My point here is that, for such natural reasoning to occur, consciousness is not necessary. The very reason we need logic at all is because most reasoning is not conscious at all.
Let us review where we are, for we have just found our way through an enormous amount of ramous material which may have seemed more perplexing that clarifying. We have been brought to the conclusion that consciousness is not what we generally think it is. It is not to be confused with reactivity. It is not involved in a host of perceptual phenomena. It is not involved in the performance of skills and often hinders their execution. It need not be involved in speaking, writing, listening or reading. It does not copy down experience, as most people think. Consciousness is not at all involved in signal learning, and need not be involved in the learning of skills or solutions, which can go on without any consciousness whatever. It is not necessary for making of judgements or in simple thinking. It is not the seat of reason, and indeed some of the most difficult instances of creative reasoning go on without any attending consciousness. And it has no location except an imaginary one! The immediate question therefore is, does consciousness exist at all? But that is the problem of the next chapter. Here it is only necessary to conclude that consciousness does not make all that much difference to a lot of our activities. If our reasonings have been correct, it is perfectly possible that there could have been a race of men who spoke, judged, reasoned, solved problems, indeed did most of the things that we do, but who were not conscious at all. This is the important and in some ways upsetting notion that we are forced to conclude at this point. [...]
histhasthai:Not like humans. Humans can conceptualize pain - animals can only react to it. Humans can conceptualize future pain, can fear it - animals can only alert to an immediate threat, real or percieved.
Psycologically speaking, humans are probably the most developed animals in what concerns what you are saying. But of course, animals fear being inflicted pain. If you show your hand to your dog, he will crunch, if you had used it before. If he is not dependent on you, he will likely run away next time, he faces you. Or he might attack you by surprise. Humans don't really have any skills other animals don't have -- you can find traits of those skils everywhere, they are just much more developed in humans. Like the poster mentioned, chimps are pretty close to the level of development of a small child. Not even those have some rights against cruelty in your view?
BlackSheep:Like the poster mentioned, chimps are pretty close to the level of development of a small child. Not even those have some rights against cruelty in your view?
I'm not basing rights on a sliding scale, but on a bright line distinction. It might become clearer if we look at the other side of rights, which is responsibilities. Any assertion of rights necessarily includes an assertion of the corollary responsibilities. Would you claim that chimps are required to provide restitution for theft? That they should have to get a job with a paycheck and pay for their food with money? That you expect them to ever apologize for flinging *** at you?
And the question is not one of comparing the concrete mental capacity of a chimp to that of a child. If you're going to use children, you have to talk about potential. A child may not be able to get a job and pay for his own food now, but it is expected that he will at some point in his development. Do you expect a chimp, no matter how intensively you train him over years and years, to be able to do any of that in a self directed way that is responsive to changing context, environment, and goals?
histhasthai:It might become clearer if we look at the other side of rights, which is responsibilities. Any assertion of rights necessarily includes an assertion of the corollary responsibilities.
I generally prefer to look at the "animal rights" sort of discussion in practical terms. For instance, if a wild animal approaches you, how should you treat it?
Well, for your own safety, you should treat it with caution. The same way as you should treat an unknown person. Whether it be animal or man or robot, you would be wise to treat that "being" as if that being was willing to fight which is not much different from treating it as if it has rights.
Charles Anthony:I do not think "rights" must necessarily be conditional upon "responsibilities" at all.
They're not, they're corollary. They're both conditional on moral agency, not one upon the other.
Paul: leonidia: histhasthai:You're arguing against the wrong side of it. I don't think ants are conscious, nor are dogs and cats. Chimps are a little greyer of an example, but I lean toward no. My definition of consciousness is the ability to conceptually place one's self in alternate future circumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued exernal state. Well, your defintion of consciousness is very different to mine then. My defintion of consciouseness is simply awareness of ones surroundings-- the ability to sense ones surroundings-- and it's strictly confined to the present. A dog, a cat and , yes, even an ant is aware of its surroundings. The ability to "conceptually place oneself in alternate future crcumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued external state" is called reasoning, and it is a completely different thing. Consciousness is required for reasoning, but reasoning is not required for consciousness. I think histhasthai's definition is much closer to what "consciousness" really is. Some quotes from the first chapter of Jaynes' Origin of Consciousness:
Jaynes' definition of consciousness is controversial to say the least. I don't think his definition is widely accepted. If you ask most people what it means to be conscious, they'll you use words like "aware", "awake", "sensate" etc.
Now Jaynes can go off and define a word any way he wants. He can say things like "We have been brought to the conclusion that consciousness is not what we generally think it is", but if most people think that that indeed is what it is, then (by definition) that's the commonly held definition. Who cares whether Jaynes likes the commonly held definition or not?
leonidia: if most people think that that indeed is what it is, then (by definition) that's the commonly held definition.
True, but if it is contradictory, or just fails to provide any way to integrate it with other concepts, it is a useless definition. In that case, it is rational and necessary for people who want to productively discuss the matter to create concepts that can be integrated, and to integrate them back into the ideas with which the old definition failed.
And yes, Jaynes' ideas are highly controversial. Worse, they don't have any predictive value, and so cannot be tested (unless someone figures out a prediction necessitated by them). I think there's a kernel of truth to them, and studying his ideas have helped me develop and integrate my own understanding of consciousness, but as a whole package, I take them as interesting speculation and nothing more. As it stands now, they're history, not science.
histhasthai:True, but if it is contradictory, or just fails to provide any way to integrate it with other concepts, it is a useless definition.
This, of course, is all just semantics, but it's only contradictory if you belong in the camp that happens to believe that it "fails to provide any way to integrate it with other concepts." Knowing that the term "conscious" could be ambiguous should be reason enough to steer clear of it in the first place. Eqauting it with "reason", as you did, is bound to be controversial.
leonidia: Knowing that the term "conscious" could be ambiguous should be reason enough to steer clear of it in the first place. Eqauting it with "reason", as you did, is bound to be controversial.
Knowing that the term "conscious" could be ambiguous should be reason enough to steer clear of it in the first place. Eqauting it with "reason", as you did, is bound to be controversial.
Hmm, and here I thought that knowing that a term being used in a discussion is ambiguous is reason enough to try to clarify it.
I'm far less concerned with controversial than I am with useless.
histhansthai, I really don't want to belabor the point because I agree with you on the fundamental issues of this discussion, but semantics are extremely important sometimes.
If you say "conscious beings have rights" and I assume consciousness means "conceptually place oneself in alternate future crcumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued external state" then, fine, I know that only human or human-like beings have rights. If on the other hand I assume consciousness means "being aware or awake", as I think most people do, then my dog, my cat, and my pet ant has rights.
Esoteric definitions of familiarly used words confuse; they don't clarify. And the familiar definition is not useless if that's what most people use. What's useless is an alternative defintion that can easily be misconstrued.
leonidia:I assume consciousness means...
Let's stick with moral agency, and ignore consciousness per se, OK? You're right that we basically agree, and the argument over the definition of consciousness is out of place here.
To be clear, I mean that only huans have rights. It is theorietically possible some day for computers, aliens, or genetically engineered terestrial animals to rise to the requirement for rights, but none today are remotely close.
This issue will never be solved until we can communicate with animals. However communicating implies knowledge to communicate. Animals would have to teach us their language, using their words, if they can describe freedom and consciousness within that language.
But speculation and experiments today teach language to apes, thus we teach them liberty and "rights"
Is it more a process of WHEN someone realize they are free and conscious, that they have rights, or WHAT they are? In the former case, the only person with natural rights would be the person who thought of it. Everyone here would be mind slaves. "Inherent rights" are things we think of on our own.
Considering the above statement, would an ape that can communicate with humans, with no prior teaching from humans, be valid of rights and freedom if he can declare it? A child is taught rights and freedoms. So then does the ape, who is naturally superior, have a right to control the child and abuse him, because he has proof he is smarter than the child.
Democracy is nothing more than replacing bullets with ballots
If Pro is the opposite of Con. What is the opposite of Progress?
Andrew:Considering the above statement, would an ape that can communicate with humans, with no prior teaching from humans, be valid of rights and freedom if he can declare it?
Theoretically, yes.
Andrew:So then does the ape, who is naturally superior, have a right to control the child and abuse him, because he has proof he is smarter than the child.
No, of course not. That would be a violation of the child's natural rights. Just because a child can't communicate does not mean it has no rights, or inferior rights. It's human after all.