McLovin wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:39 pm
Morality goes hand in hand with abstract thought.
Thinking about and practicing morality goes hand in hand with abstract thought.
But so does thinking about and measuring an object's mass.
That does not mean that something without abstract thought necessarily has no moral value (it may be true that sentience necessitates SOME abstract thought in order to function, but that's not clear here), or that something without abstract thought has no mass.
McLovin wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:39 pmAs I wrote in my previous message here, I hardly see how being alive is an arbitrary quality, considering that in order to have values, you need to be alive.
Incorrect, non-living things can have values. Consider synthetic intelligence.
And not all living things have values because they don't all have minds to process them.
Even if we ignore synthetic intelligence, you might as well say "being made out of matter" is the source of moral value and that rocks have value at that point. See? It's arbitrary.
Made out of matter, alive, an animal, having a brain,
having interests, having abstract thoughts, capable of calculus
Only one of those is non-arbitrary. The rest are either bars set arbitrarily "higher" or arbitrarily lower than the only necessary property.
Unless you're talking about the immediate or proximate quality (if the immediate quality is not available for assessment), you're just making arbitrary assertions.
McLovin wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:39 pm
You pick one, and I pick another. If I am mistaken, as I can see, then it must be some fact. or something,out there, independent of us, which corresponds with the thing you picked.
The fact is basing the decision on a non-arbitrary property that is essentially related to the assessment.
McLovin wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:39 pm
Otherwise, as I can see, it is a special pleading to fish something out of the things we are and can do, but reject the other things.
So, if we happen to be white, it would be special pleading to ignore that and grant black people value anyway?
If we happen to be men, it would be special pleading to ignore that and grant value to women?
If we happen to be 5 foot ten inches tall, it would be special pleading to ignore that and grant value to those who are taller or shorter than we are?
By ignoring the rational basis for assigning value to the property of having interests, and admitting any unrelated property, you take on a much more difficult burden of finding a way to deny racist, sexist, height-ist everything-else-ist moral solipsism.
Or are you saying you regard that as equally credible to your own value system?
McLovin wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:39 pm
If interests and values are persistent, even if subject is in coma, then those things "persist" only in the memories of other people, and not with the subject, and that is where it breaks down for me.
The fact that something happened in the past remains a fact. Our access to it may be dependent on records (from memory, to a written will) for evidence, which means our fulfilling those interests is limited by our knowledge of them.
How does that break down?
McLovin wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:39 pmWith your painting example we have conflicts of interests.
There are always conflicts of interest. Do you think a moral system fails unless it doesn't have any conflicts of interest in it?
The question is how those conflicts are resolved.
McLovin wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:39 pmArtist does not want for his painting to be destroyed, but i want and I dont see why his interests in the past would overweight mine which are actual.
Roofied girl does not want to be raped, but you want to rape her. She's unconscious so her interests aren't "actual", and your interests are "actual". Am I correct in supposing how you would resolve this conflict of interest?
If you just do what you want to do and don't care about anybody else's interests, that's just called being selfish.
If that's what kind of person you are, you have a problem with morality period.
A person who puts the interests of others above their own selfish desires, who abstains from harming the interests of others even when they would get hedonistic pleasure from it, is a better person. If you are not willing to do that, you could just honestly admit to not being a very good person, but you don't need to make up a special arbitrary morality that absolves you of the bad things you do based on all of this special pleading.
Lacking an objective standard, morality becomes useless because then anybody is moral just by saying so and making up new ad hoc rules and exceptions for themselves as they please.
I'm not a perfect person. I do things that harm others and the environment sometimes. But I can admit that, and I try to do better. I don't need to make up excuses for myself to make me believe I'm a better person than I am, I just change and try to do better.
McLovin wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:39 pmAnother problem I have with that reasoning is when people are for abortion and think that there is nothing wrong with abortion.
So... you have already decided that abortion is wrong based on faith, and any moral system which disagrees with that you will reject no matter how sound the logic is of that system?
That's pretty much the definition of closed minded, that's not you reasoning anything.
McLovin wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:39 pmYou said "Abstract thought probably means a being has a lot more moral value (because it has a multitude of additional values/interests/preferences deriving from that abstract thought)". If value/preference/interest is what gives moral value, then how more of those things equals more moral value?
Not just quantity, but also magnitude. That's why I said probably.
Multiply quantity by the respective magnitude and you get the total value.
A being with more interests is not necessarily going to be less interested in those other interests.
E.G. You were originally only interested in eating cookies, but now you learn how to paint rainbows and you're interested in that too. Does learning to paint rainbows make you less interests in eating cookies?
If yes, and there's some conservation of interests where a being only has a certain amount of interest and can allocate that, then having more interests would not increase total value.
If no, and having more interests just increased the total, then a being with more interests (deriving perhaps from more abstract thought) would have more moral value.
The evidence suggests that interests are not totally conserved.
A person who, due to abstract thought, values patriotism and would be willing to die for his country has not simply become disinterested in living and suicidal, but has found an interest much stronger and more valuable to him or her. He or she probably likes eating cookies just about as much as ever, but has something new that is much more than that.
McLovin wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 9:39 pmIf existence of value gives moral value, then how can you get more moral value of the same thing, when criteria is already met?
I think you're confusing deontological value systems with consequentialist ones.
It is the consequence (violating interests) which is negative, and it's negative relative to the strength and number of those interests being violated.
Deontological, or rights based, approaches claim that a being has inalienable rights of such description based on some qualification. These are impractical and logically incoherent.
Here's a notorious thread on the subject:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?t=785