Great comments on new #namethetrait video

[PhilRisk]

What do we think of this as an analogy to name the trait. I think it's more obvious than the name the verse analogy and people are likely to agree with P1 & P2 and reject the conclusion

P1 - It is not wrong to kill yourself
P2 - There is no trait absent in others which if absent yourself would cause it to be wrong to kill yourself
C - Therefore without establishing the absence of such a trait in others, we contradict ourselves by deeming it wrong to kill others

'have moral value' becomes 'not wrong to kill'
'humans' become 'yourself'
'animals' become 'others'

"Yourself" is an indexical expression, i. e. the meaning is not fixed. Furthermore, "not wrong to kill" is not an intrinsic quality of any being but relative to the actor and the killed being. This makes this argument more complicated than NTT and the idea of traits is misguided in this variation.
Therefore, I have some unease about the analogy.

[brimstoneSalad]

PV I also added a meme based on AY's latest vid. Feel free to remove it if you want

It was pretty funny. Might be a little too sexual though? Looks like a furry pinup.
It's fine though, impressive photoshop job! (or was the rabbit already green?)

Is it possible to increase the max file size on the wiki? I'm having trouble getting Sisyphus Redeemed clips below 2mb with the method I'm using (I can get them below 3mb)

Maybe. That's a limit in php, it will have to be increased.
I'll let you know when I find out.

On the analogy, I don't think that's accurate.
I think it would be this instead:

P1 - It is not wrong to kill yourself
P2 - There is no trait absent in others which if absent yourself would cause it to be wrong to kill yourself
C - Therefore without establishing the absence of such a trait in others, we contradict ourselves by deeming it wrong for others to kill themselves

PhilRisk:

He recognizes it may not be wrong to kill oysters or sponges, for example, because they lack morally relevant traits. If we were non-sentient we wouldn't mind being killed.
Isaac seems to think this is more of a case-by-case argument (not all animals or none, but each case where we want to act on animals in ways we wouldn't want ourselves acted upon evaluated independently).

[Lightningman_42]

PV I also added a meme based on AY's latest vid. Feel free to remove it if you want

The green rabbit meme is based on a recent vid? The AIU vid? I haven't fully watched any of his recent vids. Not since I lost respect for him (which happened a few weeks before the debate).

[DrSinger]

Imagine a world where there exist three object: One is a human, one is an nonhuman animal without moral value and the other is a strange being which has the same traits as the human except being human and has moral value. t is "being human".

I agree with this example. I think I can show this on the wiki.

Also if we excluded being human as a trait (maybe fans would think we should). We could just imagine a moral system where the replicas (or even just a replica) have moral value, nonhuman animals do not, and humans do have moral value, we can easily name a trait absent in animals and present in humans but not the replicas, such as 'we care'. Making P2 true without giving moral value to the animals. (edit I no longer think my example is sufficient)

(essentially the same as your example except the trait is 'we care')

It was pretty funny. Might be a little too sexual though? Looks like a furry pinup.
It's fine though, impressive photoshop job! (or was the rabbit already green?)

Haha I didn't even think about that, I can see how someone would think it's a furry. It's actually art of the character 'jack jazzrabbit' from a 90s game.
https://therandomgirlxd.deviantart.com/art/Jazz-Jackrabbit-335604447

You are right about the analogy.

btw Ask Yourself was supposed to be releasing part 1 of his 'beat down' last night. But it doesn't seem to be up yet. Apparently he animates NTT in the vid (I'm interested to see what that will look like)

The green rabbit meme is based on a recent vid? The AIU vid? I haven't fully watched any of his recent vids. Not since I lost respect for him (which happened a few weeks before the debate).

Yeh the left image was. Seems like 'logic tho' has been added to his 'tho list'

[brimstoneSalad]

PV I also added a meme based on AY's latest vid. Feel free to remove it if you want

The green rabbit meme is based on a recent vid? The AIU vid? I haven't fully watched any of his recent vids. Not since I lost respect for him (which happened a few weeks before the debate).

It's something Ask Yourself showed in his AIU video.

The AIU video wasn't terrible, although he makes his #NameTheTrait mistake, and he says dairy is worse than meat which is bullshit: it's a question of amount of harm per calorie, and dairy cows (while they may be treated much worse than beef cows over their lives) produce more calories, as well as do it more efficiently than beef. It's not that clear-cut. You could only do a direct comparison like that if they yielded the same amount of total calories at the same efficiency.

Anyway:

Imagine a world where there exist three object: One is a human, one is an nonhuman animal without moral value and the other is a strange being which has the same traits as the human except being human and has moral value. t is "being human".

I agree with this example. I think I can show this on the wiki.

I'm not sure I understand the example. My comment above may not be relevant:

PhilRisk:

He recognizes it may not be wrong to kill oysters or sponges, for example, because they lack morally relevant traits. If we were non-sentient we wouldn't mind being killed.
Isaac seems to think this is more of a case-by-case argument (not all animals or none, but each case where we want to act on animals in ways we wouldn't want ourselves acted upon evaluated independently).

DrSinger, can you lay out the different proposed versions and their issues more clearly?

btw Ask Yourself was supposed to be releasing part 1 of his 'beat down' last night. But it doesn't seem to be up yet. Apparently he animates NTT in the vid (I'm interested to see what that will look like)

Maybe he realized he was wrong and thought better of it to avoid embarrassing himself further?
(doubtful)

[DrSinger]

Imagine a world where there exist three object: One is a human, one is an nonhuman animal without moral value and the other is a strange being which has the same traits as the human except being human and has moral value. t is "being human"

I think I've found an issue with this. Once you remove the trait 'human' the replica becomes a nonhuman animal, since all humans possess the trait of being an animal. I think we'll probably have to make humans and animals two distinct sets.

DrSinger, can you lay out the different proposed versions and their issues more clearly?

I'll try it write them out clearly on the wiki once we've figured it all out. I think we need to make another change for the reason I described above

[brimstoneSalad]

Imagine a world where there exist three object: One is a human, one is an nonhuman animal without moral value and the other is a strange being which has the same traits as the human except being human and has moral value. t is "being human"

I think I've found an issue with this. Once you remove the trait 'human' the replica becomes a nonhuman animal, since all humans possess the trait of being an animal. I think we'll probably have to make humans and animals two distinct sets.

The distinct set is not all animals, but the creature or set of creatures being evaluated at this time. That's how Isaac uses it.

Oysters, do they have a trait? Non-sentience. OK, fine.
Sponges, etc.

There is an issue with not carefully specifying the group of animals under consideration (or the group of humans; those that have moral value), but I think a legitimate steel-man can compensate for that in the formalization. Just as Isaac permits P1 to be changed (like to you, personally, rather than all humans), in P2 "all animals" can be subbed for any particular one we're evaluating.

So for example: a human does not necessarily become a cow if that's what's being evaluated in this instance.

There is no trait absent in a cow that if absent in a copy of a human would cause the copy to have no moral value.

The only problem is that by specifying a group, meta-ethical assumptions may be implicitly introduced... which is why I think he wanted to keep that very general. The argument would really just need to be totally rewritten to something like "animal X has moral value if Y"... something he wouldn't do.

So do we hold him to the precise wording or not?

I think I see where this is going now... the trait is not a moral giving trait, because it's never claimed to be by a premise. And this establishes that...
There is a trait, and it abides by the rules of the premise by NOT devaluing the human copy.

So, maybe we consider both options:

The copy is a non-human animal, and that only proves that not ALL conceivable non-human animals lack moral value, but if this animal doesn't actually exists then it says nothing about the set of actual animals.

The copy is somehow excluded from the evaluated group (like by limiting it to cows), in which case P2 shows nothing at all. But how do we prove that?

[DrSinger]

Imagine a world where there exist three object: One is a human, one is an nonhuman animal without moral value and the other is a strange being which has the same traits as the human except being human and has moral value. t is "being human"

I think I've found an issue with this. Once you remove the trait 'human' the replica becomes a nonhuman animal, since all humans possess the trait of being an animal. I think we'll probably have to make humans and animals two distinct sets.

The distinct set is not all animals, but the creature or set of creatures being evaluated at this time. That's how Isaac uses it.

Oysters, do they have a trait? Non-sentience. OK, fine.
Sponges, etc.

There is an issue with not carefully specifying the group of animals under consideration (or the group of humans; those that have moral value), but I think a legitimate steel-man can compensate for that in the formalization.

The only problem is that by specifying a group, meta-ethical assumptions may be implicitly introduced... which is why I think he wanted to keep that very general.

I agree and I think we should use the two distinct sets 'humans' and 'whatever animals are under consideration', though I'm not sure how we would define the latter. The problem is when we allow 'humans' as being included in the set of 'animals' (which complicates things and is not how Ask Yourself uses it).

perhaps we could define:

H(x) is true ⇔ x is part of the set of humans, denoted S_h
A(x) is true ⇔ x is part of the set of animals being used in comparison, denoted S_a

with

S_h ∩ S_a = ∅ (i.e. the sets are disjoint)

It sounds a bit ambiguous but so long as the symbolic translation stays the same, except with the two sets disjoint I think it is fair. We could easily just generalise it in terms of two disjoint sets A & B. P1: members of set A have moral value ... C: members of set B have moral value

[PhilRisk]

Imagine a world where there exist three object: One is a human, one is an nonhuman animal without moral value and the other is a strange being which has the same traits as the human except being human and has moral value. t is "being human"

I think I've found an issue with this. Once you remove the trait 'human' the replica becomes a nonhuman animal, since all humans possess the trait of being an animal. I think we'll probably have to make humans and animals two distinct sets.

It follows from P2 that if there a traits which any animal does not have, but a human has, then there exists a being with does not have this trait but is the same to the human in any other respect and has moral value.
I did not work out a formal proof for it, but I think it should be provable. If humans are animals than there exists at least one animal with moral value. But this would include the further premise, that humans are animals. I do not think that this is an issue of my model, but it might really follow from the premises.

I had an idea how one might change P2 in order to make it possible, that the lost trait causes with necessity over all nomic same world the lost of other traits. This means that '□' is not logical but nomic necessity.

¬ ( ∃t: ( ∀x: (A(x) ∧ ¬H(x)) ⇒ t ∉ T(x) ) ∧ ( ∀y: H(y) ⇒ ( t ∈ T(y) ∧ ( ∀q: ( T(q) = T(y) \ { t } ) ⇒ ¬ M(q) ) )

would become

¬ ( ∃t: ( ∀x: (A(x) ∧ ¬H(x)) ⇒ t ∉ T(x) ) ∧ ( ∀y: H(y) ⇒ ( t ∈ T(y) ∧ ∀u∀z(□(t∉T(u)⇒z∉T(u))⇔z∈N) ∧ s={t}∪N ∧ ( ∀q: ( T(q) = T(y) \ { s } ) ⇒ ¬ M(q) ) )

If this step is not taken, P2 is probably false in the actual world, because there is no object that has exactly one trait less than any human being and has moral value.
If this P2 is taken than the strange being does not have to be an animal, because the trait taken away from the human being could also imply the loss of being an animal, but still allow for moral value.
But it would make P2 even more convoluted than it already is. All this debate shows in my view that P2 is way underdetermined in the original version. It's meaning is not clear to me.

[DrSinger]

It follows from P2 that if there a traits which any animal does not have, but a human has, then there exists a being with does not have this trait but is the same to the human in any other respect and has moral value.
I did not work out a formal proof for it, but I think it should be provable. If humans are animals than there exists at least one animal with moral value. But this would include the further premise, that humans are animals. I do not think that this is an issue of my model, but it might really follow from the premises.

I agree with this, because we have to make the statement

∀y: H(y) ⇒ ( ∃q: ( T(q) = T(y) \ {h} ) ⇒ M(q) )

in order to render P2 true (I think). Which makes q an animal if humans are included in the set of animals. Of course this wouldnt imply all animals have moral value. So we could probably show C does not follow, but it would be a bit more complicated than if they were distinct sets.

¬ ( ∃t: ( ∀x: (A(x) ∧ ¬H(x)) ⇒ t ∉ T(x) ) ∧ ( ∀y: H(y) ⇒ ( t ∈ T(y) ∧ ∀u∀z(□(t∉T(u)⇒z∉T(u))⇔z∈N) ∧ s={t}∪N ∧ ( ∀q: ( T(q) = T(y) \ { s } ) ⇒ ¬ M(q) ) )

that looks like a nightmare

But it would make P2 even more convoluted than it already is. All this debate shows in my view that P2 is way underdetermined in the original version. It's meaning is not clear to me.

I think we should just take it as if we're comparing two disjoint sets, this is clearly the way AY is using it both from the way he uses it and the analogies he makes. We have already changed the argument to 'nonhuman animals', so I dont think it would be in anyway unfair. I'm fairly confident I could show, in general, that the argument fails for disjoint sets

edit: Attempted to show this on the wiki, would like to know what people think.
I also think that the translation doesnt capture the fact that moral value is not a viable trait, because in the original it is not something that can be absent in humans