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AngrySaki

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Posts posted by AngrySaki

  1. However, the problem of pon farr raises real questions about just sticking the clause "or Vulcan" in your moral principle.

    Various genetic flaws don't negate that fact,

    I guess to me these to statements seem at odds in a way (unless you don't think you can equate pon farr/vulcans to genetic flaws. If a special case may need to be made for vulcans' "known" lack of rationality in certain cases, then it makes me think a special case should be made for certain people's "known" lack of rationality in certain cases. Or is it truly because genetic flaws are so uncommon that they don't require a special case?

  2. Hmm, i'm still not sure i totally understand.

    However, the problem of pon farr raises real questions about just sticking the clause "or Vulcan" in your moral principle.

    If it is true that vulcans might not "fit" with human objectivism because of pon farr, could it not also be true of current humans born with genetic diseases/hormone imbalances/brain disorders?

    Or is it that since these are such rare cases, objectivism is not concerened with them for it's ethical framework?

  3. But that would lead to arbitrary parameters with regard to rights?

    You could get a bunch of people claiming that sentient earthworms exist and demanding that digging in the ground be prohibited because it is an abuse of their rights as conscious beings, when no such beings have ever been proven to exist...

    Oh, sorry, that's not what i was trying to get at, i was more trying to get at the idea of "how would volitional fish be treated in scenarios x,y,z", not assuming they exist without proof.

    NickS:

    That's way better :P

    (the historical scenario is actually what got me thinking about this, but i forgot about it when i started making my convoluted monkey men scenario :)

  4. Your question rests on two broader issues, the ethical question of the source of rights and the epistemological question of concept-formation. These two areas of philosophy come together via the observation that rights are moral concepts; the bulk of your question is really about the epistemological branch, namely refining concepts as your knowledge expands. Given the function of the concept "rights" and the world which we know, there is a perfect match between the concept "man=homo sapiens" and "right-bearing being". However, if you are able to expand our knowledge and show that it is possible for there to exist being with those properties of consciousness that lead to recognition of rights without the specific genetic identification "homo sapiens", then we would need to articulate our moral concepts to include, for example, conceptual volitional fish. This is related to conceptual changes that result from any change in knowledge, such as the discovery of a new species or the invention of new gadgetry.

    Sorry, i didn't see this before i started typing my response.

    Maybe i'm missing something, but it sort of seems strange that moral concepts would only change when the volitional fish are found. I would expect the moral concepts to change when volitional fish are thought of, but i could very well be misunderstanding something.

  5. Thanks for the replies.

    This is where your first error arises. "Objectively true" does not mean stand up to any hypothetical situation. What you are referring to is "Intrinsically true". Objectivism is not intrinsicism. In fact, objectively true is better determined by as you put it "everyday life." That is, the context of living in this world as men. "All well and good in everyday life" would be a better way to think about it.

    Thanks for pointing that out. I was getting the wrong impression from the people i had been talking to. I have to say, that this more or less makes my hypothetical statement pointless.

    There appears to be a significant gap between beings that are conceptual and those that are simply perceptual or instinctual. If that is the case, then the split seems much easier, incredible science fiction hypothetical notwithstanding.

    I guess that revelation leads me to a slightly different, but similar line of thinking.

    Is there a plausible future/scientific discovery*, that would force objectivism to be thrown out the window for something else? Or maybe cause objectivism to be morphed from what it currently is?

    If you can think of a plausible one, would objectivism immediately become invalid the instant a new situation arose in reality, or would it gradually become invalid as new situations became more common?

    *Ideas that jumped into my head were the understanding of conciousness at a neurological level, or the creation of true artificial intelligence

    I know this is more fairly silly speculation, so feel free to ignore me if you like :P

    The reason i ask such silly questions is i don't feel like i can really understand a concept unless i understand the "far edges/tipping point" of a concept, which helps me understand what assumptions that concept makes. So in the case of objectivism, i'm not particularily interested with the morals of monkey-men, but more "how silly of a situation do you need to create before objectivism doesn't apply".

  6. Since it's my first post: I'm not an objectivist, and i don't totally understand where the morals come from in objectivism, but i think i have vague to general idea. I've argued with some objectivists before, and was almost won over by them at one point, but never totally. I've also never read any books on the subject. I don't have a philosophy i live by/believe in.

    The actual post:

    From what i understand, in objectivism, what gives a creature it's rights is it's conciousness (i've heard the term concious volition get used i think), which seems all well and good in everyday life, but i if morals are objectively true, then i think they should stand up to any hypothetical situation. So, my situation is:

    Pretend it's the year 2100, and a "mad" scientists genetically engineers >1 million creatures (monkey-men) and lets them loose in the world. They are all different types of half monkey half human creatures, ranging in varying intelligence from the level of a monkey, to the intelligence of a human. There would also be creatures that looked like monkeys but were as smart as humans, and vice versa. And also, some of the creatures will stop maturing at varying ages, (eg. some will stop maturing at 1 day old, so they'll have the mental capcity of babies their entire lives).

    So the question is how does objectivism dictate which ones have rights and do they have them from birth, or their entire lives? and are they ever forfeit (eg. if it's eventually found that the creature will have the intelligence of a baby it's entire life)?

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