Anyway, “species” isn’t a hard-edged category built in to nature—do you get less and less preferential treatment as you become less and less human?
It’s a lot more hard-edged than intelligence. Of all the animals (I’m talking about individual animals, not species) in the world, practically all are really close to 0% or 100% human. On the other hand, there is a broad range of intelligence among animals, and even in humans. So if you want a standard that draws a clean line, humanity is better than intelligence.
Also, what’s the standard against which beings are compared to determine how “human” they are? Phenotypically average among the current population? Nasty prospects for the cryonics advocates among us. And the mind-uploading camp.
I can tell the difference between an uploaded/frozen human, and a pig. Even a uploaded/frozen pig. Transhumans are in the preferential treatment category, but transpigs aren’t..
Also veers dangerously close to negative eugenics, if you’re going to start declaring some people are less human than others.
This is a fully general counter-argument. Any standard of moral worth will have certain objects that meet the standard and certain objects that fail. If you say “All objects that have X property have moral worth”, I can immediately accuse you of eugenics against objects that do not have X property.
And a question for you :If you think that more intelligence equals more moral worth, does that mean that AI superintelligences have super moral worth? If Clippy existed, would you try and maximize the number of paperclips in order to satisfy the wants a superior intelligence?
It’s a lot more hard-edged than intelligence. Of all the animals (I’m talking about individual animals, not species) in the world, practically all are really close to 0% or 100% human. On the other hand, there is a broad range of intelligence among animals, and even in humans. So if you want a standard that draws a clean line, humanity is better than intelligence.
I can tell the difference between an uploaded/frozen human, and a pig. Even a uploaded/frozen pig. Transhumans are in the preferential treatment category, but transpigs aren’t..
This is a fully general counter-argument. Any standard of moral worth will have certain objects that meet the standard and certain objects that fail. If you say “All objects that have X property have moral worth”, I can immediately accuse you of eugenics against objects that do not have X property.
And a question for you :If you think that more intelligence equals more moral worth, does that mean that AI superintelligences have super moral worth? If Clippy existed, would you try and maximize the number of paperclips in order to satisfy the wants a superior intelligence?