In my moral calculus, intelligence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for deserving compassion or consideration. Other entities can have “derived” compassion if they are valued by those that I value.
I feel I should partially share the values of others, which usually includes valuing themselves. Entities that aren’t aware or intelligent enough to have even rudimentary goals or values don’t normally get my concern. An entity could also simply not value itself, but evolution doesn’t produce many of those, so I haven’t seen any.
That chicken was exceptionally stupid, but it was among dozens not much smarter. The example wasn’t intended to illustrate that memory is necessary for value...but evolution also doesn’t produce many intelligent entities that are unable to learn. Chickens seem very reflexive, and not at all self-aware to me. I’m not willing to bet my life on this, but I currently don’t care much for them. Maybe 20,000 chicken-years to each human-year.
I’ve never thought much about the moral value of cephalopods, but until I think more about it I won’t eat them. I don’t really enjoy eating them much anyway.
In my moral calculus, intelligence is a necessary but not sufficient condition for deserving compassion or consideration. Other entities can have “derived” compassion if they are valued by those that I value.
I feel I should partially share the values of others, which usually includes valuing themselves. Entities that aren’t aware or intelligent enough to have even rudimentary goals or values don’t normally get my concern. An entity could also simply not value itself, but evolution doesn’t produce many of those, so I haven’t seen any.
That chicken was exceptionally stupid, but it was among dozens not much smarter. The example wasn’t intended to illustrate that memory is necessary for value...but evolution also doesn’t produce many intelligent entities that are unable to learn. Chickens seem very reflexive, and not at all self-aware to me. I’m not willing to bet my life on this, but I currently don’t care much for them. Maybe 20,000 chicken-years to each human-year.
I’ve never thought much about the moral value of cephalopods, but until I think more about it I won’t eat them. I don’t really enjoy eating them much anyway.