I’m wondering what ethical system you are using. It does not seem to be utilitarianism. Do you subscribe to a hard-and-fast deontological rule “agency deserves life”, where the agency in question can be current or potential? If so, are your proposed solutions designed to redefine agency in a way that does not conflict with some other parts of your ethics you do not mention, likely implicit consequentialism?
I think that you should analyze and clarify your values before proposing solutions.
I think that you should analyze and clarify your values before proposing solutions.
The entire point of my attempt to work through this problem was to analyze and clarify my values. Specifically, I was attempting to determine if the common-sense value that “harming sleeping people is just as bad as harming conscious people” in any way conflicted with the preference-utilitarianism-type ethical system I subscribe to. I concluded that it probably didn’t, because a person can be said to have “preferences” or “values” even while unconscious.
I’m wondering what ethical system you are using. It does not seem to be utilitarianism. Do you subscribe to a hard-and-fast deontological rule “agency deserves life”, where the agency in question can be current or potential? If so, are your proposed solutions designed to redefine agency in a way that does not conflict with some other parts of your ethics you do not mention, likely implicit consequentialism?
I think that you should analyze and clarify your values before proposing solutions.
The entire point of my attempt to work through this problem was to analyze and clarify my values. Specifically, I was attempting to determine if the common-sense value that “harming sleeping people is just as bad as harming conscious people” in any way conflicted with the preference-utilitarianism-type ethical system I subscribe to. I concluded that it probably didn’t, because a person can be said to have “preferences” or “values” even while unconscious.