Actually, “Would you eat a Wookie?” is probably a helpful distinguishing question here. For me the answer is obviously “No!” and occurs with the same fleeting nausea as “Would you eat a human being?” But I grew up reading SF books like Little Fuzzy that teach personhood theory in a very visceral way. Other readers claimed they weren’t bothered by the Babyeaters because the children eaten weren’t human!
Indeed, one thing that surprises ethicists their first time teaching is that in ordinary English, ‘person’ and ‘human’ mean the same thing—so most intro students, when asked ‘is Yoda a person’ will answer ‘no’, even though they’d answer ‘yes’ to ‘is Luke Skywalker a person’.
I was just the other day lamenting how many people, even largely intelligent and conscientious seeming individuals, answer “Yes” to the OkCupid match question “If you landed on an alien planet where the local intelligent life form tasted unbelievably good, would you eat them?”
I’m TAing discussion sections for the first time today, and based on some of the nonsense the students spouted in lecture yesterday, I’m going to need to cover what those words mean.
Update: I had one person say she would be fine with barbecuing Yoda because he wasn’t human. I used this to segue into my explanation of what it means to bite the bullet.
Actually, “Would you eat a Wookie?” is probably a helpful distinguishing question here. For me the answer is obviously “No!” and occurs with the same fleeting nausea as “Would you eat a human being?” But I grew up reading SF books like Little Fuzzy that teach personhood theory in a very visceral way. Other readers claimed they weren’t bothered by the Babyeaters because the children eaten weren’t human!
Indeed, one thing that surprises ethicists their first time teaching is that in ordinary English, ‘person’ and ‘human’ mean the same thing—so most intro students, when asked ‘is Yoda a person’ will answer ‘no’, even though they’d answer ‘yes’ to ‘is Luke Skywalker a person’.
Maybe you need to ask, “Would you eat Yoda if his species were tasty?”
I was just the other day lamenting how many people, even largely intelligent and conscientious seeming individuals, answer “Yes” to the OkCupid match question “If you landed on an alien planet where the local intelligent life form tasted unbelievably good, would you eat them?”
I’m TAing discussion sections for the first time today, and based on some of the nonsense the students spouted in lecture yesterday, I’m going to need to cover what those words mean.
Update: I had one person say she would be fine with barbecuing Yoda because he wasn’t human. I used this to segue into my explanation of what it means to bite the bullet.
I begin to wonder if your students are people.