On the other hand, ‘rocks aren’t conscious’ does seem to draw on a good and principled necessary condition—anything unconscious (hence incapable of suffering or desiring or preferring) does seem categorically morally irrelevant, in a vacuum.
What about unconscious people?
Even so, I feel more comfortable placing most of the burden of proof on those who want to narrow our circle, rather than those who want to broaden it.
I don’t know why you got a down-vote; these are good questions.
What about unconscious people?
I’m not sure there are unconscious people. By ‘unconscious’ I meant ‘not having any experiences’. There’s also another sense of ‘unconscious’ in which people are obviously sometimes unconscious — whether they’re awake, aware of their surroundings, etc. Being conscious in that sense may be sufficient for ‘bare consciousness’, but it’s not necessary, since people can experience dreams while ‘unconscious’.
Supposing people do sometimes become truly and fully unconscious, I think this is morally equivalent to dying. So it might be that in a loose sense you die every night, as your consciousness truly ‘switches off’ — or, equivalently, we could say that certain forms of death (like death accompanying high-fidelity cryonic preservation) are in a loose sense a kind of sleep. You say /pəˈteɪtəʊ/, I say /pəˈteɪtoʊ/. The moral rights of dead or otherwise unconscious people would then depend on questions like ‘Do we have a responsibility to make conscious beings come into existence?’ and ‘Do we have a responsibility to fulfill people’s wishes after they die?‘. I’d lean toward ‘yes’ on the former, ‘no but it’s generally useful to act as though we do’ on the latter.
So what’s your position on abortion?
Complicated. At some stages the embryo is obviously unconscious, for the same reason some species are obviously unconscious. It’s conceivable that there’s no true consciousness at all until after birth — analogously, it’s possible all non-humans are zombies — but at this point I find it unlikely. So I think mid-to-late-stage fetuses do have some moral standing — perhaps not enough for painlessly killing them to be bad, but at least enough for causing them intense pain to be bad. (My view of chickens is similar; suffering is the main worry rather than death.) The two cases are also analogous in that some people have important health reasons for aborting or for eating meat.
What about unconscious people?
So what’s your position on abortion?
I don’t know why you got a down-vote; these are good questions.
I’m not sure there are unconscious people. By ‘unconscious’ I meant ‘not having any experiences’. There’s also another sense of ‘unconscious’ in which people are obviously sometimes unconscious — whether they’re awake, aware of their surroundings, etc. Being conscious in that sense may be sufficient for ‘bare consciousness’, but it’s not necessary, since people can experience dreams while ‘unconscious’.
Supposing people do sometimes become truly and fully unconscious, I think this is morally equivalent to dying. So it might be that in a loose sense you die every night, as your consciousness truly ‘switches off’ — or, equivalently, we could say that certain forms of death (like death accompanying high-fidelity cryonic preservation) are in a loose sense a kind of sleep. You say /pəˈteɪtəʊ/, I say /pəˈteɪtoʊ/. The moral rights of dead or otherwise unconscious people would then depend on questions like ‘Do we have a responsibility to make conscious beings come into existence?’ and ‘Do we have a responsibility to fulfill people’s wishes after they die?‘. I’d lean toward ‘yes’ on the former, ‘no but it’s generally useful to act as though we do’ on the latter.
Complicated. At some stages the embryo is obviously unconscious, for the same reason some species are obviously unconscious. It’s conceivable that there’s no true consciousness at all until after birth — analogously, it’s possible all non-humans are zombies — but at this point I find it unlikely. So I think mid-to-late-stage fetuses do have some moral standing — perhaps not enough for painlessly killing them to be bad, but at least enough for causing them intense pain to be bad. (My view of chickens is similar; suffering is the main worry rather than death.) The two cases are also analogous in that some people have important health reasons for aborting or for eating meat.