The moral claim to be treated ethically and justly, as an individual, rests on certain principles that transcend the genome and whatever we may know about it. This is why it has always been dangerous to rest the claim for LGBT equality on the argument that homosexuality is genetic or biological. It may well be, but what if it were proven not to be so? Would that now mean that it would be ethical to discriminate against LGBT folks, simply because it wasn’t something encoded in their biology, and perhaps was something over which they had more “control?”
Were it not political, this would serve as an excellent example of a number of things we’re supposed to do around here to get rid of rationalizing arguments and improper beliefs. I hear echoes of “Is that your true rejection?” and “One person’s modus ponens is another’s modus tollens” …
“Certain principles that transcend the genome” sounds like bafflegab or New-Agery as written — but if you state it as “mathematical principles that can be found in game theory and decision theory, and which apply to individuals of any sort, even aliens or AIs” then you get something that sounds quite a lot like X-rationality, doesn’t it?
Were it not political, this would serve as an excellent example of a number of things we’re supposed to do around here to get rid of rationalizing arguments and improper beliefs. I hear echoes of “Is that your true rejection?” and “One person’s modus ponens is another’s modus tollens” …
“Certain principles that transcend the genome” sounds like bafflegab or New-Agery as written — but if you state it as “mathematical principles that can be found in game theory and decision theory, and which apply to individuals of any sort, even aliens or AIs” then you get something that sounds quite a lot like X-rationality, doesn’t it?