Vanvier, do human infants and toddlers deserve moral consideration primarily on account of their potential to become rational adult humans? Or are they valuable in themselves?
My intuitions say the former. I would not be averse to a quick end for young human children who are not going to live to see their third birthday.
But their lack of cognitive sophistication doesn’t make them any less sentient.
Agreed, mostly. (I think it might be meaningful to refer to syntax or math as ‘senses’ in the context of subjective experience and I suspect that abstract reasoning and subjective sensation of all emotions, including pain, are negatively correlated. The first weakly points towards valuing their experience less, but the second strongly points towards valuing their experience more.)
Vanvier, you say that you wouldn’t be averse to a quick end for young human children who are not going to live to see their third birthday. What about intellectually handicapped children with potentially normal lifespans whose cognitive capacities will never surpass a typical human toddler or mature pig?
What about intellectually handicapped children with potentially normal lifespans whose cognitive capacities will never surpass a typical human toddler or mature pig?
I’m not sure what this would look like, actually. The first thing that comes to mind is Down’s Syndrome, but the impression I get is that that’s a much smaller reduction in cognitive capacity than the one you’re describing. The last time I considered that issue, I favored abortion in the presence of a positive amniocentesis test for Down’s, and I suspect that the more extreme the reduction, the easier it would be to come to that direction.
I hope you don’t mind that this answers a different question than the one you asked- I think there are significant (practical, if not also moral) differences between gamete selection, embryo selection, abortion, infanticide, and execution of adults (sorted from easiest to justify to most difficult to justify). I don’t think execution of cognitively impaired adults would be justifiable in the presence of modern American economic constraints on grounds other than danger posed to others.
My intuitions say the former. I would not be averse to a quick end for young human children who are not going to live to see their third birthday.
Agreed, mostly. (I think it might be meaningful to refer to syntax or math as ‘senses’ in the context of subjective experience and I suspect that abstract reasoning and subjective sensation of all emotions, including pain, are negatively correlated. The first weakly points towards valuing their experience less, but the second strongly points towards valuing their experience more.)
Vanvier, you say that you wouldn’t be averse to a quick end for young human children who are not going to live to see their third birthday. What about intellectually handicapped children with potentially normal lifespans whose cognitive capacities will never surpass a typical human toddler or mature pig?
I’m not sure what this would look like, actually. The first thing that comes to mind is Down’s Syndrome, but the impression I get is that that’s a much smaller reduction in cognitive capacity than the one you’re describing. The last time I considered that issue, I favored abortion in the presence of a positive amniocentesis test for Down’s, and I suspect that the more extreme the reduction, the easier it would be to come to that direction.
I hope you don’t mind that this answers a different question than the one you asked- I think there are significant (practical, if not also moral) differences between gamete selection, embryo selection, abortion, infanticide, and execution of adults (sorted from easiest to justify to most difficult to justify). I don’t think execution of cognitively impaired adults would be justifiable in the presence of modern American economic constraints on grounds other than danger posed to others.