I object to the classification “conscious parts of me—person”, “unconscious parts of me—non-person”. I think that personhood is more like a collective property of the whole than residing in just the “conscious parts”. And, I don’t think my caring-about-myself is pointing towards only the “conscious parts”. I agree that cats might lack a part that humans have which has something to do with consciousness (with the important caveat that “consciousness” is an ill-defined term that probably refers to different things in different contexts), and this probably reduces the amount I care about them, but it still leaves a lot of me-caring-about-them.
So like “humans − 1.5”, “cats − 1.0“, “rocks − 0.0” instead of “1.0, 0.0, 0.0”? Ok then, sounds consistent. Someone might object that we call caring about non-conscious stuff “aesthetic preferences”, but I don’t see how caring about cat’s inner life usually expressed by behaviour is different.
I object to the classification “conscious parts of me—person”, “unconscious parts of me—non-person”. I think that personhood is more like a collective property of the whole than residing in just the “conscious parts”. And, I don’t think my caring-about-myself is pointing towards only the “conscious parts”. I agree that cats might lack a part that humans have which has something to do with consciousness (with the important caveat that “consciousness” is an ill-defined term that probably refers to different things in different contexts), and this probably reduces the amount I care about them, but it still leaves a lot of me-caring-about-them.
So like “humans − 1.5”, “cats − 1.0“, “rocks − 0.0” instead of “1.0, 0.0, 0.0”? Ok then, sounds consistent. Someone might object that we call caring about non-conscious stuff “aesthetic preferences”, but I don’t see how caring about cat’s inner life usually expressed by behaviour is different.