Psy-Kosh, I realize the goal is to have a definition that’s non-arbitrary. So it has to correlate with something else. And I don’t see what we’re trying to match it with, other than our own subjective sense of “a thing that it would be unethical to unintentionally create and destroy.” Isn’t this the same problem as the abortion debate? When does life begin? Well, what exactly is life in the first place? How do we separate persons from non-persons? Well, what’s a person?
I think the problem to be solved lies not in this question, but in how the ethics of the asker are defined in the first place. And I just don’t mean Eliezer, because this is clearly a larger-scale question. “How well will different possible boundary functions match the ethical standards of modern American society?” might be a good place to start.
Psy-Kosh, I realize the goal is to have a definition that’s non-arbitrary. So it has to correlate with something else. And I don’t see what we’re trying to match it with, other than our own subjective sense of “a thing that it would be unethical to unintentionally create and destroy.” Isn’t this the same problem as the abortion debate? When does life begin? Well, what exactly is life in the first place? How do we separate persons from non-persons? Well, what’s a person?
I think the problem to be solved lies not in this question, but in how the ethics of the asker are defined in the first place. And I just don’t mean Eliezer, because this is clearly a larger-scale question. “How well will different possible boundary functions match the ethical standards of modern American society?” might be a good place to start.