From: Smigrodzki, Rafal (SmigrodzkiR@MSX.UPMC.EDU)
Date: Fri Jun 08 2001 - 18:27:24 MDT
Samantha wrote:
>Why should transhumans refuse to die but expect lower members of the animal
kingdom to not require, demand or be given the >same respect and freedom to
live as humans or transhumans?
#### Let me first remark that I don't think there are any universal,
transcendent moral axioms in existence - our moral rules are just ways of
behaving, which developed because they helped with formation of stable,
productive societies ("Don't kill other people, unless they are bad" greatly
helps whenever there is more than one person around).
This said, almost all of us share certain moral predilections, perhaps
partially under genetic control, certainly to a great extent determined by
our social environments (the rule I mentioned above is one of them). These
rules can, with some effort, be applied to our question. I will not discuss
minority views - they can be described and catalogued, not argued with. In a
discussion about ethics we should not aim to change basic axioms but rather
work out differences in the interpretation of common views.
Why does anything need respect? Does a snail need respect and what does it
mean? I am convinced that snails do not have the understanding of personal
identity that humans do (and discuss on this list). A snail feels pain,
hunger, but does not understand the idea of death - will crawl away from
fire not to "save it's life" but to avoid pain. It has no wishes for us to
respect. A snail has no desire to live, because it doesn't understand death.
I don't have any problems with eating potatoes because they don't understand
almost anything at all, they have no possibility of wishing to be alive. By
extension, it should be also OK to eat cows. I am reasonably certain that
most of the animals commonly consumed by humans do not have such
understanding and wishes, and some day neuroscience will tell with certainty
whether chickens (which I eat occasionally) are people or not. However, I
would flinch at eating a chimpanzee, because chimps might be people, just
very hairy.
So, by a very general axiom, "Don't kill people" and basic neuroscience we
might conclude that killing certain animals is OK. This is of course just a
majority opinion, not a moral rule immanent in the universe but if you
respect the wishes of "people" you would have to conclude that non-people
(inanimate objects, bacteria, fungi, plants, non-sentient animals - all the
entities that do not understand the meaning of death) should serve us.
Rafal Smigrodzki MD-PhD
Dept Neurology University of Pittsburgh
smigrodzkir@msx.upmc.edu
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