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June 2, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:44:47
Do Animals Have Rights? Freedomain Debate!
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Well, nice to meet you, Isaac.
Thanks a lot for having a chat.
It's a very, very interesting topic.
I've been absorbed in it for the last day or two.
And I mean, I've made arguments regarding animal rights in the past, but it was great to go in and get more data.
So thanks for the opportunity to have this conversation.
Yeah, absolutely.
I was actually going to open up by saying the same thing to you.
I appreciate you coming by the Discord.
And I'm sure that a ton of other people here do as well.
Well, why don't you, do you want to lay the foundation for your side and we'll take it from there?
Sure, I'm happy to.
I also want to take just one moment to set the tone for the discussion because I think the tone can have a productive or unproductive effect.
So I just want to say where I'm coming from.
So my goal is ultimately just to get to the truth.
I just want to explore your position, explore mine, see if we can figure out where we're disagreeing and then Maybe we'll be able to resolve the disagreement.
That would be ideal.
Or maybe we won't.
Maybe it'll come down to something that we need more data to really understand, or maybe it'll come down to a fundamental value difference.
But my goal is really just to get to the truth.
And in keeping with that, I just want to say that if at any point you feel that I'm mischaracterizing your position, or I'm not addressing the core point that you had made, maybe I'm missing the point, Or anything like that at all, just feel free to chop right in, and I don't mind getting cut off, and if you reset me and I'm still not getting the point, just feel free to do so again, because I have no interest in mischaracterizing.
Well thanks, I appreciate that.
What I like to bring to the table with regards to debates is always a bit of a sort of different flavor or an unusual approach, otherwise it's kind of predictable.
So to me, of course, since mostly when I walk around a mall I see human beings as rotating pieces of chicken like in a rotisserie, if I can get us all the way past animal rights onto straight-up cannibalism, I would consider that a huge win.
And then, of course, you can join me.
I think it happens quite a bit in Germany.
You can meet people on the internet for that.
So let's aim to get as close as we can to cannibalism.
I'm just being facetious, of course.
But yeah, no, interrupt me away, of course, as much as you see fit.
And we'll, you know, I don't like this sort of formal debate too much stuff.
We'll just have a conversation like we were sitting across in a coffee shop with a prime rib.
Totally agree.
I love that.
Okay, yeah, so I will start it off, and just one last thing.
Some people here might have seen our last conversation.
That was a great conversation, but I think that for anyone who doesn't have that context, it might be confusing to start from where we left off, so I'm all for just starting fresh, if that works for you all.
Agreed.
Okay.
Cool.
Well, with that said, let's just get right into it.
You asked me to open up, so I'll go ahead.
Okay, so, Stefan, you affirm the non-aggression principle, which I think we could summarize as the moral principle that you ought not aggress against another unless that other is aggressing against you.
Would you be okay with that characterization?
Another human being, yes.
You should not initiate force against other... Yeah, you should not initiate force against other human beings.
Unless they're initiating force against you, presumably, right?
Well, then it's not initiation, it's a response, right?
You can't start a fight, but it's okay to end one.
Okay, yeah, I'm fine with that.
So the What you do is you extend the non-aggression principle to humans, but you don't extend it to animals.
So I would like to ask you a question, and that question is going to be basically the same as last time.
I'm wondering what it is that's true of animals, which, if true of humans, would cause you not to extend the non-aggression principle to them.
I think we may have just blown past my tolerance for double negatives.
So are you asking me what characteristics animals would be able to achieve that would include them in the non-aggression principle?
I'll try to state it as clearly as possible.
So I'm wondering what it is that's true of animals which, if true of humans, would cause you to say they don't deserve the non-aggression principle.
Right.
Okay, so if I understand this correctly, you're sort of saying, okay, well, let's say I say that if you have, you know, like, if you are, if you don't have the capacity to understand a moral contract or a social contract, Then you're not bound by the non-aggression principle.
And I'm fully aware, of course, that there are some human beings who are unable to process the abstract non-aggression principle.
And, you know, you wouldn't allow somebody with an IQ of 50 to sign a contract.
For instance, somebody who had significant mental handicaps or challenges would not be accorded full human rights.
And it is conceivable, of course, that you could have human beings, either through some genetic disorder or through some brain injury, that might end up with a functional level of intelligence similar to that of an ape or maybe even a less intelligent form of mammal and so on.
And so the question is, is it simply a matter of intelligence?
Now, of course, if it is a matter of intelligence and the ability to comprehend the non-aggression principle, then you could make a case, of course, that we should eat people who are mentally handicapped, which we know we kind of find repulsive and a terrible idea, which I think I can understand why.
And so my sort of response to this is to say, that we have a category called humanity.
Now, in humanity there is a bell curve of, you know, super-intelligent, medium-intelligent, low-intelligence, and right out at the edge, I guess on the left of the bell curve, are human beings who don't have enough intelligence to function in society.
Now, the reason why I would not include them in the category of animal or non-human is a. they are human, B, they can give birth to human beings, which obviously apes and so can't, so they are potential intelligence.
And C, there can be some kind of cure or some kind of way of remediating genetic or physical damage to the brain that might allow them to once more, you know, flowers for Algernon style, participate in human society.
And so because of that we kind of have a line That is, okay, humanity is in one category, because humanity is by definition the rational animal, and again there are irrational, anti-rational, non-rational human beings, people in comas and so on, people asleep, people distracted, people who are socialists, whatever, right?
So there are people who don't get sort of universality, but they're still in the category
of human being and that's where I would draw the line and of course you know given the shades of gray where you would say okay well if you have an IQ of 50 or below you're not categorized as a human being well you are you're just a human being with an IQ of 50 or below and nobody I think would feel very comfortable saying at least I hope not well you can eat people with an IQ of 49 but an IQ of 50 would be totally immoral to do so I get just we just need to have that category because you really can't make moral rules by the wildly unusual exceptions.
It's like trying to run biology by saying, well, you know, every now and then a dog is born with three legs and therefore we have no idea.
what a dog is.
Well a dog is a four-legged mammal and yeah occasionally you're going to get a dog with two heads, three tongues, two tails or no tail or whatever and those are exceptions to the rule that does not invalidate the category lupus or whatever it is that defines a dog and so we sort of look at the more towards the center of the bell curve and say well human beings by definition and certainly on average have the capacity to process universal and mutual moral rules and because of that
They are able to participate in the umbrella protection of the non-aggression principle.
Animals, by definition, on an average, and I don't think there are any animals that could process the non-aggression principle, certainly not on average, are not protected under the non-aggression principle.
So that's a real, I'm sorry, I'm trying to keep it brief, but that's sort of the opening salvo, so to speak.
Yeah, sure, no, you can always take your time.
Okay, so for me to process what you said with respect to the question I asked, I'm going to have to be maybe a bit pedantic, a bit reductive, so hopefully that doesn't frustrate you, but I'm going to try to condense what you just said down to a trait, or set of traits.
For the purpose of this conversation, trait just refers to that thing true of animals which, if true of humans, would justify not extending them the non-aggression principle.
So, what it sounds like you're saying to me is that the trait is belonging to a species which, on average, can reciprocate social contracts.
Would you say that that's accurate?
Yeah, can understand through language and process philosophical abstractions of morality.
Okay, so the trait would be belonging to a species which on average can, what was it, process philosophical abstractions with respect to morality?
Yeah, process through language philosophical abstractions relative to morality in particular.
Okay, all right.
Now, have you heard the term species normality before?
Speciesism?
Species normality.
No.
So that's the term that they use in the literature when they're talking about the kind of argument you're making.
So it's an argument which tries not to appeal to a trait that every individual member needs to have, but that the group as a whole, what you're calling the category, has, right?
So if the trait is species normality on ability to conceptualize morality, Then the reductio to that position would be that if on average humans could not reciprocate social contracts, so if 51% of us were mentally disabled to that degree, then it would become fine to murder people and make them into hamburgers.
Would you accept that conclusion to your position?
If you're saying that the majority of human beings in the world were functionally unable to process abstractions in the realm of morality, is that what you mean?
Yeah, say we have, I can use the same example as last time, let's just say a genetic disease hits and 51% of the population is now disabled to a significant degree, so they can't do that.
Well, no, because we have already within the category the possibility of a cure, right?
So if there is some genetic disorder that hits humanity, 51%, well, first of all, I don't think we'd have to worry about animal rights because people would, I don't even know what society would look like.
I know, I mean, I'm just, within the context of the conversation.
But no, because you would have a cure, and of course if it was something which attacked the brain you could still have reproduction with healthy children and so on, so it would be a deviation which would be temporary from the norm of humanity, but you'd still be protected under the non-aggression principle because you had the potential for returning to a state of normalcy with regards to cognitive processes.
Okay, so it sounds like there's actually maybe a bit of a two-trait stack going on.
So it's species normality on ability to conceptualize morality in combination with there being a cure.
So now the reductio is going to be the same, except there isn't a cure.
Well no, it's the same argument as before, which is there are people who have extraordinarily low IQs, but they can still give birth to normal children, and they can potentially be cured in some sort of theoretical way.
So all you've done is taken my exception, the very left tail of the bell curve, and you've moved it to the center, but the principle remains the same.
Right, so with respect to them being a cure, in the hypothetical there's not a cure.
But you added in also there the factor of being able to produce further beings that can do this.
So we could say now that it's like a three trait stack.
So there's species normality on ability to conceptualize morality.
then there is not being a cure, and then there is being able to reproduce.
So we're going to say that 51% of people can't be cured, are not at that level of cognitive capacity, and are sterile.
Does it trouble you to stack these improbabilities as the foundation of your argument?
Because to know that there is not a cure requires omniscience, which we can't possibly have.
In the world, right?
I mean, so if you have to invoke some deity that is going to know for sure that there's no possible cure, you know, in this zombie apocalypse of 51% of people with half a brain or something like that, I think at this point we're so far removed from reality that it's just not a practical place to start from.
Because if you're going to say, well, there's no cure, How could you possibly know that even in the extraordinarily manufactured scenario that you're talking about?
How on earth would you know?
The whole point is we don't know if there's a cure any more than we know for certain that someone in a coma is not going to wake up tomorrow, right?
I mean, so the fact is we don't know and because of that not knowing we have to extend the NAP.
Right, so now I'm not trying to be rude at all but what you're doing there is altering the hypothetical, right?
It's not the case that there is a cure in the hypothetical.
No, no, but I'm not altering the hypothetical.
I'm saying that you can't have that knowledge.
Even in the hypothetical, you can't say there's no possibility of a cure.
Well, in the hypothetical, I don't understand why you wouldn't be able to say that in the hypothetical.
That's like how the hypothetical is constructed.
Well, no, because that is saying that the hypothetical travels through time past the decision point, right?
Because if you, let's say, let's say this happens tomorrow, right?
So then we would have decisions to make tomorrow.
But if you're saying there's no cure, then you're saying the hypothetical that occurs tomorrow also extends infinitely into the future, and you know for sure that there's no cure.
And that's not a possible scenario in reality, because there's always a possibility of a cure, right?
Well, in the hypothetical, well, I mean, this is just going to be a fundamental kind of disagreement here, because the hypothetical is structured such that you have knowledge that there is no cure.
So there's like three components to the hypothetical.
So 51% of people are below the level of cognitive complexity where they're able to conceptualize moral abstraction.
Those same people are also sterile, and we have knowledge in the hypothetical that there's no cure.
Now, if your response to that is simply to alter the hypothetical, then I wouldn't know how to engage further.
No, it would be to say that the hypothetical is impossible.
Because to know that there is no cure is to know all possible... I mean, can you imagine the amount of genius and motivation that would be poured into trying to find a cure?
And the cure could be... I mean, just to get ridiculous, let's say that half the brain was eaten away.
The cure could be that you take some sort of genetic sample, the people die because they can't function and there wouldn't be enough food production to support those people, and then you regrow them.
I mean, you could come up with where, okay, now they're human beings again because you've regrown them or you've cloned them or something like that, right?
So if you're going to say that there's no possibility of a cure for a disease, then you're setting up a theoretical that could not exist in reality, because there's always a possibility of some remediation for a, you know, even if you just come up with stuff like you You could take the DNA, replicate it in a computer, and come up with a walking robot that would be indistinguishable from blah blah blah.
There's always some way to remediate the issue.
Potentially.
Potentially.
I'm not saying you'd actually.
So, I mean, I don't mind if we go forward in this scenario.
You know how they say in court, you know, I just want it noted for the record that I consider... I'm not going to go forward and then circle back and undo all the going forwardness.
I just want to point out that if you're going to have a theoretical that says, Here's an ailment, it hits 51% of the people, and I know from here to eternity there is no cure.
Then you're taking something that happens in a particular time slice, a disease, and then you're extending the scenario at the same time as you're asking for the decision point in a particular time slice.
You're also stretching that scenario out forward to infinity, which is two jumbles together of Two scenarios, right?
One of which occurs when there's the illness and the other is I now have omniscience knowing that from now until the end of time there's no possibility of a cure.
Because let's say that the cure is in a thousand years.
Okay, well maybe you can freeze some people.
You know what I mean?
Like you could Walt Disney some people and then resurrect them and apply the cure or something, right?
So I don't mind if we go forward.
I mean, that's perfectly fine.
And I, you know, I'm not going to be one of these guys who, if I lose the debate, going to say, yeah, well, I didn't like that thing to begin with.
No, that's perfectly, I will accept that.
I just wanted to note that it's, it's not my preferred way to approach it, but I'm happy to keep going.
Well, I certainly appreciate, I have to say, that you're taking the angle of, let's go forward anyway, and I'm not going to try to say, I'm not going to try to have this get-out-of-jail-free card, basically, at the end, where I say, ah, but there's this one point that it's a cool thing to do.
That's kind of cheating, because to me, there's no point going forward if you're going to circle back and, you know, undo the thing that you started.
So, okay, let's go with this three-point scenario.
Fifty-one percent… Well, wait, wait.
Sorry, I don't want to cut you off.
The thing is that even if you personally are not going to do that, which I believe you when you say you won't, people will do that.
So I think that we should spend time to actually clear up if there's some kind of problem with the hypothetical.
So if you think that there's like a logical problem, maybe like it entails a contradiction or a violation of like the law of identity or there's some...
I know, it's a reality.
It's just, look, it's a reality, which is that if we wake up tomorrow with this horrible ailment, having consumed humanity, we would be in a position, or we would be in a basic temporal, a time position.
Tomorrow at noon, right, it hits humanity, probably through some CNN virus, right?
So tomorrow at noon it hits humanity, and we have to make decisions.
Now, we have to make decisions, and we cannot know that there's no cure.
Right in that time frame.
Now if we then zoom out and we're omniscient and we know the beginning and end of the universe and there's no free will and right that's a different scenario but in the world that you and I would live in tomorrow if this hits we would in no way be certain that there could never be a cure.
Does that make sense?
Um, well, I think you're saying that you think that we wouldn't be able to... Well, yeah, like, I understand what you're saying.
You're trying to say that if we actually had a genetic disease strike, we wouldn't have that kind of certainty.
So if it helps, like, I could just add to the hypothetical, like, say God just gives you the knowledge or something.
Okay, all right, all right.
Of course, God would then give you knowledge of a cure.
But anyway, because God likes people to have free will.
But let's say it's an evil god.
Maybe he's a demon, yeah.
Let's say it's some ancient Egyptian cat god that hates humanity for not giving it enough catnip or something.
Okay.
Sure, yeah, okay, we'll say it's that, God.
Because the whole thing here is I want to get to the moral conclusion of the position, right?
Because I think that there is a conclusion here that you actually probably wouldn't like.
Well, so what you're doing is you're creating 51% of humanity is now functionally in the category of animal, right?
Not in the category... well, I mean, we're all animals, but like in the... I'm... so what I'm doing is... No, sorry, just so... I hate to interrupt, but let's just do this for clarity.
We'll just say human and animal.
I know that human beings are animals, but earlier you were talking about humans versus animals, so...
Yeah, just for the sake of clarity, let's just do human and animal.
So with this 51%, you're taking away the characteristics that I set up earlier, which were the definition of humanity, and you're moving human beings functionally into the category of animal, 51%.
Is that right?
Not quite.
So I'm not necessarily saying that at that point they would become animals, right?
So, what I'm doing is I'm setting up a question where I'm saying, look, there's some set of things that's true of animals.
There's some set of things that's true of humans.
Now, what I'm asking is, of those things true of animals, which would have to be true of the human in order for you to say they don't deserve the non-aggression principle?
So, the criteria you gave me was threefold, right?
And you were just listing it off.
I can list again for the people listening.
It's, um, the not belonging to a category of people who- a category of beings who on average can reciprocate social contracts, who can, uh, sorry, who can, uh, do, like, abstract moral reasoning, uh, not being able to reproduce, um, beings that would be able to do that, and then thirdly, um, what was the other?
They're not being a cure.
So what I've done is I've applied those three factors to humans.
I'm not making a statement about whether they're still human or not.
That was the thing I was slightly objecting to.
Like, I think they'd still be humans.
But I'm just giving your sufficient criteria for not extending the NAP, then asking you if you'd really be comfortable not giving those people the NAP.
Okay, let me ask you this.
Sorry, go ahead.
Okay, we're both being too polite here.
We're Canadian.
So the only other thing, there's also a weirdness here.
Your species normality argument doesn't just apply to those disabled people.
It's also going to apply to the 49% who are cognitively normal.
That was just something else to add in.
But yeah, sorry, go ahead.
Sorry, can you just repeat that last point?
I didn't quite follow.
Right.
So you're giving a justification for not extending the NAP to... So I'm asking, what's true of animals, which if true of humans would justify not giving them the NAP?
Now, when I apply those three factors, it should be justified to not extend the NAP to humans as a category, not specifically just to those disabled humans.
It's going to apply to actually the whole category.
So I was just throwing that in also, just for clarity's sake.
So give me, if you would, just give me some kind of understanding of this scenario in actual life, right?
So tomorrow this hits.
I hope you don't mind.
I don't mean to diminish your argument, but if we can just... That's fine.
Can we call them zombies?
Is that okay?
Um, well, I personally like I it's funny, and I don't I know you're not trying to be like bad with that.
But that gives a kind of framing where it makes it seem like obviously they don't have moral value in movies.
We're always killing zombies.
And it makes them seem maybe like they're bloodthirsty.
So I'm actually not okay with that.
No, that's fine.
What should we call them?
Brainless?
Or?
No, they're not brainless.
We could call them mentally disabled.
See, you don't like that phrase, right?
Yeah, the reason for that is that, of course, we can't put them in the category of mentally disabled, because that may be an even greater supposed cheat and so on than zombies.
Because if we say mentally disabled, we're putting them in a category which is currently protected by the NAP, which is they can reproduce and they can be a cure, right?
Well, these people would still fall under the category of being mentally disabled.
So I don't know, I mean, whether or not that merits the NAP on your view, that's the whole thing we'll get into, but I don't know what basis there would be for not saying that they're mentally disabled people.
Like, it's literally just mentally disabled people who are sterile and who we know there's no way to bring up to our average level of intelligence.
I'm just wondering.
I mean, this may be a dodge and let me know if it is, but the thought just popped into my mind that you could still use their cells to create human life through cloning, right?
Right.
So I certainly don't think you're trying to dodge at all.
I definitely think you're being honest, but that is altering the hypothetical unintentionally, right?
Because that's creating a situation where there is a cure.
So now it's not.
No, no, no, no, no.
There's not a cure.
No, hang on.
There's not a cure for their ailment, but there is still a possibility of creating human beings from their DNA.
Oh, so, okay.
Well, if you want to add into your... Okay, wait.
So, I guess then, instead of being able to directly reproduce, we could say, like, being able to, like, somehow make more humans out of them?
Well, sure.
I mean, you can make... I mean, you can make new humans from human cells, to some degree or another, right?
Right, so it sounds like what you're trying to do there is sort of just, I don't want to say alter because that makes it sound unfair, but you're trying to set up the situation such that sterility isn't going to mean that we can't make any more of them.
But the reason I chose sterility was just to say we can't make any more of them.
I mean, I could just alter sterility to just, we're not able to make any more humans who are intelligent out of them.
Like, let's say, I mean, if we want to get, if we need, like, practical details to, like, paint a picture, like, we can say, when we try to do that, it just ends up creating more of these same kind of people.
Oh, so the DNA of the The people that we're talking about, the 51%, their DNA has been so fundamentally altered that they're no longer in the category, even at a cellular or genetic level, of human being, right?
Okay, well, here's a slight thing.
I don't want to say that they're not in the category of human.
Whether you say that, I mean, maybe we're all... Come on!
You're saying that their DNA has been fundamentally altered to the point where you can't make a human being out of them.
Well, I don't know if it has to be their DNA, but it's just that they are severely, they're disabled, right?
And then any attempt to create more humans out of them just produces more disabled humans.
So, um, I don't want to like quibble over whether they're humans or not, but I mean, we're talking about someone who would look like just a mentally disabled person you would see in real life, who most people would identify as being human.
Well, but if you can't... if they have no human cells left, or you can't create another human being out of the cells, because then they would, I think, technically be a different species at that point, wouldn't they?
Well, I don't want to actually give some specific genetic answer.
Let's just say that they are still genetically, they're just like the disabled people we have, but there's some kind of... the disease, all it does is it makes it impossible for them to reproduce, or for you to reproduce more of them that aren't going to be disabled in the same kind of way.
So they would be, to all practical intents and purposes, and I'm not trying to, again, I'm not trying to set up a difficulty here, I just want to make sure I understand this conceptually, you're setting things up so that This 51% would have functionally the same characteristics as, say, a chimpanzee, right?
Because a chimpanzee can't create a human being.
A chimpanzee can't have its brain, quote, fixed to become a human being.
You can't take cells from a chimpanzee and create a human being through cloning or anything like that.
So is it my understanding that you have made a category of humanity that is, in terms of classification, from a moral and biological classification, would be identical or functionally identical to that of a chimpanzee or some other ape.
No, I think they would be more like humans.
So I think that what's happening here is if you want me to grant that they're not human, because then it's just going to be kind of straightforward for you to say, oh, they don't get the NAP, right?
So what I want to talk about is just sort of just like the character of like experience they have and sort of what they look like.
So they look just like a disabled person who you'd see out on the street, and their experience is identical to a disabled person you'd see on the street.
And how disabled are we talking here, just out of curiosity?
Disabled such that you wouldn't be able to say that a cow can do that kind of moral reasoning that you are placing value on to a greater degree than them.
So they would have the functional mental capacities of a cow?
Well, we don't have to say all of their mental capacities, actually, based on the trait stack that you gave, because what you... I mean, again, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like what you cared about was them having the kind of cognition that would allow them to do abstract moral reasoning.
Oh, no, no, no, I understand, but they would have the moral reasoning capacities of a cow.
Yes, but there's no greater... at least nothing greater than that, yeah.
Right, right.
Okay, so I understand now.
We basically have, and I don't mean to sound facetious, but the way I'm characterizing it is that we have a cow's brain in a semi-human body, insofar as it was human but it's been genetically altered to the point where you can't make new human beings even out of cellular reproduction.
So, we have 51% of humanity has undergone a terrible transformation to the point where they don't share any of the original characteristics that I talked about that would protect them under the non-aggression principle.
Am I correct in that?
How the body wasn't quite fair, because there are humans who have human brains who aren't capable of reasoning like that.
So, again, like, I would not say there is.
No, no, you can't bring any existing human examples in, because in this instance, we have cellular transformation, right, assume at the genetic level, and we also have an Egyptian cat god who's told us there will never ever be any cure.
Now, that's not at all the case with existing people who have mental handicaps or deficiencies and so on.
Neither category is true.
There could be a cure, and you can certainly clone them.
So we can't sort of bring... because we've gone into a little bit of magical theoretical land, which I'm perfectly happy to do, but if you want to take me to, you know, the Egyptian cat goddess told us there'll never be a cure, then we can't circle back and compare this scenario to an existing scenario, because we're in a different place completely.
Well, the core thing that weirded me out was when you said cow brain and a human body.
Because in terms of the brain, right, there's people out there right now who are disabled, such that they wouldn't be able to engage in moral reasoning to any greater degree than a cow.
Yes, and as I said, but that's not, you can't take existing scenarios.
Sorry, who's that typing?
That's kind of annoying.
Sorry, that, sorry, I'm really not trying to be annoying.
I'm just writing down your list.
Oh, no, that's fine.
That's fine.
I would suggest, I would suggest pen and paper myself.
That's what I do, because yeah, the typing.
I can also, sorry, my bad.
No, see, but the problem is you can't take this scenario that we've constructed, which has two characteristics that would never exist in the world, which is they're no longer, in a cellular way, human beings.
And secondly, we know for certain, because of omniscience, that they'll never be cured.
So you can't say, well, there are human beings now who have the moral reasoning capacities of a cow.
And it's like, well, no, because that's not an equivalence to your scenario, because they're still human beings.
You can clone them.
We don't know whether they can be cured or not, right?
So if you're going to put those two additional standards in, you have to leave the existing world behind.
I don't think I really agree with that.
So we can spend some time on this, I guess.
So what I'm doing is I'm taking an example disabled person who exists right now, who doesn't have the ability to engage in moral reasoning beyond what a cow can do.
And I'm saying 51% of people are like that, are sterile.
No, no, listen, I'm sorry to interrupt.
I understand all of that.
I understand all of that.
If we go into your world of a moral theoretical, which I'm happy to do, if in your world we have omniscience about the impossibility of a future cure, and they have cellular transformations to the point where you can't even make any new human being out of them, Then that's fine, we can go there, but then you can't say that's like somebody who is mentally handicapped or mentally challenged in the world now.
Because it's not.
Because we have these two additional standards.
No longer have cellular human characteristics, and we know for sure that there's no cure.
We don't know, well neither of those things would be true in the current world.
So if we're going to go into the theoretical world, that's fine, but you can't circle back and tie it to the current world because you have these two standards that would never occur in the current world.
Okay, so I think we are going to have to spend time here because I think we're really disagreeing on this.
Because I think that it'll serve your argument if you can say something along the lines that they're nothing like humans, right?
And my whole argument is running off the notion that they are quite a lot like humans.
So the respects in which they're similar are they look identical and their subjective experience is identical.
I mean, We're the alterations that we're making are we're saying again, I don't I don't want to frustrate but I'm just gonna end up repeating it.
So it's like we take a person who's sufficiently disabled, but they can't engage in moral reasoning beyond what a cow can do.
We say 51% of people are like that.
And those 51% of people are sterile.
Well, and at a cellular level, you can't make new human beings out of them or freeze their cells to clone them in the future or anything like that, right?
Yeah, well, I don't want to make some statement about what their cells are like or something, but just the situation is such that you can't create more humans out of them.
Yeah, you can't like somehow derive like a cognitively normal human out of these people.
Okay.
So what I'm saying is that at least two of those standards do not apply to existing people who are mentally handicapped.
So if we're going to go into your theoretical world, which I'm fine and happy to do, that's fine, but then you can't say, well, then that's like somebody who's mentally handicapped in the present.
Because it's not.
Mentally handicapped in the present could be cured and they certainly are human and of course most of them are not sterile and so on.
So if you're going to create a standard in your theoretical that's vastly different and in fact impossible, some of your standards would be impossible in the current world because there could be some kind of cure to brain disability that comes out tomorrow.
Who knows, right?
So if you're going to take scenarios that are not possible or functional or We don't have the knowledge of future cures, right, at the moment.
So if you're going to take a scenario, then we can go into your world of scenario, but then you can't say that those people are like disabled people in the present, because they're not.
They have very different characteristics, and we have omniscience, and we have you can't make new human beings, and they're sterile, and, right, so you've taken a bunch of standards, some of which are possible, like they could be sterile, it could be whatever affects their brain, affects their reproductive organs.
And some of which are not possible, which is omniscience regarding future cures.
So I'm happy to go into theoretical land, but I think it's a bit of a cheat for you to then come back and get the sentimentality and optimism which we would have because the protection to the NAP which would exist for existing disabled people It's because they are human, there could be a cure, they can give birth to other human beings, and you could take their cells and clone them, right?
So if you're gonna remove all those characteristics, that's fine, we can go there, but you're cutting off your route back to compare the people in this future scenario to people in the current scenario.
I don't agree with that.
So you said, I can't make a comparison, I can't talk about likeness.
You said they're not like them.
Right.
Well, I mean, being like them is just overlapping with respect to some characteristics, right?
And they overlap with respect to their, like, just state two.
Oh God, no, come on.
Come on, man.
Is it possible for you to say, at the moment, that there can never be a cure for mental disability?
No, I wouldn't say that.
Okay, fantastic.
Right?
So that's one of the foundational aspects.
So in the world, as it stands, people who are mentally disabled, we can't say that there won't be some sort of cure, some sort of remediation, right?
So if you're going to create a scenario wherein we know for sure, based upon some god or devil who told us that there'll never be a cure, then that separates us from the world that is.
You can't say, well, the people where we know for sure there's no cure are like the people where there could be a cure, right?
They're not the same categories.
What does it mean to say something is like something else, though?
To me, that means that there is some overlap in terms of propositions true of those things.
But there's no overlap.
There's no overlap in there could be a cure, and we know for sure there is no cure.
There's no overlap.
Right, but likeness is just based on there being some overlap with respect to some of the propositions true of the beings.
It doesn't have to be that all propositions overlap.
That's sameness.
No, no, I understand that, but that's like saying that we need to extend the non-aggression principle to statues because they have arms and legs, just like human beings.
It's like, yeah, but that's not the essential characteristic is having arms and legs, because a guy without arms and legs is still covered by the non-aggression principle.
Not quite.
It would be, in this instance, it would just be saying that the statue is like the human.
And I would say that the statue is like the human.
Wouldn't you say that the statue is like the human?
No!
Not when it comes to the question of being covered by the non-aggression principle.
Right, but right now I'm just talking about the concept of likeness.
So let's just spend a moment on likeness and sameness.
So I take likeness to mean that if we have two things, there's a bunch of propositions about both those things, that there is some overlap in terms of the propositions true of the things.
I take sameness to be that all of the propositions are the same.
Well, but if one of the key propositions is the definition, Off the category, right?
So I can't say a mammal is If I say, okay, the definition of a mammal is warm-blooded, as opposed to a reptile that's cold-blooded, right?
Then I can't say, well, a mammal is just like a reptile based upon the temperature of its blood, because that's one of the distinguishing characteristics between, say, reptile and mammal, right?
And in the same way, if I say the possibility of a cure is one reason why people who have cognitive deficiencies are covered by the NAP, and then you create a scenario where that is taken away, okay, well now we have a different category.
Well, I just want to talk about likeness and sameness, because you are telling me that I can't say that they are like the disabled people who are alive right now, because there is some difference.
And I just don't take it to be the case that because there's a difference in the propositions true of two things, that they are like each other.
In fact, saying two things are like each other, as opposed to identical to each other, implies that there are some propositions that aren't the same between them.
So I certainly think you can say a statue is like a human.
The disabled people in the analogy are like the disabled people in real life.
I would not say that they are the same.
I'm happy to grant that.
No, but they're not.
I mean, when it comes to the moral category, like say a statue falls over and crushes someone, we don't take the statue's remains to court and try it and throw it in prison and consider it morally evil for crushing someone.
But if someone voluntarily jumps from a high place onto someone while dressed in chainmail armor and kills them, then we take that person and we put them in court and we consider them morally right.
So when it comes to the ethics, there's no overlap.
Between a statue and a human being.
And we're talking about the ethics of the non-aggression principle, and if you're going to remove the categories that define the ethics of the non-aggression principle, then you're going to have something else, but then you can't go back and say, this is like that.
Right, so what I'm getting stuck on is that we are just disagreeing about what likeness means.
So to take a step away from talking about morality, about the non-aggression principle, let's just talk for a second about what likeness is.
What do you take likeness to mean?
Because maybe we just have a disagreement here.
Well, likeness would be varying degrees within a particular category, right?
So somebody who has an IQ of 115 is a standard deviation above somebody who has an IQ of 100.
So the person who has an IQ of 115 is more intelligent, so to speak, or at least has a higher IQ, we could say.
And so, yeah, they're like each other.
There's an overlap of intelligence, but they're not the same thing.
They're along the same continuum, but they're not at the same spot.
Now, for me, I think likeness is one of these kind of fuzzy terms in philosophy where you can say almost anything is like something else.
I mean, I think you can say that a basketball is like the sun, in that they're both spheres, despite all of the aspects in which they're disanalogous to each other, because they share that proposition about being spherical.
But then why did you push back when you said that the human being has the moral capacity of a cow, and I said, okay, well, with regards to the defining characteristic of humanity being covered by the NAP, which is the capacity to process abstract arguments regarding morality, why did you push back when I said it's like having a cow's brain?
Right?
Because why is your analogy fine, but my likeness is not fine?
That's a little confusing to me.
I'm happy to hear the distinction, but it's a little confusing.
If I remember, I'd have to play it back, but I don't think you said it's like they have a cow's brain.
I think you said they do.
I might have heard wrong.
Okay, but functionally they have the moral reasoning capacity of a cow, so with regards to, like, they could have, oh, they could be idiot savants, right?
That they have the moral reasoning of a cow, but they can paint wonderful pictures, but you know, that doesn't have any particular relevance to the ethics of the non-aggression principle.
So if you say that they have the moral reasoning of a cow, and I say, well, with regards to the non-aggression principle, they have a cow's brain, you didn't like that, right?
But that's very much in line with what you're saying.
Well, I'd have to remember the exact phrasing you used with the cow and the humans.
So, honestly, I don't remember the exact phrasing there.
How about we say they have a cow's ability with regards to morality?
Oh yeah, I'm totally fine with that.
The part that I objected to... Let's keep going.
If you give me... This sounds like horse trading or something.
It's really cow trading.
But if you give me they have the functionality of a cow's brain with regards to morality, then I'll give you going back and talking about people as if they are in the category or similar to the category of existing people who are mentally handicapped.
Um, right.
Okay, well, I think we can clear this up.
So, I'm just gonna have to slow down and think for a second.
So, what I had trouble with was when you said that they're not like the disabled people who are alive right now.
So, the sense in which they're alike is, like, subjectively, their personal experience could be identical to some disabled person who's out there right now, and their actual physical appearance could be identical.
Okay, well, as long as we're on the same page with that.
And then you want to talk about the cow's brain.
So I can't remember the exact phrasing, and it's possible... No, no, we've solved that one.
We've solved it, because we've agreed that we can refer to these people as having the moral abilities of a cow's brain, or the moral capacities of a cow's brain.
Right, I do agree with that.
And if somehow I didn't agree with that the first time, I might have possibly heard wrong, or maybe you spoke differently, I don't know.
No, it doesn't matter.
There's no need to circle back if we've already buried the body.
Okay, awesome.
So then if I give you that hypothetical, I say we've got 51% of the population who are unable to engage in abstract reasoning beyond what a cow can do.
You can't make more humans out of them.
And there's no cure.
Would you say in this instance that now it's fine to just not give humans the non-aggression principle?
Well, I mean, from a logical, I mean, I understand the emotionality of the argument, I'm going to address that with regard to the audience, because, you know, in a sense, there is the feeling, which is not an argument, I understand, there's the feeling of like, oh, no, I'm backed into a corner, but I have to say we can eat retarded people, right?
We can eat people who are mentally handicapped, right?
So I'm fully aware of that.
But to be fair to the rationality of the argument, if I set up particular standards, by which People are covered or creatures are covered by the Non-Aggression Principle.
If each one of those standards are removed, then the protection of the Non-Aggression Principle is removed.
Right?
So, yes, I mean, they are no longer subject to the protection of the Non-Aggression Principle if they do not possess any of the characteristics that define protection of the non-aggression principle.
I'm willing to say that, of course, while fully recognizing that this scenario could never exist in reality, because we would never have a god who tells us for sure that there could be no cure, and we would never have cells that have been so altered that you could never create another human being out of them.
So, just to be clear, I just want to make sure that we're getting to the core here, because I really did not expect you to take this kind of position.
You're actually saying that— But it's the logical position.
If I say there's these four things, right, that hold up the ceiling and you take all those four things away, then the ceiling falls down, right?
I mean, that's the business of logic.
Yeah, it is, but sometimes people will say something like, oh, I like set up the ceiling with some wrong pillars, maybe I should... No, no, I'm not going to cheat.
I gave, look, I could go back and... No, that would not be cheating, that would just be... No, it would be cheating because if I gave you the definition at the beginning, now I can say, I could say, I find this result unacceptable and therefore I'm going to go back and redefine things and, you know, but I'm perfectly comfortable in an impossible scenario these creatures would not be subject to the protection of the non-aggression principle.
Right.
Well, keep in mind, it's not just them, right?
Because we're talking about humans as a category, so if 51%... like, you could be one of the humans who's in here, but 51% of people are like this, can't reproduce, there's no cure, I mean, this is going to justify murdering you in this situation also.
Well, okay, so in the alternative universe that couldn't exist, yeah, that's certainly possible.
Okay, so just to... and also, when you say couldn't exist, I don't think you can actually spell out a logical...
problem with the hypothetical.
I don't think there's anything you can watch for.
Well, we already went through this.
If you've got a god coming in giving you omniscient knowledge about the potential for a future cure, and if you have alteration of cellular dynamics to the point where you can't make any other human being, we're not in the realm of reality anymore.
Because if your argument requires omniscience, I'm certainly happy to play around with it in a theoretical way, But nobody knows for sure whether there's a cure.
We already established that, right?
If this happens tomorrow at noon, we would not know whether a cure would be possible or not.
And so, yes, in an impossible scenario, I fully grant you that these people would not be covered by the non-aggression principle.
Well, I could focus more on the possible-impossible thing, but let's just, I guess, get to the core of it.
So, I mean, you would really tell me that in this world it would be fine to just murder you, despite the fact that you're subjectively just like you are right here.
You'd be the same Stefan, you'd want to talk about philosophy, you'd want to... Wait, what?
I'm sorry, did I miss something?
Wouldn't I be in the category of having the reasoning capacities of a cow?
I mean, unless you've got some moo cow subterranean philosophy network going on there, I don't understand where I'm in the category of talking philosophy while having the acuity of a bovine.
Oh, okay, well then there might be a slight confusion here, because what you gave us is- Okay, good, please stop.
Oh, you're saying all human beings end up that way.
No, no I'm not, no I'm not, no I'm not.
Because, remember, when I asked what's true of animals, which, if true of humans, would justify would uh justify not extending the nap to them you're talking about belonging to a species which on average can um engage in that abstract moral reasoning now even if you were in the 49 percent who can you would still have that property be true of you oh no no no
i wouldn't you would belong to I'll grant you the other one.
I'm not giving you this one at all.
No, I mean, it doesn't make any sense.
The fundamental reason being that you can't say that people who are now permanently and irrevocably morally the same as a cow are exactly the same species as people who have normative human functioning.
Like, they're just not the same.
They're not in the same category anymore.
Um, well, wait a second.
So you're trying to... So you're trying to stop this from applying to you by saying that... No, no.
No, no, no.
I didn't... Look, I didn't say I get the magical exclusion.
What I'm saying is that...
If you have, as protection of the non-aggression principle, the capacity to process moral arguments, and I mean, I do understand your argument, don't get me wrong, I fully say, like, so you're saying, okay, well, I get around the exceptions by saying, well, this is the norm, right?
And you're saying, okay, 51% is the norm.
But first of all, it's not a long-lasting problem because they can't reproduce, right?
So this is not a long-lasting problem, right?
Because people are, I mean, they're not going to reproduce, they're not going to be able to function, they're not going to be able to handle food growing or getting a hold of food and so on, right?
So, I mean, these creatures that you're coming up with who have the moral acuity and, in general, mental capacities of a cow, are not going to last very long.
I mean, it's a nasty scenario, but I understand why you're doing it, right?
So this is a very brief hiccup.
They may last, what, a week at tops?
Because, I mean, where are they going to find water?
Where are they going to find food and shelter and so on, right?
And in this kind of scenario as well, predation from wolves and tigers and the zoos would let out and There'd be diseases and, you know, exposure and whatever, right?
And so the creatures that you're talking about here would last, I don't know, maybe a week, maybe two, right?
So you just kind of hole up and wait for this horrible zombie plague to blow over, and therefore I don't think this would be any particular problem.
But I don't think you can hive off 51% of humanity put them in the category of cow and then say, well, now this cow category spreads to all of the human beings who have still their full cognitive functioning.
Well, I'm not putting them in the category of cow.
I thought that... No, morally.
Morally.
No, hang on.
See, we're talking about morals, right?
And we... I wrote it down here.
They have the moral abilities of a cow.
So with regards to ethics, they would be indistinguishable from a cow, just in terms of their capacity to process moral reasoning.
So this would be a wrecked half of the species that would last a couple of days before dying, and would have the moral capacities of a cow, and then to say, well, they're disabling
For the couple of days means that their disabling suddenly becomes the norm for humanity But they're not the norm for humanity because you've had a terrible event that has taken them out of the norm of humanity And if there's I mean just to think about a biologist right if a biologist sees a plague Racing through a particular species, right?
Let's say that you know when they have tons of Rabbits in in Australia right they got rid of the dingoes and the rabbits bred like crazy if there was some disease Spreading through that caused the rabbits to die in a day or two The biologists wouldn't go in there and say, well, I've now redefined the species of rabbit, even if 51% of the rabbits are dying from this disease.
The biologists wouldn't go in there and say, the definition of a rabbit is now that it's dying of this disease, right?
They would be like, well, there's healthy rabbits, and then these horrible rabbits, it's terrible what's happening, they're dying from this disease.
But you don't suddenly get to recategorize rabbits as Those bunnies that are dying of this disease, right?
That wouldn't occur.
Yeah, so what you want to do is basically separate those beings out so you can't say that they're part of humanity, so that way I'm not going to be able to say to you, well look, you're in the 49%, they're in the 51%, this justification is going to apply to you in this world.
It's going to be fine to murder you in this world.
Do you want to say no, they're just a different species at that point?
Well no, I mean, or you could say they're either a different species, or you could say That they are still a deviation from the norm of humanity, because they've been struck by something that moves them out of the general category of humanity.
So, let me ask you this.
Would you say, if you were out back in Australia and you saw a bunch of rabbits, 51% of them were dying of some horrible disease, would you say that the definition of a rabbit is now that which is dying of disease?
No, I don't think I would.
But then your argument collapses, right?
I don't think so.
You know, it does, because you're now saying that the rabbits have been struck by a disease, and the definition of a rabbit is still a healthy rabbit, it's just that there have been a lot of them that have been struck by this disease.
And in the same way, the definition of a human being is still with full cognitive functioning, it's just that a lot of human beings happen to be struck by this disease.
Right.
So basically what I'm doing here is there's two degrees of like how bad the reductio could be on your position.
So the first degree is just where it's going to be, you know, okay to like murder the mentally disabled people, right?
The second is where it's even going to apply to people like you.
Now, if we do something like you, you set up your definition such that those people aren't going to be in the species or we do something like that.
No, no, no, no, no.
I don't know where you're going, but we just agreed on something here.
Right?
So I don't know where you're going at this point, because this is kind of important, right?
If you're saying that the rabbits who are ill are a deviation from the natural definition of rabbitdom, right?
Which you agreed that they are, because even if 51% of them are dying of some horrible disease, you don't have, you don't redefine the whole species to be that which is dying of the disease, right?
So the disease, even if it strikes 99% of the rabbits, Right?
The disease does not define the essence of being a rabbit, in the same way that when the bubonic plague hit Europe in the 13th, 14th, 15th centuries, and up to 60% of people died in a particular location, you didn't say, well now the definition of a human being is a mammal that's dying of bubonic plague.
Right?
You'd say, wow, that's a lot of people who are dying of that plague, but the essence of a human being is not to have bubonic plague.
It's an ailment that is striking a healthy human being and in the same way 51% of people have this brain rotting disease that you magically know can't be cured and it alters their cellular structure.
That does not change the definition of a human being to include that category because that is still a deviation from the category of human being which is the rational animal.
And we've agreed on that with regards to rabbits and there would be no reason to not agree with it with regards to humanity.
Okay, so I'm going to kind of... I'm still going to try to say the same type of thing that I said last time.
So there's like two degrees of how intense the reductio could be on your position.
So just hear me out on this.
you don't do the move where we say like those beings aren't going to be part of the species whatever then this is actually going to apply to you in that hypothetical world if we find some way to split it off like that so we say those beings are different species so the species that is human is still majority cognitively functional then the reductio is going to be still strong but not quite as strong which is it would just justify murdering the disabled people
So what I wanted to do was just toy around with how we're defining species there for a moment to see if you have a good way to kind of get out of that.
So I could alter... Wait, I feel like we've just lost the whole rabbit thing here.
Well, wait, that's what I'm addressing.
For example, I could alter that.
I could say, well, it's not a disease.
Let's say that it's just gradual genetic change that takes us there.
But I want to zoom out to the big picture before you reply to that, right?
So the big picture is just that based on how your trait stack works, there could be two kind of intensities to the reductio, right?
If you find some way to separate those beings out, even after I modify the hypothetical or whatever, then we're not going to have the extremely crazy conclusion where it's like okay to murder you in that world also because you're part of that species even though you're not disabled like this, right?
And then, if it is the case that we get out of those kind of situations, then there's a slightly weaker, but I think still very potent reductio, which is just going to be about killing those disabled people.
No, no, but none of this matters.
I'm sorry to be so blunt, but none of this matters, because the moment that you say that the illness is a deviation from the definition of humanity, then there is no killing the mentally acute 49%.
Because we said if 99% of rabbits get sick, that doesn't change the definition of rabbit to sick.
And if 51% of people have the moral reasoning of a cow, that doesn't change the definition of humanity to that biped which has the moral reasoning of a cow.
Right?
It doesn't change the definition.
So the definition of humanity covers the 49%, not the 51%.
You don't change the definition when there's a deviation from the norm.
No, I understand that that's the move you're making.
I'm just trying to... No, no, no, that's not a move.
Come on, man.
Don't insult me that way.
I'm not trying to do some dance here, right?
You accepted that argument.
Hang on.
There really is a misunderstanding.
You took that as an insult.
I make moves, too.
Just to be clear, that wasn't an insult.
But you agreed with that.
But it wasn't, just to be clear, we can talk about everything in a second, but I don't want there to be a perception of an insult.
That was not an insult.
It's not a move.
You agreed with it.
So if it's a move, you're with me.
All I mean by move is like the same way as a move in chess.
It's just a move in debate.
It's not like, oh, you're moving, you're dodging.
No, I'm just saying like... No, I understand what the word move means, but it's not a move if you agree with me.
Like we have established a reality.
We have established something which we both agree on.
Which is a deviation from the norm of a species, no matter how much of that species is consumed by that deviation.
A deviation from the norm of a species.
does not change the definition of that species.
So if 51% of humanity ends up with the moral reasoning of a cow, it does not change the definition of humanity.
And therefore, you can't say, well, the definition of humanity is now all human beings can be, no human beings are covered by the non-aggression principle because there are some in this theoretical scenario that aren't.
Because we've already agreed, you don't change the definition of a biological entity based upon deviations from its normal state.
And it doesn't matter.
You could say 99% of humanity is struck with this Mad cow disease, so to speak.
It doesn't matter if 99% of it is struck.
The 1% is still the definition of humanity and the other 99% for the couple of days that they live are a terrible and tragic deviation from that standard.
Um, okay, so the one thing that I just don't like is, I don't like when there's a perception of an insult.
So, I mean, if you take it like that, then okay, but, like, I, when I talk right now, like, I'm going to be making a move.
All I mean by move is just, like, the step you take in a debate.
It's not, it's not an insult.
Um, okay, so with respect to the content of what you just said, so all I'm doing is I'm zooming out One step, and I'm just saying that based on the kind of stack you use, there's two possible reductio.
So you're talking about the like cognitively capable 49%, right?
So if we get a reductio where for whatever reason we're still counting the 51% as humans.
And we could talk about how we might get that reductio.
Maybe we don't talk about a genetic disease.
We talk about gradual, like, natural genetic drift or something.
I don't know.
If we have a situation where those people still count in the category, then there will be the really strong reductio where it's going to justify killing people in the 49.
But if there's a way to make the category separation, then we're going to get just the reductio about killing the disabled people.
Now, I want to address the separation you're trying to make.
Well, first of all, you can't have both, right?
You can't say that there's a gradual genetic drift and that they're sterile.
You can't have both.
Like, I mean, I wish I could give you both, but it's not logically possible, because the only way there could be a gradual genetic drift is if they're not sterile.
And if they're not sterile, then they're not part of the 49 or 51 percent.
They're just part of humanity.
They're covered by the non-aggression principle, right?
So you can't have both.
Um, okay, well, so... You've got to agree with me on that, right?
That you can't have genetic drift without reproduction.
Okay, can we at least agree on that?
Yeah, yeah, I certainly agree.
Okay, so let's not go with genetic drift.
We've got this.
It's either Sutton or they're covered by the NAP.
Okay, so I guess that for me right now what I'm doing in my head is making a decision of do I want to go down the road of trying to like pigeonhole you into putting those people in the category human by trying to go to these situations like oh it's gradual drift and then suddenly they become unable to reproduce or do I want to just go for the less intense reductio?
So I think I'll just start with the less intense reductio, so we don't end up in this territory right now.
Then maybe we can go thereafter.
So let's just grant that those people don't count as humans.
So we're not going to be talking about killing the 49%.
No, no, no, no.
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
So, don't count as humans is kind of an inflammatory way to put it, and I'm not accusing you of manipulation or anything.
I wasn't trying to.
No, no, because let's just say they're not covered by the non-aggression principle.
Sure.
I'll say it like that.
Because if you say they're not counted as humans, okay, then we have to go with a different species, and they'd be closer to apes or cows than human beings, and right, blah, blah, blah.
So we'll just say they're not covered by the NAP.
Okay, yeah, sure.
I'll just say that.
That's fine.
Okay, so let's just go with the situation where the 49 are still covered by the NAP.
So the 51% who are cognitively identical to mentally disabled people who are currently alive, right?
And they look identical also.
Looking at them, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart from a mentally disabled person who's currently alive.
You would say that, I mean, I'm not trying to be inflammatory here either, but you would say that it's actually just fine to like slaughter those people?
Well, okay.
So let's talk about the consequences.
First of all, they're going to be dead in a couple of days anyway.
Well, wait, let's see that.
No, no, no.
If you're going to talk about, like, actions within this universe, then we have to look at the consequences of this universe.
And I just want everyone to remember that we have an impossible category here.
So this is all very theoretical, right?
I mean, because we have the two impossible categories.
I just want to remind people.
That they no longer are cellularly human beings, and that we know for sure that there's no cure, right?
So, if we're going to talk about how morality or reality plays out in this scenario, then let's talk about it.
So, we're going to have a couple of days where these creatures can live, right?
These, whatever, the cow people, right?
We're going to have a couple of days... I don't like that move, but okay.
No, but I mean, with regards to the non-aggression principle, we have the cognitive abilities of a cow, right?
That's what we talked about, right?
Right, but the thing is, when you add in that they're just going to be alive for a couple of days, it allows you to paint it more like you're, like, mercying them or something.
No, no, no, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Don't, don't, let me make my case.
You know, you can respond to it, but don't make my case for me.
And I'll try not to make your case for you as well, right?
Okay.
So we've got a couple of days where these creatures can live.
And human beings, of course, they were former human beings.
Right?
Which is a cow was never a former human being.
I mean, unless you're really into reincarnation, which is perhaps just a topic for another time.
Right?
So these creatures were struck with a horrible illness or dysfunction.
They were formerly human beings and people have a very strong aversion to kill.
Most people have a very strong aversion to killing other human beings.
They also, of course, have a almost pathological, which I think is great, a pathological avoidance of cannibalism, right?
I mean, outside of, again, German chat rooms and Billie Eilish songs, right?
I mean, we don't like to eat other human beings and we don't like to kill other human beings.
We know this because, like in the Second World War, it was only a tiny minority of soldiers who actually pointed their guns and shot at other people, which is why they had to dehumanize the soldiers for the process of Vietnam and so on.
So we have a strong aversion to killing.
We have an even stronger aversion to cannibalism.
I mean, some people have chosen to starve to death when human meat is available because they just find it so repulsive.
So the idea that there would be any kind of mass slaughter is I mean, virtually incomprehensible.
And of course, in the scenario that you point out, will they find water?
I mean, there would be no taps, there would be no drinking fountains, society would have simply ceased to function because 51% of the people have lost most of their mind.
And so, they're going to be dead in a couple of days, and as far as mercy killings go, I mean, you know, again, in this horrible scenario, it's a tough call.
It's a tough call.
You know, if there's someone you loved, you knew they couldn't be cured, and if they were going to die a painful, slow, ghastly, horrible death that they couldn't comprehend, My question is, I would never say, yeah, go ahead and shoot people, but I will be perfectly frank with you, if, and again, I want to remind everyone this is an impossible theoretical scenario, but in the science fiction novel,
If I was reading this science fiction novel, and if someone, someone's husband, like some woman's husband, got struck by this ailment and she couldn't feed him, she couldn't give him any water or whatever, and just for whatever reason, if she ended up killing him, because he was going to die in a day or two anyway, but in a much more painful and horrible way, I mean, I wouldn't say good job, I wouldn't say morally great, But I would say I can kind of understand where you're coming from.
Again, in this nightmare science fiction scenario, I would have a very tough time saying, well, let's take all the people who killed in a humane manner, those who were going to die horrible deaths.
I don't know.
Like, it's really tough to say in that kind of scenario, let's have trials of two billion people and build lots of prisons.
That would be tough.
That would be a tough case to make.
Yeah, well I think that what's being done there isn't totally fair.
I don't think you're trying to be like dodgy or anything but what you're doing there is you're making the situation come across like so this like horrible nightmare that you're saving those people from.
So let's just say for whatever reason they're just not gonna die in two weeks.
Oh, come on, I mean... I mean, now you're just changing everything, right?
Okay, let's just change the rules till I win.
I mean, if you're gonna have a scenario where 51% of the people have the reasoning capacities of cows, but they're fine?
I mean, come on.
Come on.
Yeah, well, I mean, you could... Right.
So, I think that I am going...
Right, so what I'm doing is I give you a kind of situation, but then you, like, again, no shade, but you give a kind of framing to it that makes it come across differently.
So you give, you add in the factor, for example, that they're not going to survive and they're going to be like suffering to death in the wilderness.
So that starts making it seem... No, I've been saying, I never said in the wilderness.
Okay, well, sorry, you said something kind of- They'd actually be better off in the wilderness, because the cows can find water in the wilderness.
I'm talking about in a city, right?
Okay, well, but either way, core point being that you sort of painted it such that these people are suffering, basically, right?
Well, wouldn't they be?
Well, let's say that they're not, right?
Because when you make that modification, it makes it sound like it would be the merciful thing to do, to not give them the non-aggression principle, right?
No, no, no.
I just said I could understand somebody acting on that behavior, but you can't bring in consequences and then deny me consequences.
Because if you say, well, 51% of people now have the reasoning capacities of a cow, which Extraordinarily low, right?
Then there are consequences that come out of that, right?
The consequences of the non-aggression principle, the consequences which could be murder and so on.
So I'm like, okay, well let's look at the consequences of 51% of people having the reasoning capacity of a cow.
I mean, I love debates, but sometimes it just feels a bit odd, what I have to say.
But anyway.
So if we're going to say, okay, let's imagine a scenario where 51% of humanity now has the cognitive abilities of a cow.
What would be the consequences of that?
Well, I mean, it's even worse for humanity in a sense than if they just outright die.
Because if they outright die, if there was some horrible plague that killed 51% of humanity, Well, there'd be a lot of burying, but there wouldn't be a lot of feeding, right?
There wouldn't be a lot of needing shelter, there wouldn't be a lot of bringing water, right?
But if, you know, I don't know if you've ever been around people with extraordinarily low cognitive abilities, I certainly have, and in that scenario You need a huge amount, a huge number of resources just to keep people going, right?
I mean they can't function on their own at the level of a cow, right?
They'll crap their pants.
They won't know how to work a tap.
If the tap doesn't work, they won't know how to work a fridge.
I mean it would be a cow, right?
Put a cow in a kitchen.
How well is it going to do?
And so if we're going to have consequences, I'm like, okay, well, let's have consequences.
And there's no possibility that all of those people are going to survive into a ripe and robust old age if that happens in society.
I mean, we can at least agree on that, right?
Because the amount of resources that would be required at a time when resources would be enormously diminished, because that would be the majority of the productive human beings in the world, had suddenly become not only not productive, which would be the case if they died, But negatively productive in that they, instead of producing resources, they required resources.
Well that would be a situation wherein there would be no possibility for the vast majority of those creatures to
to survive, to flourish, to get enough food, to get enough water, given that there would be children who would need to be taken care of, there would be babies of normal functioning who would need to be fed, there would need to be massive resources poured into repairing the electrical grid, the plumbing situation, the water supply, the food supply, I mean it would just be staggering, right?
So the idea that There would be no problems for these people outside of the non-aggression principle, I think would be kind of a fantasy.
Now, again, we can create a scenario wherein none of that happens.
So now we've taken an impossible scenario and we've said, okay, well now there are no rational consequences.
And then you say, yay, I won the argument.
It's like, well, okay, I guess I could grant that.
But I mean, it's setting up the rules so you win.
Like wherever you move the chess pieces, hey, look, that's how you win chess.
Well, no, I mean, I don't want to do anything dishonest.
Like, I don't think that I'm putting any unfair situations to you.
It's just I'm putting out a hypothetical.
No, you are.
You are, because you're putting out impossible situations, right?
And you're saying, well, the consequences of this would be bad.
And then when I say, well, here are the other consequences of this, like, well, you can't have those consequences.
And I say, well, you know, you never know for sure if there are cures.
Like, no, in this scenario there's for sure no cures because a demon puts his head out through the dimension and tells you there are no cures.
Right?
So there is some stuff you're putting in.
And I don't mind some of it.
But, you know, I can't just roll over for every scenario that you paint and say, OK, well, I guess if you put this constriction in and that constriction in and this omniscient thing in and no consequences here.
Okay, well then you win.
It's like, okay, because it's not a respect to the debate, because then you've just basically created a video game, created the rules, and said that you've done physics, which you haven't, right?
Well, all that I'm trying to do is tease out the conclusion of your moral system, right?
So, when I give you a hypothetical, but then you take some other factor and put it into the hypothetical, like, right, I haven't specified anything about the kind of condition that they're living in or something like this, so when you add that in, and then you add it in such that it comes out being merciful to slaughter those people, then of course my response is going to be to adjust that thing out of the hypothetical.
Do you think it's fair to keep adjusting until you win?
To exclude inevitable consequences from your scenario to the point where you win.
Is that reasonable?
Sorry, let me be more clear about that.
Sorry, and then I'll shut up.
To exclude inevitable consequences from your scenario to the point where you win.
I mean, is that reasonable?
Because there would be natural consequences to 51% of people having the reasoning capacities of a cow.
Well, look, saying until I win is kind of weird because it's not just about winning to me.
Like, I just want to find out what we both ultimately think about these kinds of situations, right?
So I don't like the until you win part.
No, but I'm telling you what I think about the situation and you're saying, well, I can't, I can't include that.
So you're interested in what I think about it.
You're interested in excluding what I think about it until you win.
Not quite.
I'm interested in getting what you think about the kind of situation that I'm actually visualizing.
So, like, when you add in something else that I'm not visualizing, and then the situation starts looking a bit different, then I just modify it to become more like what I'm actually talking about.
So, when I do things that aren't part of your scenario, but which would be logical consequences of your scenario, you like to exclude them.
Anyway, we're not getting very far in this particular context.
So, okay, I'm willing to, you know, I'll toss that aside, right?
I'll toss that aside.
And we'll move on with the debate.
Well, wait, but you're kind of treating it like every alteration I make to deal with your responses is unfair.
Like, my kind of, as we go forward, like, what I will do is just keep basically modifying the hypothetical if you add in anything that alters it fundamentally from what I'm trying to get at, right?
So... And that's very clear what you're saying.
If I provide a counter argument that goes against what you want to establish, you'll dismiss it.
Not quite, right?
It's not just that I'll dismiss it because what you're saying goes against what I've said.
It's because what you're saying creates a hypothetical situation that isn't quite what I'm picturing, right?
So what I want... But why should it be what you picture?
I mean, why don't you just give a speech and I'll just listen, right?
Why does the scenario have to be exactly what you picture?
Why can't it be us negotiating the consequences of the scenario that you're proposing?
Oh, because what I'm curious about is your response to the kind of situation that I'm picturing.
No, no, I'm giving you my response.
I'm giving you my response and then you dismiss it because it doesn't get you where you want to be.
Well, the response... It's not a debate, right?
The response involves framing the situation, again, framing, no shade, framing the situation such that it's not really what I'm picturing.
I get that, and you don't understand that what you're picturing is not the essence of a debate.
Like, why is it that you get to add your scenarios like, well, a demon pops his head out and says there's no cure.
Which is anti-rational, but I don't get to say, well, the logical consequences of 51% of people having the reasoning capacities of a cow would be that enormous numbers of them would die.
You'd be like, well, I don't want to talk about that.
It's like, okay, so you can have the demon of omniscience, but I can't have the inevitable consequences.
Okay.
Well, no, no, no.
I don't think I'm telling you that there's anything wrong with what you're doing.
I think that if you start adding in factors like, you know, the people are having a horrible quality of life, I might start leaning in your direction, but that's not really like the kind of situation that I'm trying to get at.
I'm trying to get at a situation where those people are still capable of experiencing wellbeing.
There's no like immediate threat to their lives or something like this.
And they're cognitively identical.
And for all you can tell, physically identical to the kind of disabled people who are alive right now.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that you just value the disabled people who are actually alive right now by virtue of belonging to our species or by virtue of being able to reproduce.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I see inherent value in those people, and I would think that you do too.
Of course I do.
That's why they're covered under the non-aggression principle.
Right, but I'm trying to get to a situation where we have people who are, for all you can tell, just like those people, but according to the kind of moral framework you've laid out, there's not going to be that same moral consideration for them.
No, but there again, we're back to this point too, which is that they're not like current people, because current people can be cured, current people can reproduce themselves, can be used to create new ones, which all of which you took away.
So I'm fine, like you can take those away, but then you can't say they're just like Well, right.
Oh, sorry, you cut out.
Well, no, I shouldn't say just like, I should say like, because what I'm curious is kind of about if you see inherent value in that type of subjective experience, or if it really is that mentally disabled people on your view, like just have value by virtue of like belonging to the species or being able to produce people who aren't disabled or something like this.
I'm sorry, I really don't know what we're debating here.
I'm not sure.
Are you saying to me, do I think that mentally disabled people have value and that their experiences have?
Of course they do.
I mean, but I'm not sure where... I thought we were in this abstract scenario and now we're talking about what do I think of disabled people.
I'm not sure where we are in the debate at this point.
Okay.
Um, well, I can describe where we are.
So what I'm doing is I'm trying to just explain to you what I'm trying to do with the argument.
So you don't perceive it as somehow unfair when I alter the situation, because all I'm doing is trying to get to the kind of question that I really want answered, which is what, um, whether those people, whether that value actually derives from this list of traits you've laid out here.
Or whether you've used them as having some kind of inherent value due to their actual quality of experience, right?
Which I think it's actually probably the latter.
So what I'm doing is I'm trying to abstract out Those properties that you're trying to give them value in virtue of and see if you really think they're valueless when those properties are gone or if they still have value.
So when I abstract those properties out, do they still have value?
Can I just, I just want to complete this one point.
Yeah.
So what I, what I really want to know what is when I abstract those properties out, do they still have value?
But if I abstract out and then you add in some factor or spell out some consequence, that's going to make it seem that they don't have value.
And I want to get that out of there too, because I'm not able to get to the fundamental thing Do you follow what I'm trying to get at there?
Well, is now the argument dependent upon me evaluating the subjective experience of infertile, semi-human, 51% theoretical entities with the moral reasoning of a cow?
figure out that subjective experience and whether it's fits into a category called worthwhile which I don't even really understand is is that where the debate hinges because that seems like a really subjective theoretical applied against a very fuzzy standard um no so what I'm doing is I'm keeping the so when you say like oh they've been altered so much well the things that haven't been altered are they still look exactly like humans right and And they have a subjective experience that's identical to humans.
And I'm trying to find out if you're going to say that they actually don't have value just because we've gotten those traits out of there.
Because I think that what I suspect is that you probably see inherent value in that kind of subjective experience, whether these traits are present or not.
So, look, I mean, we're kind of getting into this.
I'll answer that.
I'll answer that, because it's a valid and important question, and I'll answer that very directly.
I don't know what the percentage of humanity is that has the intellectual capacities of a cow.
I don't obviously have that on the tip of my tongue or the tip of my nipples or anything like that, right?
So let's say it's one in 10,000, right?
Okay, so let's say that one person in 10,000 has that level of intellectual disability.
But they can reproduce and they're in the category of humanity and there could be a cure and blah blah blah, right?
So they're covered by the non-aggression principle.
Now, if that changes from one in 10,000 to 5,001, or in your case 51%, 5,100 people out of 10,000, that doesn't change the fundamental relationship.
5,100 people out of 10,000, that doesn't change the fundamental relationship.
That doesn't change the fundamental ethics, right?
They're still covered by, I mean, in a rational scenario, right?
They're still covered by the non-aggression principle because they're humans.
They can reproduce.
They are compulsive cells from which you can reproduce.
There could be a cure, right?
So whether it's one in 10,000 or 5,100 in 10,000 doesn't matter with regards to the It can be 9,900 out of 10,000 and there can be 100 people left who have normal human functioning because some horrible disease, some mad cow disease has struck the planet or something like that.
So, none of the scenarios that you are creating produce a situation wherein people who are mentally disabled suddenly don't have value and you can kill them at will.
Now your scenario in which if it's 51% do we then redefine humanity as now humanity has the moral reasoning of a cow and therefore can be killed and eaten like cows?
Well it doesn't matter because we already agreed that if an illness strikes a species you don't redefine the species on the grounds of that illness but it is a deviation from the normal functioning.
of that species.
So to bring it sort of round, none of the scenarios which you are producing result in human hamburgers, in the arguments that I've been putting forward.
Right.
So I'm going to, I guess at this point I'll just go back into the actual argument.
I tried to kind of step out to give some context on what the argument is trying to do, just for the sake of facilitating the discussion, but whatever.
We can just go right back to the actual debate.
Look, these three properties are in place, okay?
So 51% of people lack the ability to engage in abstract moral reasoning.
They're unable to produce.
There's no cure for it.
And their cells aren't human.
You can't create new humans from their cells, right?
So not just biological reproduction, but even cloning.
I don't think I need to give a specific account of why they can't reproduce.
We're just going to say in the hypothetical that they're just unable to reproduce and there's some explanation for that.
Okay.
Okay, cool.
Now, the thing that you had added in was that they're just going to be like kind of suffering anyway because they can't take care of themselves.
So let's just say that the situation is that they're not suffering.
So this is how that whole pathway started because you thought that was an unfair move.
But how are they not suffering?
I cannot understand that.
How is it that 51% of you got three, what, four billion people with the mental capacity of cows and everything's fine?
I mean, I don't know, you could, we could come up with any number of things.
It's a wizard keeping them alive, they're preserved by machines, like it could be anything, it's just a philosophical... Wait, you're invoking Gandalf at this point in the debate?
Sure, there's not a problem.
This is not troubling you at all?
I mean, it's like I have arguments and you're standing on a bridge in Moria.
None shall pass!
You know?
Come on, Gandalf?
Right.
Well, it could be something like that.
The whole point of the hypothetical is not about what exact conditions, you know, bring about that situation.
It's about the kind of moral evaluation you would make in that type of situation.
So, like, I mean, you can add in whatever you want.
It could be robots take care of them.
No, no, no, no.
I can't add in anything that I want, because when I add in rational consequences, you don't like them and you bring in Gandalf.
Well, what I mean is you can add in whatever you want that accounts for why they're treated well, right?
So just assume that they have a good quality of life.
We could like, I mean, if you really want, we can go and ponder up some situations there, but I don't really see why that's necessary.
If the conditions are met that 51% of people can't do the abstract moral reasoning, they can't reproduce, there's no cure, And they're not having a bad quality of life.
They're having the same kind of quality of life that a mentally disabled person like this has in this day and age.
Right.
I'm just wondering what evaluation you make in that situation.
I make, as I said before, I mean whether it's one person in 10,000, 5,100 people in 10,000, or 9,900 people in 10,000, doesn't matter.
The moral reality remains the same that the norm is cognitive human functioning and deviations from the norm are still covered under the non-aggression principle.
Okay, so it sounds like norm must have a weird kind of, like, meaning to you, because if, like, 99% of people are a certain way, I mean, you're not going to say that that's the norm, you're going to say... No, no, no, we already dealt with this, man.
I don't know why you can't hang on to this.
It's kind of annoying, frankly, because we've now, for the fifth damn time, if 99% of rabbits are struck with some horrible disease, we don't define rabbits as being struck with horrible diseases.
We say, wow, that's terrible.
I mean, it's a very short scenario anyway in the general 150,000 year journey of humanity, because one of the characteristics that you have ascribed is no reproduction.
So, from day two of this scenario, there are going to be hundreds, if not thousands, of these creatures dying every day, just of old age, or being hit by a bus, or getting cancer, or choking on a McChicken, or something like that.
So... Right, but you're just adding... No, hang on.
No, because one of the standards is no reproduction, right?
So you can't say this is certainly not... Even if we say that they have Gandalf producing their food, or Jesus handing out loaves and fishes, Within one generation pretty much the problem is gone anyway and we're back to 100% of humanity having its cognitive functioning restored.
So this is a blip or a dip in the human experience.
It doesn't fundamentally redefine humanity to be this new thing which is extraordinarily temporary and is self-limiting because they can't reproduce.
So it sounds like, for you, the norm doesn't have anything to do with what is actually the way that the majority of humans are, which is what I took the norm to mean.
It's about humans kind of like existing as they exist right now with the kind of cognitive, like, even if there's a single human out there who exists in the kind of way you exist right now, that's sufficient to give value to 99% of people who are disabled?
Well, disability, by its very definition, is different from abled.
It is a deviation from abled.
That's why we call it disabled.
Right?
I mean, a giraffe that is as tall as me is a dwarf, but I'm taller than the average man.
Right?
So, I mean, clearly we don't look at a vole and say that vole is retarded because it can't do Euclidean geometry, right?
Or it can't tie a shoelace or something like that, right?
So the very definition of there is a deviation from human normality is intellectually disabled, intellectually challenged.
The definition of humanity is not ape-like, like hairless ape-like bipeds with the mental acuity of a cow.
That is not the definition of a human being.
If an illness strikes, then that is a deviation even if there's only one human being left of normal functioning.
Now, of course, if there's only one human being left of normal functioning, it doesn't really matter because then nobody can reproduce and the whole species dies out in, you know, 50 or 60 or 80 years or whatever, right?
Probably less.
So yeah, no, I mean, the definition of humanity is not dependent upon 51% of humanity being disabled, right?
Okay, so it sounds well, I thought we were talking about the norm of how humanity is.
But if we want to say that the trait is actually something about like, I mean, I'm kind of a bit lost on how you're defining humanity exactly.
But like, if it helps, let's just say, humans just evolve for whatever reason, into a situation where all of us are like those disabled people.
Oh my god, where is your capacity to remember what we've just talked about?
What did I just say, not ten minutes ago, about the argument for evolution?
The moment you bring in the argument for evolution, you have reproduction back in, which means they're covered by the non-aggression principle.
Right, so let's say that they get, they evolve such that everyone is disabled, and then they all become sterile, right?
We can always find a way to work it in, because like here, look, Stéphane, I'll tell you what... Wait, wait, everyone is... Hang on, everyone... Hang on, I just need to follow your example.
Hang on, I just need to follow your example.
When you say everyone is now... Sorry, if everyone is now disabled, do you mean like all human beings now have the cognitive capacities of cows?
Yeah, we'll say all human beings are in that state.
Because what's kind of, like, frustrating me about the situation is what you're doing is basically trying to, like, avoid the hypothetical by reshaping it.
Like, that's been kind of, like... Wait, you're accusing me of reshaping the hypothetical when you have omniscient demons and wizards?
You think I'm reshaping the hypothetical?
Come on!
Or, you know... Okay.
No, but let's say... Hang on.
I'll give you... But we'll go here.
We'll go here.
We'll go here.
No, no, no.
That was unfair, though.
Wait, that was unfair, though.
No, it's not.
Every time I give you a reality-based counter argument to the consequences of your scenario, you just invent magic to erase it.
Like magical demons that know everything and wizards who can feed a majority of mentally handicapped people.
Right, because what's happening is I give you the first hypothetical, right?
But then you paint the hypothetical such that there is some kind of consequence in it that leans in the direction of your moral evaluation, right?
So I'm trying to alter it to capture what I'm originally talking about, which is really... Sorry, I'm getting kind of bored talking about the debate.
So let's go to the scenario that you want to go to, which is 100% of human beings have the moral acuity of cows.
Right?
Sure.
Let's say that, yeah.
All right.
So there, and keep in mind, so we're talking about everyone is now like the kind of, like, right?
Just like the kind of disabled person who's actually out there, who's not able to do that moral reasoning beyond what a cow can do.
Right.
So everyone's like that now.
Right.
Okay.
So in that world, do you think it would be fine to just not give these people the non-aggression principle?
I'm not sure what you mean.
There's no one there with the mental acuity to evaluate the ethics of what's going on.
It's like saying... Wait, I can answer that.
You're standing there outside of the hypothetical making a judgment about the beings in the hypothetical.
So you're not actually in the hypothetical world, you're making an evaluation from outside about if those beings would, under your ethics, have the non-aggression principle.
Well, heavens no.
Any more than I would blame a lion for murder for eating a zebra.
No, no, no.
We're not just talking about whether we would blame them for aggressing against each other.
We're talking about whether you think that if a being who had like sufficient cognitive complexity were there, whether they would have an obligation to extend the NAP to those beings.
No, no, I'm sorry.
I'm not trying to be obtuse here.
I genuinely don't ask that.
Do you think that I hold beings morally responsible who are completely incapable of processing moral arguments or having moral judgments.
In other words, if a cow sits on my car, would I assume that cow for negligent destruction of my property?
I'm not talking about moral responsibility, right?
I'm talking about moral value, right?
Because there's beings who aren't capable of moral responsibility who we still extend value to.
So, my question is about whether the beings in that world, in your mind, deserve the non-aggression principle from an agent who is capable of comprehending the non-aggression principle.
But there aren't human beings who have the non-aggression principle in this scenario, because all human beings have the moral capacities of cows.
Like, there's no human being who's not a cow in this scenario.
Right.
You're observing that situation from outside the hypothetical.
Am I a human being or some other creature?
Well, you're just you, Stefan.
So I am a human being?
Yes, but you're not in the hypothetical.
You're outside of the hypothetical.
I'm not sure what that means.
I'm outside the hypothetical.
What does that mean?
Like I'm orbiting the world?
Or what do you mean?
Yeah, it means you're thinking about the hypothetical.
And in this actual hypothetical, there's not Stefan Molyneux, right?
So we're asking about your evaluation, about the moral value of those creatures, not their moral responsibility, their value.
from your place here outside of that hypothetical, whether they... Oh, so why don't you just ask me about cows?
I mean, because this is exactly the same as me looking at cows, right?
I would say no, because these beings are, they look exactly like the disabled people who are alive right now, and they are cognitively identical to disabled people who are alive right now.
But I don't understand, because if I'm outside the scenario and I have no capacity to act in the scenario, I don't understand what any kind of moral evaluation would mean.
You're asking about if, hypothetically, there were some kind of being in that universe who could think in this abstract moral way, what kind of obligations they would have to those beings.
You mean, so if all humanity had the moral capacities of a cow, then they would be indistinguishable from cows from a moral standpoint?
It depends, again, on what your moral standpoint is, actually, because that would be true for some moral standpoints and not for others.
But the question is really just about whether those beings have value on your view.
I don't know what the word value means here, because value is not a moral term.
I can give you a definition.
Like in this case, we're just talking about sufficient value to merit the NAP.
So we just talk about, if it's easier, just whether they would deserve the NAP on your view.
So when you look at that hypothetical world and you see those beings in there, I mean, I'm just assuming, Stefan, tell me if I'm wrong, but in all honesty, I think that you look at that world and you still think these beings have value.
Sorry, you don't like that word?
I think that you would still think that it would be wrong to, for example, make those beings into hamburgers against their will, right?
Because again, subjectively identical to disabled people who are alive right now on this planet.
They look identical to disabled people who are alive right now on this planet.
So the question is just about whether you, looking into that hypothetical, go, those beings deserve the non-aggression principle or they don't.
But there's no human beings to enforce the non-aggression principle.
So for instance, a wolf would hunt one of these creatures through a forest and would eat it.
The way that they hunt a cow, right?
So I'm observing this and do I say, my gosh, those wolves are violating the non-aggression principle.
Or maybe one of these or a band of these creatures comes across a herd of cows, right?
And let's say they hit the cows on the head with a rock and they eat the cow.
Do I say, oh my gosh, these creatures have violated the non-aggression principle because it's cow brain eating cow brain, right?
Or let's say one of these creatures falls down a cliff and dies and then...
Uh...
Cats come and eat it, right?
Do I say, well, the cats are, you know, it's terrible what the cats are doing?
I mean, we're talking about a situation prior to morality, prior to human consciousness, prior to abstract reasoning, prior to philosophy.
We're talking about a complete state of nature before human beings.
And so you're asking me if I see a Tyrannosaurus rex eating a Stegosaurus, what is my moral evaluation of that situation?
I don't even know what the question means.
There is no such thing as a moral evaluation of that situation.
I'm simply observing, like a biologist would, creatures with no capacity for moral reasoning doing what animals do, which is to try to mate, to try not to be eaten, and to try and get sustenance.
Right.
So I'm not asking you about whether... And I'm almost, by the way, I'm almost done with this because I just find this line of reasoning to be more and more absurd.
And now we're in some platonic world where I'm floating in an abstract orbit looking at human beings with the brains of cows roaming across the land.
Like it's just becoming too... I'll I like philosophy to be practical, and this is not even close to where I thought this debate was going to go, which is fine, I mean, you know, but maybe I should have started, but we didn't actually get to anything to do with animal rights, and that's kind of frustrating for me, because, hang on, hang on, let me finish talking, let me finish talking, then I'll be quiet, right, because I was, I mean, I did a lot of preparation on, you know, whether
Agricultural farming of crops displaces more animals and the ethics of it all.
And so, you know, life for me is too short to waste on these increasingly abstract, demon-orbiting Gandalf scenarios.
I actually just generally prefer dealing with practical realities in the world, because that's what I think philosophy is about.
It's about processing choices that we have to make in the real world and these increasingly abstract, anti-rational, impossible circumstances where all human beings have their skulls removed and brains removed and then some alien demon wires in the brain of a cow and releases them back into humanity. impossible circumstances where all human beings have their skulls removed And there's no consequences for more than half of humanity losing its capacity to have any kind of reasoning.
And it just becomes so abstract that that's to me and just my perspective.
Right.
And I'll certainly give you the last word.
It just feels very disrespectful to philosophy because none of this is going to help people make decisions about how to better treat animals in the real world because it has become increasingly obtuse and manufactured and contradictory and kind of ridiculous.
And I think that's just a real shame.
I think we had a real opportunity to – and part of that's me.
I could have been more assertive and just say, no, no, let's start talking about actual animal rights in the real world.
Because we do have to make decisions about how to maximize the quality of life of animals and so on.
But yeah, I think it's a bit of a wasted opportunity.
And that's, you know, on you, and certainly partly on me.
Because I could have said, no, let's let's start talking about the real world.
Because I sort of thought we were going to get to the end of the abstract thing and get but now it's been almost two hours.
And we've never got anywhere close to
things that happen in the real world that we need to make decisions about so yeah it's disappointing for me and frustrating for me and that's going to happen but yeah enough for me that's that's it for me and i'm going to close off but i'm certainly happy to give you the last word um okay all right well i think that there's some unfairness there so one thing i do want to ask if you don't want to reply then i'll just continue but what is the contradiction if there's a contradiction then what's the set of proposition and negation that are involved in any of those hypotheticals
Well, the impossibility of the hypotheticals, right?
Because you had to manufacture supernatural elements like wizards and demons in order to make your hypotheticals work, which is why I said, in this impossible scenario, which it is.
So, yeah, it's just we, you know, if you need the Gandalf principle to win the argument, you need to rethink your argument.
Wait, one second.
We have a basic problem here about just, like, basic values.
No, no, no, I'm not getting back into the debate because, you know, this is two hours out of my life, so just, you can have the last word and then we'll close it down.
Well, look, you sound frustrated, and my intent isn't to frustrate you, so, you know, no harshness, no shade.
When you say there's a contradiction, okay, a contradiction is a set of propositions, P and not P, and I have not seen any evidence that there's a contradiction, so I'll just, if you want to point it out, you're welcome to, if you don't, I can just continue with it.
No, I have, and people know what they are, so go ahead.
Okay, um, I think that there's some confusion.
Like, you maybe think that, like, impossible and contradictory are, like, the same or something.
Like, contradiction is when you have proposition P and not P. Like, the sky is blue, and it's not the case that the sky is blue.
And none of my hypotheticals have involved a contradiction.
As for, you know, abstract reasoning, or like the kind of reasoning that I'm engaging in being in some way like useless, like, no, I think that this is how we get to the fundamentals with moral philosophy.
I think it's very important to engage in hypotheticals.
And you can find tons of context in philosophy, like when you're talking about Free will.
People give hypotheticals, like, if there's just, like, a dark puppet master controlling you, like, would you blame this person?
And someone doesn't respond to that by going, like, hmm, well, like, how would the strings function exactly?
And where would this puppet master be located?
That's not how you're meant to engage with a hypothetical in philosophy.
If there were actually a contradiction in the hypothetical, such that you could say the hypothetical is illogical, that would be a basis for taking issue with it.
But I don't think there's anything contradictory.
Now, with respect to the actual debate, I think what's happened is essentially I've run Name the Trait, I've asked for a stack of traits.
We've got species normality on ability to engage in abstract moral reasoning, inability to reproduce, and lack of a cure.
I've been putting reductios to Stefan, but he's been Sort of spitting the reducteos back at me in such a way that there is some kind of like negative consequence to them.
And all I'm trying to do is just get away from that negative consequence and just get to the situation where we have beings that meet these three criteria, but that are cognitively identical to the disabled people who are alive right now.
And who, for all you can tell when you look at them, are physically identical, right?
Now, with respect to those beings, I'm just not clear if you think they'd have value or not, because we've never really managed to get to the kind of baseline hypothetical situation here.
So, that's about all I have to say.
And I appreciate you coming on today.
I'm going to close off, and yeah, thanks for your time.
Yeah, thanks to both of you for allowing us to host this.
It was really interesting.
Yeah, thanks also to the Politics Discord.
I appreciate you.
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