Morality and Intelligence

[obi]

If the basis is that they are human, then can we ever give a non-human rights equal to those of humans? If we encounter an alien species of intelligence near that of humans, could we still eat them if we think they're tasty, or keep them as pets if they're cute?

 

[Altmer]

What's stopping you?

 

[umbarsc]

No, it does not. If his point is that you should not do unto someone else what you would not want him to do unto you, then it does not matter if it is possible to be in the other's situation.

I could have just misinterpreted, but what I read was "I could become mentally retarded, so if I condone mistreating the mentally retarded, I could be mistreated in the future." Or "If we mistreat a group of people, then I become a part of that group of people, I will be mistreated. Therefore, we shouldn't mistreat that group of people." Octopi, dogs, and aliens are completely irrelevant with that line of thinking. Not that it gives us moral justification to mistreat those groups of creatures, but rather that it doesn't say anything about those groups of creatures.

Depending on your situation and style of living, the odds of getting a head injury or some neurological disorder can be pretty damn slim anyway, it would be reasonable for one to round them down to zero.

Can you justify that claim? It may be small odds, but if you're going to claim that the number is so small that we can say that it's practically zero, I would think you need some sort of source.

If you are white caucasian, you have 0% chance of turning into a black person, does that mean it's fine to treat them like octopi?

No. The argument wasn't "If we have a chance of becoming member of a group of people, we shouldn't mistreat them. If not, it is ok to mistreat them." (yeah it's wordy but I think you get the idea) The former statement is pretty explicit, but the latter statement isn't even implied.

Moreover, if you argue that what he was arguing is essentially self-defense (If I mistreat this group of people it might lead to me being mistreated one day), not mistreating other races is a logical extension. If we explicitly mistreat people of other races, it leads to them resenting white people, which leads to racism against white people and even killing white people. Additionally, if the balance of power between races shifts, and black people are now in power, then the whites are fucked. If you consider these possibilities, it makes sense to not divide people among races and mistreat other races.

I suppose the obvious response to that is if we enslave them they won't be able to revolt and strike back, but that's a red herring because the initial argument states absolutely nothing about other races.

 

[obi]

Octopi

Octopi is never a correct pluralization of octopus. The word comes from the Greek, with the suffix -pus, meaning foot, not the Latin singular suffix -us, which is what's pluralized to -i. Octopuses is the English pluralization, or octopodes if you want to stick with Greek (which is silly and only likely to cause confusion).

Not that it gives us moral justification to mistreat those groups of creatures, but rather that it doesn't say anything about those groups of creatures.

There are two possibilities. Either we have some other reason to treat them with respect, in which case the "I could be in that situation, so I should be kind because I'd want to be treated kindly" is a useless justification, because those similar to use would be covered under the same reasoning; or we have no other justification in which case it's perfectly fine for people of different races to treat others differently based on their race, because there is a 0% chance of them changing races.

 

[umbarsc]

Why would you reach that conclusion? How about a third possibility: we shouldn't mistreat the mentally retarded because of that reasoning, and any other ethical trains of thought exist independently of that justification.

Edit: What I mean is perhaps it's possible that that's the only reason we protect the mentally retarded, and they don't have some sort of "right to life" like the rest of us, but we protect them anyways for that reason. Also, read my rebuttal for the race comment.