joefromchicago wrote:Well, I'm not sure we need an entirely new nomenclature here and I'm not convinced that this distinction aids in clarifying things. Furthermore, this wasn't the distinction that you had made earlier, which was between the ability to experience and the act of experiencing.
Feel free to suggest alternative terminology. You'll note, however, that in my previous post I was continuing to use the verb 'to experience' for the act of experiencing, and was using the other terms to separate this from 'the ability to experience' (that which makes something the subject of morality, vwxyz) and 'a thing that can experience' (a subject of morality, an abcde). I'll continue to do this, unless you have an alternative.
joefromchicago wrote:You're coming dangerously close to a boot-strapping argument here. You say that entities that experience are morally relevant, and then you conclude that experiences affect these experiencing entities, which makes experiences morally relevant too. But you still haven't made the connection between an experiencing entity (your abcde) as a morally relevant thing and experiences (qua experiences) as morally relevant things. The two things, after all, are not the same thing, so even if you were to establish that the ability to experience was morally relevant, you would still need to establish that an act of experiencing had some kind of moral significance.
I'll try explaining again. I think you'll find that any contradictions you think you have seen are the result of my poor explanation, not any contradictions in the position I am trying to explain to you.
I'll try to label what the various statements I'm making are, so you can see how they might be attacked. We can then look at the points individually, or you can specify a move between two points that you are unsure about:
Step 1:
(1) I have vwxyz. I am an abcde (statement of fact)
(2) It is important to me (through no choice of my own, it is unavoidably important) that I experience positive feelings (pleasure/happiness/satisfaction/anything-better-than-no-feeling) and that I do not experience negative feelings (pain/unhappiness/dissatisfaction/anything-worse-than-no-feeling) (statement of fact).
(3) All other things that seem important to me are in fact only important because they affect the positive-ness/negative-ness of my feelings (statement of fact).
(4) My having positive rather than negative feelings (from now on I'll use the word 'happiness' to mean this) is the only thing that is important to me; it is 100% important (from (2) and (3)).
Step 2:
(5) Things other than myself have vwxyz. There are other abcdes (statement of fact).
(6) Points (2), (3) and therefore (4) are also true of them.
(7) For all abcdes, happiness (as defined above) is 100% important (from (6))
(8) Happiness is important, and equally important (in all cases 100% important) for all abcdes - (from (7))
(9) Nothing but the happiness of abcdes is important (from (2), (3) and (7)).
Step 3:
(10) I would be more likely to be happy if abcdes other than myself acted as if my happiness were important (statement of fact).
(11) All abcdes would be more likely to be happy if all entities acted as if all other abcdes' happiness were equally important (statement of fact).
(12) Acting as if all other abcdes' happiness is equally important is important to all abcdes (from (10), (11) and (8))
(13) I
ought to act as if all other abcdes' happiness is of equal importance to my own, that is, of absolute importance (moral premise, leaping to an
ought).
(14) All abcdes
ought to act as if all other abcdes' happiness of equal importance to their own, that is, of absolute importance (moral premise, again leaping to an
ought).
Step 4:
(15) The subjects of the moral premises (13) and (14) are abcdes (we could say: "we have a duty to promote the happiness of abcdes"/"abcdes have moral status"/"abcdes are morally relevant", I'm sure you can think of other ways of phrasing this statement, but I hope the meaning is now clear).
(16) Experiences have an effect on the happiness of abcdes (statement of fact).
(17) Actions of one abcde are likely to cause experiences for other abcdes (statement of fact).
(18) Actions and experiences are relevant to the moral premises (from (13), (14), (16) and (17)).
I'm sure aspects of this may require better wording, or further explanation, but hopefully the position is now clear to you, and we can move on to analysing/attacking/refining it.
joefromchicago wrote:Which repercussions are we to consider relevant? If my act of stabbing a brain-dead person scares a cat in the vicinity, does that make my act wrong?
joefromchicago wrote:If that cat would be just as scared if it witnessed me stabbing a cactus, does that make the two stabbings morally equivalent acts?
Yes, but again only if there were no other consequences.
joefromchicago wrote:And what if my stabbing of a brain-dead person is not witnessed by any sentient being? Is my act of stabbing in that case morally neutral?
joefromchicago wrote:What if I upset someone purely by accident? Say, for instance, that I vacuum a carpet. There are two witnesses to my act of vacuuming: a cat and a person. I expect that the cat will be upset by my act of vacuuming, but I have no expectation that the person will be upset by my act. It turns out, however, that both become upset. Have I acted wrongly toward the cat? Toward the person?
