"Suppose you are on a lifeboat where you can only take one more person, but there are two left to rescue. Would it be ethical to go by their level of consciousness? For instance, a baby is less conscious than an adult. Would it be right to take the adult and leave the baby to die?"
allow me to reformulate the dilemma. it often happened, in cruder days, that a difficult birth would balance the lives of mother and child over the abyss of oblivion, so that either one or the other could be saved, but not both. in such unfortunate instances, it is customary to save the mother and mourn the child. i agree with the practice, for the adult, being more attached to the world, would suffer more from dying than would the newborn.
"Suppose one of them took some sort of painkiller an hour earlier, does that justify saving the other person?"
in the absence of futher information, i shall assume the default condition of "all else being equal." suppose that two individuals x and y were identical in every way except that y, through the action of an analgesic, would suffer slightly less from the impending doom than would x. since it is postulated that x and y possess the same memories and entertain the same thoughts, one may view the two as parts of a single individual z. in this light, z is presented with the unenviable dilemma of subjecting one of two identical appendages to painful mutilation. if i were z, i would certainly offer the one that happened to be slightly anesthetized.
of course, this is a somewhat exotic case. however, if one were to relax the condition of "all else being equal," then one must specify precisely what the differences are and figure those differences into the decision. for example, if one has reason to believe that y would prevent much more suffering than would x if she were saved, then it would perhaps be advisable to save y instead. clearly, the problem could fast become intractable as more differences are considered, but that is merely a technical difficulty.
"Suppose pigs were proven to have less consciousness than cows. Would it then be fair to the pigs to kill more of them than the cows? Why should cows’ lives be spared just because their consciousness happens to be higher?"
because they have greater capacity for experience.
"By the same token, is it justified to kill more vegetables in order to save cows, pigs, and chickens, just because they are less conscious?"
all else being equal, certainly.
"Is consciousness the ultimate measure of the value of life?"
"consciousness" is an overloaded term, and one can interpret this question in many ways. nevertheless, i answer yes.
"If so, can we comfortably say that our lives are more important than those of animals, even though we create more problems for the earth than any other species?"
problems in what sense? it seems to me that the concept "problem" presupposes intentionality. the earth does not have problems, human beings do. the planet that bears us would continue its celestial dance even if all the life that once inhabited it were extinguished and all the oceans evaporated into space.
"Vegetables do nothing but to contribute to the well being of the earth. We almost do nothing but to destroy the earth."
again, well-being in what sense? and for what reason should the well-being of earth be of concern to us? by what criteria does one judge earth to be a better planet than say, mercury? by human criteria.
"What makes us think that we are in a position to decide which lives are worth saving and others justified killing?"
the fact that no one else is in a position to decide.
"They fear their own death so much that they cannot possibly justify causing the same fear in other beings."
i doubt that a pig experiences the same fear as a human being.
"If you are willing to gracefully die when your time comes, killing of others for your own survival becomes much less of a moral dilemma."
what does it mean to die "gracefully?" gracefully by whose criteria? and how does one know "when your time comes?"
"If killing of beings for one’s own survival is a sin, then we are all born sinfully."
rigorously speaking, i agree.
"I feel that unwillingness to accept this sin is a lie. I would take being sinful over living a lie."
ah, but i am unwilling to accept the conclusion that "we are all born sinfully" because i reject the premise that "killing of beings for one’s own survival is a sin." in fact, i question whether the word "sin" conveys any meaning at all. "sin" appears to stand for something like, "evil in the objective sense." but god, being dead, can no long supply objectivity in questions of value, so sin died along with him.
A Random Comment from May 18, 2002
regarding vegetarian dilemmas
"Suppose you are on a lifeboat where you can only take one more person, but there are two left to rescue. Would it be ethical to go by their level of consciousness? For instance, a baby is less conscious than an adult. Would it be right to take the adult and leave the baby to die?"
allow me to reformulate the dilemma. it often happened, in cruder days, that a difficult birth would balance the lives of mother and child over the abyss of oblivion, so that either one or the other could be saved, but not both. in such unfortunate instances, it is customary to save the mother and mourn the child. i agree with the practice, for the adult, being more attached to the world, would suffer more from dying than would the newborn.
"Suppose one of them took some sort of painkiller an hour earlier, does that justify saving the other person?"
in the absence of futher information, i shall assume the default condition of "all else being equal." suppose that two individuals x and y were identical in every way except that y, through the action of an analgesic, would suffer slightly less from the impending doom than would x. since it is postulated that x and y possess the same memories and entertain the same thoughts, one may view the two as parts of a single individual z. in this light, z is presented with the unenviable dilemma of subjecting one of two identical appendages to painful mutilation. if i were z, i would certainly offer the one that happened to be slightly anesthetized.
of course, this is a somewhat exotic case. however, if one were to relax the condition of "all else being equal," then one must specify precisely what the differences are and figure those differences into the decision. for example, if one has reason to believe that y would prevent much more suffering than would x if she were saved, then it would perhaps be advisable to save y instead. clearly, the problem could fast become intractable as more differences are considered, but that is merely a technical difficulty.
"Suppose pigs were proven to have less consciousness than cows. Would it then be fair to the pigs to kill more of them than the cows? Why should cows’ lives be spared just because their consciousness happens to be higher?"
because they have greater capacity for experience.
"By the same token, is it justified to kill more vegetables in order to save cows, pigs, and chickens, just because they are less conscious?"
all else being equal, certainly.
"Is consciousness the ultimate measure of the value of life?"
"consciousness" is an overloaded term, and one can interpret this question in many ways. nevertheless, i answer yes.
"If so, can we comfortably say that our lives are more important than those of animals, even though we create more problems for the earth than any other species?"
problems in what sense? it seems to me that the concept "problem" presupposes intentionality. the earth does not have problems, human beings do. the planet that bears us would continue its celestial dance even if all the life that once inhabited it were extinguished and all the oceans evaporated into space.
"Vegetables do nothing but to contribute to the well being of the earth. We almost do nothing but to destroy the earth."
again, well-being in what sense? and for what reason should the well-being of earth be of concern to us? by what criteria does one judge earth to be a better planet than say, mercury? by human criteria.
"What makes us think that we are in a position to decide which lives are worth saving and others justified killing?"
the fact that no one else is in a position to decide.
"They fear their own death so much that they cannot possibly justify causing the same fear in other beings."
i doubt that a pig experiences the same fear as a human being.
"If you are willing to gracefully die when your time comes, killing of others for your own survival becomes much less of a moral dilemma."
what does it mean to die "gracefully?" gracefully by whose criteria? and how does one know "when your time comes?"
"If killing of beings for one’s own survival is a sin, then we are all born sinfully."
rigorously speaking, i agree.
"I feel that unwillingness to accept this sin is a lie. I would take being sinful over living a lie."
ah, but i am unwilling to accept the conclusion that "we are all born sinfully" because i reject the premise that "killing of beings for one’s own survival is a sin." in fact, i question whether the word "sin" conveys any meaning at all. "sin" appears to stand for something like, "evil in the objective sense." but god, being dead, can no long supply objectivity in questions of value, so sin died along with him.