Yvain comments on [SEQ RERUN] Three Fallacies of Teleology - Less Wrong
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When Charlton Heston was on the Planet of the Apes and he found that human beings were no longer differentiated by their reasoning powers (which were sub-par) but by their hairlessness, should he have devoted his life to keeping exceptionally well-shaved?
(this question brought to you by my continuing confusion with teleology)
I posted answers, so far as I have them, to your questions in the linked discussion.
Very many thanks!
I might end up saying that reasoning was still the ne plus ultra and that apes and humans had a lot of overlapping telos. Apes and humans might end up like men and women or like Einstein and normal people; there are other salient differences, but the ability to reason would still be the thing you'd pare off last. (People would be more likely to recognize a hairy human as human than one that didn't claim to be conscious).