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Trevor_Blake comments on Mike Darwin on animal research, moral cowardice, and reasoning in an uncaring universe - Less Wrong Discussion

23 Post author: Synaptic 25 August 2012 04:38PM

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Tags: cryonics research utilitarianism animal-welfare mike-darwin

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Comment author: [deleted] 26 August 2012 12:04:33AM 3 points [-]

Then, unless you are cretin or a fool, or both, realize that suffering and injustice are both inescapable contemporary and future realities which you have to deal with rationally (or not) as you choose. You do not get to choose Door Number 3, which is "no suffering and injustice." In fact, even you kill yourself straightaway to avoid inconveniencing a mouse with a plow, the suffering and injustice will continue to march on, even for billions and billions of years.

Not making more life means the suffering and the injustice most under my control stops, even for billions and billions of years. Does my vasectomy make me a cretin or a fool, or both?

Comment author: roystgnr 27 August 2012 09:21:04PM 1 point [-]

It means that one of your decisions places more weight on one sub-aspect of future outcomes (the suffering and injustice your progeny might have experienced or created) more than other aspects (the suffering and injustice your progeny might have directly or indirectly prevented) which third parties might see as equally important. If these decisions reflect your actual values then they aren't foolish or cretinous... but I'm not sure I understand your actual values. Is there a consequentialist argument by which potential future worlds which include your descendants would be inferior to worlds where that space is filled up by the marginal additional offspring of others instead? Is there a deontological ethic which you should follow but others shouldn't, or one which everyone should follow in which "we should undergo voluntary self-extinction" is the correct ethical result?

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