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DanArmak comments on Arguments Against Speciesism - LessWrong
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Why should there be a "correct" solution for ethical reasoning? Is there a normative level regarding which color is the best? People function based on heuristics, which are calibrated on general cases, not on marginal cases. While I'm all for showing inconsistencies in one's statements, there is no inconsistency in saying "as a general rule, I value X, but in these cases, I value Y, which is different from X".
Why the impetus towards some one-size-fit-all solution? And more importantly, why disallow that marginal cases get special "if-clauses"?
Imagine forcing a programmer to treat all incoming data with the exact same rule. It would be a disaster. Adding a "as a general rule" solves the inconsistencies, and it's not cheating, and it's not something in need of fixing.
If you want your choices to be consistent over time, you still need a meta-rule for choosing and modifying your rules. How do you know what exceptions to make?
Personally, I don't think my choices (as a human) can be consistent in this sense, and I'm pretty resigned to following my inconsistent moral intuitions. Others disagree with me on this.
Your choices won't be consistent over time anyways, because you won't be consistent over time. For your Centenarian self, the current you is a but a distant memory.
That my desires won't be consistent over very long periods of time, is no reason to make my choices inconsistent over short periods of time when my desires don't change much.