A house is on fire. You are a rescuer whose goal is to save the beings stuck inside. There is one human, one animal (say a dog), one plant, and one object (with no monetary value but destroyable). All else is equal. You can only rescue one at a time. Who would/should you rescue first, second, third, and fourth? — Samuel Lacrampe
I think the christian doctrine says that Jesus condescended down to the human level to become human, thereby not being perfect in every way during that time. — Samuel Lacrampe
I understand your forced-choice set up here, but we are not in forced-choice situations. — Bitter Crank
In our ordinary unforced choice situations people don't rigorously honor the great chain of being, — Bitter Crank
Our emotional commitment to the GCB (and the ethics of who ought to be saved first) is pretty heavily affected by physical distance, how much affinity we feel, how pressing the various (frequently trivial) demands on our attention, and so on. — Bitter Crank
People may not be literally thrown under the bus very often, but by intent, neglect, indifference, and so on we throw lots of people under the bus all the time. If my neighbor's house was on fire, I would call the fire department. I would attempt at a reasonably safe distance to assess the environment inside. I would not rush in to save these people, let alone a plant or their cat. — Bitter Crank
Like any experiment, by using the good old inductive reasoning. If most answers are "I personally believe we ought to save the human first, animal second, plant third, and object fourth", then we can reasonably draw that conclusion. Say there are a few exceptions? Well the exception makes the rule!You wrote that you want to "show that we all have an innate knowledge of it". Then you asked what we'd do in a specific situation. How would you show that it's innate to all of us based on our answers? — Πετροκότσυφας
Maybe I misunderstood what you originally said. The GCB ethics does not entail that having pets is unethical, inasmuch as doing something for pleasure is not unethical. Choosing to have a pet is unethical only if that choice results in the harm of a higher being.Would I say if people who have pets are unethical? No, they are not. That's just an absurdity resulting from the GCB's lack of nuance regarding ethics. — Πετροκότσυφας
Yes. One way to check this, as Pascal and Descartes say, is that "we cannot doubt natural principles [or innate knowledge] if we speak sincerely and in all good faith". I personally cannot doubt that it is my duty to save the human first, and cannot imagine that it is my duty to save another first (given the conditions established before). To clarify: I can imagine myself behaving otherwise, but not out of duty.Even if we would all answer that we'd save the human, even if in practice we would all save the human, that would still not entail innateness. It could still be learned behaviour. — Πετροκότσυφας
That is a good point. Where is the right balance between duty towards others and personal pleasure? Using common sense alone, it seems too extreme to spend all our money on our own pleasure, and also too extreme to spend all our money to help others with nothing left for our own pleasure. The right answer is somewhere in between and I don't know it. But I don't think it really harms the GCB ethics, it only makes it complicated to apply in some cases.The money you spent on your pet could very well be spent for people who don't have food, shelter or access to doctors. — Πετροκότσυφας
It is indeed an axiom or first principle, but it is found through argument. The whole point of the thought experiment is to demonstrate that the GCB hierarchy is innate.So, it is indeed an axiom, not a conclusion reached through argument. — Πετροκότσυφας
Indeed. This works in favour of the GCB hierarchy which claims that animals have ontological value of their own.Pets (and other animals) are not mere pleasure. — Πετροκότσυφας
Who knows what one is capable of when it comes to real life, but still, I think the examination of hypotheticals like this makes for good practice. — John Days
Can you explain why?If you cannot even doubt it, it can't be reached through argument. — Πετροκότσυφας
Aside from their ontological values, humans also care for plants and animals because they benefit humans as a means to survival like for food, transport and clothing. So it all abides to the GCB ethics.Since it also shows that there are countless cases where humans care for animals while they could have cared for humans instead. — Πετροκότσυφας
I already addressed this issue here. Let's put it another way. It would be unethical for me to use all my money to buy a pet if a poor person was at my doorstep begging for food. But if I give a reasonable amount of money, then it seems correct to keep some money to buy a pet. Don't you agree?No, it doesn't. Humans care for animal life besides its utility and every instance of such care is care that could have been provided to humans but it wasn't. There's no escaping this. And this difficulty pervades every ring of your chain. — Πετροκότσυφας
That sounds right. So what? If indubitable, then it is necessarily true, then you cannot disagree.If you can't doubt it, you can't genuinely entertain alternatives, and if you can't do that, there's no contrast. — Πετροκότσυφας
The goal is optimize the net outcome, and you are forgetting such factors as efficiency of care and law of diminishing returns. It is less efficient to give to the needy that are far away; and once the needy in proximity have received the basic care, then any additional marginal amount of care diminishes. In fact, they might not even want too much charity at some point. And yes, if you give absolutely nothing to the needy when you could have, it follows that you are an unethical person according to the GCB ethics.Homeless people or other needy humans do not simply disappear if they're not at your doorstep thus making it fine to violate your hierarchy by privileging other animals over them. If you're going to introduce other criteria (like proximity or quotas of care) which, at times, take precedence over your hierarchy, you have to provide an explanation as to how that's possible - since your axiom, by itself, does not warrant such exceptions. — Πετροκότσυφας
Yes it does. The highest kind of proof is logical proof, where the contrary of the conclusion entails a contradiction. Can you prove the law of non-contradiction to be true? No, we cannot logically prove logic to be true. But it is strong because, and only because, it is indubitable. So if you deny that an indubitable proposition is necessarily true, then you must also deny that the laws of logic are necessarily true.The problem is that being unable to doubt what you're out to defend, does not make it necessarily true. — Πετροκότσυφας
I agree that utilitarianism is compatible with this GCB ethics; the difference being that instead of the subjective happiness found in utilitarianism, the evaluation criteria is on the amount of good done to a being, with more weight given to higher beings in the hierarchy. You keep calling special pleading, but never explained why.Then you need to argue in favour of utilitarianism. Regarding the rest of the paragraph: special pleading. — Πετροκότσυφας
The claim that the feeling of duty is indubitable only to me is again unfounded. And whatever reason comes up to debunk indubitable thoughts, watch that does not accidentally debunk the indubitable thoughts that are the laws of logic along with it, or else it is my turn to call special pleading.Except that: We're not talking about the law of excluded middle, Samuel. We're talking about the GCB hierarchy, which of course is indubitable only to you. — Πετροκότσυφας
a first principle or an eternal truth, then it can be rediscovered over and over again from its roots, without having to worry about its bumpy evolution throughout history. — Samuel Lacrampe
Yes he did:You keep calling special pleading, but never explained why. — Samuel Lacrampe
Your only defence was:If you're going to introduce other criteria (like proximity or quotas of care) which, at times, take precedence over your hierarchy, you have to provide an explanation as to how that's possible - since your axiom, by itself, does not warrant such exceptions. — Πετροκότσυφας
which is simply incorrect. Saving a life in sub-Saharan Africa costs far, far less than saving a life in an OECD country, even after administrative expenses and travel are taken into account.It is less efficient to give to the needy that are far away; — Samuel Lacrampe
I do not know that in any obvious way, and it is improbable for it to always be the case. Thus the point of these questions is to find out when it is the case. If in doubt, my personal advice is to give locally because of direct experience of the problems and outcomes; others don't have to agree with me. Regardless, this disagreement is on facts, not on the goal of abiding to the GCB ethics.None of those questions make any difference to the only relevant question, which is whether more human suffering can be alleviated by giving locally than by giving in sub-Saharan Africa. [...] we know we can relieve suffering by giving to carefully chosen aid agencies, and that more suffering is relieved in that way than by giving locally. — andrewk
Still unconvinced. I could not tell you if being charitable is a trait found in the majority of people, but it is not an uncommon trait by any means. And for those who are not, it is possible that they cannot.Yet most people don't. — andrewk
Even if you happen to be right about everything else, this conclusion still does not follow. We cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. The GCB ethics is backed up by an innate knowledge of duty, not by acts. Your claims are compatible with the existence of the ethics, and in which case, it would follow that these people are unethical. Does that really sound surprising? Even without the GCB, surely you have heard of the Golden Rule, which "occurs in some form in nearly every religion and ethical tradition." (Source). Would you not want to receive help from others if you were in need?So the evidence is powerful that your GCB principle is not innate to them. — andrewk
A house is on fire. You are a rescuer whose goal is to save the beings stuck inside. There is one human, one animal (say a dog) — Samuel Lacrampe
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.