--- On Wed, 11/5/08, Harry Chesley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If I understand correctly, you're saying that there is > no such thing as objective ethics, and that our subjective > ethics depend on how much we identify/empathize with another > creature. I grant this as a possibility, in which case I > guess my question should be viewed as subjective. I.e., how > do I tell when something is sufficiently close to me, > without being able to see all the features directly, that I > need to worry about the ethics subjectively? > > Let me give an example: If I take a person and put them in > a box, so that I can see none of their features or know how > similar they are to me, I still consider it unethical to > conduct certain experiments on them. This is because I > believe those important similar features are there, I just > can't see them.
It is surprisingly easy for humans to lessen their anxiety by blocking the stimuli that makes another suffering person seem human. An important feature of the Milgram experiments ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment ) was that the torturer could not see the victim. Likewise, people who wouldn't hesitate to jump in the water to save a drowning child will do nothing to stop the suffering of millions of starving refugees on the other side of the world. I don't mean to imply that we should behave differently. I am just describing how the human ethical belief model works. -- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
