On 5/26/07, Samantha Atkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
We care about humans in the first instance because we are human.
What do you mean by this? If you are suggesting that our care for other humans is conditioned upon our identifying ourselves as belonging to that same species of humans, then I think that is grossly mistaken. Imagine you learn that contrary to what most people and scientists think, there is actually two species of humans, most people belong to one and you and a few others belong to a different one. In that case, what is your response? Do you suddenly stop caring about most humans because most of them are not really of the same species? I would hope and bet that wouldn't be the case. But then I think that shows that species membership wasn't really your criterion for who to care about. You (or at least the rest of us) care about humans roughly because we have a general capacity for empathy and sympathy to put ourselves into the perspective of the creatures we've interacted with. Most of us have had most interaction with other humans so we generally care about humans. Many have also interacted with pets like dogs and cats and care about them. Some people have mostly only interacted with members of their own race, but even they have a reasoning capacity that can get them to see that if the only reason they don't care as much about other races is that they haven't interacted with them, then well that's a bad reason and they should reject any racist tendencies they have. I think exactly analogous considerations hold for species.
While it has become somewhat fashionable to distance ourselves from the reality of our own being and calmly contemplate species-death I for on do not consider it a healthy practice.
Can you be more clear and define vague terms such as "reality of our own being?" To fail to defend and uphold the well being of one's own species is
likely to be an evolutionary dead end.
I think all of us would generally defend and uphold the well-being of the individuals who make up our species so if you are actually arguing against real opponents, I take it that by "well-being of one's own species" you must mean something more than just the well-being of the individuals who make up the species. But then I think you are conceptually confused. The human species is not the sort of thing that is capable of well-being. The species as a whole cannot for instance feel pleasure or pain. It cannot form preferences. (At least we haven't formed a hive mind yet.) As I said, the individuals who make up the species are certainly capable of well-being. But their well-being does not depend on the continuation of biological humanity. If all the biological neurons were gradually replaced by silicon circuits performing the same functions, I think their well-being would be preserved. Also, even if you weren't conceptually confused on that point, I don't see how pointing out that that would be an evolutionary dead end is supposed to matter at all. First of all, it's not even the case that our genes even metaphorically "care" about the reproductive success of the species. Our genes are metaphorically selfish, "caring" only about making more copies of itself. It seems like you are making the mistake of thinking evolution happens through group or species selection. But more importantly, we are not our genes! The fact that our genes have metaphorically "cared" about certain things does not matter for what we should care about. What matters is what our genes programmed us to care about. They certainly did not program humans to have the concept of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory and then revise their values depending on whether or not it would lead to an evolutionary dead end. That is absolutely absurd! Yet it's frustrating how many people seem to make that sort of error. Our genes programmed us to have various direct concerns. A mother will for instance directly care about her offspring, not care about her offspring in order to promote the human species or her own genes. John Ku ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&user_secret=7d7fb4d8
