Discussion of human morality only makes sense when you’re talking about humans. Yes, arbitrary groups X and Y may, left to their own devices, find it rational to do all kinds of things we find heinous, but then you’re moving away from morality and into straight up game theory.
Descriptively true, but some argument needs to be made to show that our terminal values never require us to consider any alien’s preferences.
I don’t think the argument is that. It’s more like our terminal values never require us to consider a preference an alien has that is radically opposed to important human values. If we came across an alien race that, due to parallel evolution, has values that coincide with human values in all important ways, we would be just as obligated to respect their preferences as we would those of a human. If we ran across an alien race whose values were similar in most respects, but occasionally differed in a few important ways, we would be required to respect their preferences most of the time, but not when they were expressing one of those totally inhuman values.
In regard to animal cruelty, “not being in pain” is a value both humans and animals have in common, so it seems like it would be a terminal value to respect it.
It’s more like our terminal values never require us to consider a preference an alien has that is radically opposed to important human values.
That’s certainly how we behave. But is it true? Why?
Edit: If your answer is “Terminal value conflicts are intractable,” I agree. But that answer suggests certain consequences in how society should be organized, and yet modern society does not really address actual value conflicts with “Purge it with fire.”
Also, the word values in the phrases “human values” and “animal values” does not mean the same thing in common usage. Conventional wisdom holds that terminal values are not something that non-human animals have—connotatively if not denotatively.
Edit: If your answer is “Terminal value conflicts are intractable,” I agree. But that answer suggests certain consequences in how society should be organized, and yet modern society does not really address actual value conflicts with “Purge it with fire.”
I think I might believe that such conflicts are intractable. The reason that society generally doesn’t flat-out kill people with totally alien values is that such people are rare-to-nonexistant. Humans who are incurably sociopathic could be regarded as creatures with alien values, providing their sociopathy is egosyntonic. We do often permanently lock up or execute such people.
Also, the word values in the phrases “human values” and “animal values” does not mean the same thing in common usage
You might be right, if you define “value” as “a terminal goal that a consequentialist creature has” and believe most animals do not have enough brainpower to be consequentialists. If this is the case I think that animal cruelty laws are an probably an expression of the human value that creatures not be in pain
With respect to group-based hatred, it seems that there have been changes in both directions over the course of human history (and change not entirely caused by the folks with the old views dying off). So, yeah, I think your Nazis aren’t entirely human.
Those baby-eating aliens produce large net disutility, because the babies hate it. In that case, even without human involvement, it’s a good idea to kill the aliens. To make it comparable, the aliens have to do something that wouldn’t be bad if it didn’t disgust the humans. For example, if they genetically modified themselves so that the babies they eat aren’t sentient, but have the instincts necessary to scream for help.
This situation is more like “they eat babies, but they don’t eat that many, to the extent that it produces net utility given their preferences for continuing to do it.”
The assumption “their terminal values are fixed to hate group X” is something akin to “this group is not human, but aliens with an arbitrary set of values that happen to mostly coincide with traditional human values, but with one exception.” Which is not terribly different from “These alien race enjoys creativity and cleverness and love and other human values… but also eats babies.”
Discussion of human morality only makes sense when you’re talking about humans. Yes, arbitrary groups X and Y may, left to their own devices, find it rational to do all kinds of things we find heinous, but then you’re moving away from morality and into straight up game theory.
Descriptively true, but some argument needs to be made to show that our terminal values never require us to consider any alien’s preferences.
Preferably, this argument would also address whether animal cruelty laws are justified by terminal values or instrumental values.
I don’t think the argument is that. It’s more like our terminal values never require us to consider a preference an alien has that is radically opposed to important human values. If we came across an alien race that, due to parallel evolution, has values that coincide with human values in all important ways, we would be just as obligated to respect their preferences as we would those of a human. If we ran across an alien race whose values were similar in most respects, but occasionally differed in a few important ways, we would be required to respect their preferences most of the time, but not when they were expressing one of those totally inhuman values.
In regard to animal cruelty, “not being in pain” is a value both humans and animals have in common, so it seems like it would be a terminal value to respect it.
That’s certainly how we behave. But is it true? Why?
Edit: If your answer is “Terminal value conflicts are intractable,” I agree. But that answer suggests certain consequences in how society should be organized, and yet modern society does not really address actual value conflicts with “Purge it with fire.”
Also, the word values in the phrases “human values” and “animal values” does not mean the same thing in common usage. Conventional wisdom holds that terminal values are not something that non-human animals have—connotatively if not denotatively.
I think I might believe that such conflicts are intractable. The reason that society generally doesn’t flat-out kill people with totally alien values is that such people are rare-to-nonexistant. Humans who are incurably sociopathic could be regarded as creatures with alien values, providing their sociopathy is egosyntonic. We do often permanently lock up or execute such people.
You might be right, if you define “value” as “a terminal goal that a consequentialist creature has” and believe most animals do not have enough brainpower to be consequentialists. If this is the case I think that animal cruelty laws are an probably an expression of the human value that creatures not be in pain
Are you saying that immutable terminal values is a non-human trait?
With respect to group-based hatred, it seems that there have been changes in both directions over the course of human history (and change not entirely caused by the folks with the old views dying off). So, yeah, I think your Nazis aren’t entirely human.
Those baby-eating aliens produce large net disutility, because the babies hate it. In that case, even without human involvement, it’s a good idea to kill the aliens. To make it comparable, the aliens have to do something that wouldn’t be bad if it didn’t disgust the humans. For example, if they genetically modified themselves so that the babies they eat aren’t sentient, but have the instincts necessary to scream for help.
This situation is more like “they eat babies, but they don’t eat that many, to the extent that it produces net utility given their preferences for continuing to do it.”