I mean, yeah, but that’s basically just the “suspension of disbelief” option. I stop thinking of them as the same kind-of-creature as myself, stop trying to put myself in their shoes, and feel compassion toward them the way I feel compassion toward a cat. I have no trouble feeling compassion toward cats!
I think there are levels between cat and human and that there are different agent classes. It’s more about picking the right refrence class than it is anything else I think?
To what extent are they able to do intelligent and agentic actions? If they aren’t then you can be more kind to them because they’re not as able to act? Or you can start figuring out how to explain something to change things for the better?
(not to call people dogs but sometimes I can feel like what it feels like to be a dog, it’s pretty awesome so why not?)
I mean, yeah, but that’s basically just the “suspension of disbelief” option. I stop thinking of them as the same kind-of-creature as myself, stop trying to put myself in their shoes, and feel compassion toward them the way I feel compassion toward a cat. I have no trouble feeling compassion toward cats!
I think there are levels between cat and human and that there are different agent classes. It’s more about picking the right refrence class than it is anything else I think?
To what extent are they able to do intelligent and agentic actions? If they aren’t then you can be more kind to them because they’re not as able to act? Or you can start figuring out how to explain something to change things for the better?
(not to call people dogs but sometimes I can feel like what it feels like to be a dog, it’s pretty awesome so why not?)