Agreed, but the argument of the “deaf culture”, as far as I can see, isn’t “being deaf is good”, it’s refusing to trade away what they see as “native” culture for social acceptance.
I’m talking about the ability to hear, I’m not talking about “social acceptance”. The way you put it, it almost sounds as if the only difference between a deaf person and a hearing person, is that the latter is accepted by society and the former isn’t.
The deaf culture isn’t just a pathetic rationalisation like deathism.
You don’t think that we’ll have to abandon at least as large a chuck of our current mortal deathist cultures when we defeat death? A mortal might just as well complain about abandoning mortal culture, as some deaf people might complain about abandoning deaf culture.
And fine: that’s their own personal choice—I’m all in favor of voluntary euthanasia. But if they start talking about doing the same to their kids, throw them to jail, and put the kids in a family where they’ll be safe from such harm.
Would you view a homosexual refusing a (real, working) treatment for his “condition” as equally irrational?
No, being sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex or the same sex, or both sexes, or neither sex, isn’t an “ability”. It’s an attribute that is desireable at some times, undesireable at others. I wouldn’t frown on those who chose to configure themselves in any of the four ways (gay, straight, bi, asexual), any more than I would frown on the people who hacked themselves into polyamory, or who would have hacked themselves out of it.
I agree that the difference between hearing and deafness is more than just a social construct (although there is a social construct associated with it, and the importance of that is non-negligible); there is also a difference in ability. Hearing people can hear; deaf people can’t.
If that is sufficient grounds to conclude that bearing and raising a deaf child is grounds for taking that child away from me (either now, or in our hypothetical transhumanist future), it seems to follow that failing to reconfigure my child to benefit from any technologically achievable augmentation should equally be grounds for doing so.
The endpoint of that reasoning seems to be that in a transhumanist culture, everyone is raised with all available augmentations—not just as potential options, but as realized capabilities. Any attempt to raise a child without one of those augmentations is grounds for having that child taken away.
I reject that endpoint… but it’s not entirely clear to me where along the garden path I want to draw the line, or how I would justify drawing it there.
If that is sufficient grounds to conclude that bearing and raising a deaf child is grounds for taking that child away from me (either now, or in our hypothetical transhumanist future), it seems to follow that failing to reconfigure my child to benefit from any technologically achievable augmentation should equally be grounds for doing so.
Does it follow? The way I see it it doesn’t follow that a parent taking away a kid’s IPhone must necessarily be treated as if they had taken away their hearing or their eyesight. The former would be normally considered legitimate parenting, the latter would normally be considered criminal child abuse (though similar is still done in some parts of the world in the form of female genital mutilation).
Our moral instincts currently differentiate between health/ability and technological luxury. How this will be changed in a transhumanist future is a question I don’t yet feel qualified to answer.
I agree that there’s a difference between a basic need/right, and a luxury, and that fundamental to that difference is that it’s more OK to deprive someone (including oneself, maybe) of a luxury than a right/need. That said, you seem to be presuming or inferring something about the line between them, I’m not sure exactly what, that makes it a more reliable indicator than it seems to me.
More generally: yes, of course we can set whatever mores we want. Especially in the kind of transhumanist self-augmenting environment the OP brought up, where our moral instincts are themselves editable. But even in my own birth culture, there are serious disagreements about to what category education falls into, for example… so I lack your confidence in the reliability of that line.
I suppose I’m just expressing what amounts to an aesthetic preference for having standards in that environment that can be justified on some grounds other than “well, that’s how we did it back in the 21st.”
That said, you seem to be presuming or inferring something about the line between them, I’m not sure exactly what, that makes it a more reliable indicator than it seems to me.
I don’t see how the law can have a consistent set of ethics if on the one hand it allows parents to say no to their children’s vision being restored, and on the other hand forbids them from surgically removing their kids’ eyes.
Either the kids having vision is a good thing that they can’t be legitimately denied of (no matter what their parents say), or it’s a thing that they can be legitimately denied of, and falls under parental jurisdiction.
If the parents have the right to deny vision or hearing from their children, what’s the difference whether said kids would need a surgery to restore it, or to remove it?
I don’t see how the law can have a consistent set of ethics if on the one hand it allows parents to say no to their children’s vision being restored, and on the other hand forbids them from surgically removing their kids’ eyes.
You seem to be confusing ethics and law. The law needs to be a Schelling point, and “you don’t have to help but aren’t allowed to hurt”, is probably as good a Schelling point as your going to find.
Not quite, though I should have spoken generally about rulesets, instead of laws. Whether it’s a personal ruleset, or a legal ruleset, it needs be logically consistent.
“you don’t have to help but aren’t allowed to hurt” is probably as good a Schelling point as you’re going to find.
That has nothing to do with the topic at hand, since the parents in questions wouldn’t be forced to help, they just wouldn’t be allowed to hurt by preventing others from helping.
Just foists the whole problem off on whoever has to define “harm.” That’s what a lot of modern law ultimately comes down to, of course, but I don’t think that’s a desirable endpoint.
That said, I can imagine cultures that don’t. For example, I can imagine a culture that forbids me from forcibly blinding people (including my children) but doesn’t obligate me to grant them sight, and arrives at those mores consistently by framing the whole question as one of property rights… much like my culture forbids me from forcibly taking your money but doesn’t obligate me to provide you with money if you lack it (1).
Of course, such a hypothetical culture would also need to have a notion of children’s property rights as distinct from their parents’, which my culture mostly doesn’t, but that’s easy enough for me to imagine.
Even if I couldn’t imagine such a culture, though, I generally think it’s a mistake to treat my failures of imagination as data about anything but the limits of my imagination.
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(1) - Individually, I mean. Collectively/indirectly my culture does obligate me, in the form of taxes and welfare programs… but then again, collectively/indirectly my culture also allows me to forcibly take your money, in the form of government- and court-imposed fines.)
we’ll have to abandon at least as large a chuck of our current mortal deathist cultures when we defeat death
Speaking of that, can anyone recommend some fiction that deals with the cultural changes that come with defeating death (or mostly defeating it), and doesn’t come out on the side of deathism?
How do you mean? I’ve read a fair bit of Christian doctrine and apologia, and I’ve never seen any substantial volume of material dealing with the actual mechanics of an immortal existence. Usually it’s described in terms of an existence of perfect concordance with God’s wishes, which implies perfect bliss by some theological sleight of hand but doesn’t imply much detail as to what that actually involves, experientially speaking. Certainly nothing concrete on the cultural changes that we’d reasonably expect after defeating the last enemy that shall be destroyed.
The Muslim afterlife’s much more detailed, incidentally, but it’s just your standard feasts-and-gardens paradise, more or less equivalent to Valhalla but with different cultural foci of enjoyment. I don’t find it much more eternity-term compelling than what little we can infer of the Christian version, although I’d probably be more inclined to visit it as a holiday destination.
I’m talking about the ability to hear, I’m not talking about “social acceptance”. The way you put it, it almost sounds as if the only difference between a deaf person and a hearing person, is that the latter is accepted by society and the former isn’t.
You don’t think that we’ll have to abandon at least as large a chuck of our current mortal deathist cultures when we defeat death? A mortal might just as well complain about abandoning mortal culture, as some deaf people might complain about abandoning deaf culture.
And fine: that’s their own personal choice—I’m all in favor of voluntary euthanasia. But if they start talking about doing the same to their kids, throw them to jail, and put the kids in a family where they’ll be safe from such harm.
No, being sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex or the same sex, or both sexes, or neither sex, isn’t an “ability”. It’s an attribute that is desireable at some times, undesireable at others. I wouldn’t frown on those who chose to configure themselves in any of the four ways (gay, straight, bi, asexual), any more than I would frown on the people who hacked themselves into polyamory, or who would have hacked themselves out of it.
I agree that the difference between hearing and deafness is more than just a social construct (although there is a social construct associated with it, and the importance of that is non-negligible); there is also a difference in ability. Hearing people can hear; deaf people can’t.
If that is sufficient grounds to conclude that bearing and raising a deaf child is grounds for taking that child away from me (either now, or in our hypothetical transhumanist future), it seems to follow that failing to reconfigure my child to benefit from any technologically achievable augmentation should equally be grounds for doing so.
The endpoint of that reasoning seems to be that in a transhumanist culture, everyone is raised with all available augmentations—not just as potential options, but as realized capabilities. Any attempt to raise a child without one of those augmentations is grounds for having that child taken away.
I reject that endpoint… but it’s not entirely clear to me where along the garden path I want to draw the line, or how I would justify drawing it there.
Does it follow? The way I see it it doesn’t follow that a parent taking away a kid’s IPhone must necessarily be treated as if they had taken away their hearing or their eyesight. The former would be normally considered legitimate parenting, the latter would normally be considered criminal child abuse (though similar is still done in some parts of the world in the form of female genital mutilation).
Our moral instincts currently differentiate between health/ability and technological luxury. How this will be changed in a transhumanist future is a question I don’t yet feel qualified to answer.
I agree that there’s a difference between a basic need/right, and a luxury, and that fundamental to that difference is that it’s more OK to deprive someone (including oneself, maybe) of a luxury than a right/need. That said, you seem to be presuming or inferring something about the line between them, I’m not sure exactly what, that makes it a more reliable indicator than it seems to me.
More generally: yes, of course we can set whatever mores we want. Especially in the kind of transhumanist self-augmenting environment the OP brought up, where our moral instincts are themselves editable. But even in my own birth culture, there are serious disagreements about to what category education falls into, for example… so I lack your confidence in the reliability of that line.
I suppose I’m just expressing what amounts to an aesthetic preference for having standards in that environment that can be justified on some grounds other than “well, that’s how we did it back in the 21st.”
I don’t see how the law can have a consistent set of ethics if on the one hand it allows parents to say no to their children’s vision being restored, and on the other hand forbids them from surgically removing their kids’ eyes.
Either the kids having vision is a good thing that they can’t be legitimately denied of (no matter what their parents say), or it’s a thing that they can be legitimately denied of, and falls under parental jurisdiction.
If the parents have the right to deny vision or hearing from their children, what’s the difference whether said kids would need a surgery to restore it, or to remove it?
You seem to be confusing ethics and law. The law needs to be a Schelling point, and “you don’t have to help but aren’t allowed to hurt”, is probably as good a Schelling point as your going to find.
Not quite, though I should have spoken generally about rulesets, instead of laws. Whether it’s a personal ruleset, or a legal ruleset, it needs be logically consistent.
That has nothing to do with the topic at hand, since the parents in questions wouldn’t be forced to help, they just wouldn’t be allowed to hurt by preventing others from helping.
A parent may not injure a child or, through inaction, allow a child to come to harm...?
Just foists the whole problem off on whoever has to define “harm.” That’s what a lot of modern law ultimately comes down to, of course, but I don’t think that’s a desirable endpoint.
Yes, this is why we can’t build a FAI just by implementing the Three Laws.
(nods) I share your intuitions here.
That said, I can imagine cultures that don’t. For example, I can imagine a culture that forbids me from forcibly blinding people (including my children) but doesn’t obligate me to grant them sight, and arrives at those mores consistently by framing the whole question as one of property rights… much like my culture forbids me from forcibly taking your money but doesn’t obligate me to provide you with money if you lack it (1).
Of course, such a hypothetical culture would also need to have a notion of children’s property rights as distinct from their parents’, which my culture mostly doesn’t, but that’s easy enough for me to imagine.
Even if I couldn’t imagine such a culture, though, I generally think it’s a mistake to treat my failures of imagination as data about anything but the limits of my imagination.
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(1) - Individually, I mean. Collectively/indirectly my culture does obligate me, in the form of taxes and welfare programs… but then again, collectively/indirectly my culture also allows me to forcibly take your money, in the form of government- and court-imposed fines.)
At present, surgery in itself is harmful and risky.
In the future, that distinction may evaporate, sure.
Speaking of that, can anyone recommend some fiction that deals with the cultural changes that come with defeating death (or mostly defeating it), and doesn’t come out on the side of deathism?
A lot of religious material, particularly Christian, might qualify.
How do you mean? I’ve read a fair bit of Christian doctrine and apologia, and I’ve never seen any substantial volume of material dealing with the actual mechanics of an immortal existence. Usually it’s described in terms of an existence of perfect concordance with God’s wishes, which implies perfect bliss by some theological sleight of hand but doesn’t imply much detail as to what that actually involves, experientially speaking. Certainly nothing concrete on the cultural changes that we’d reasonably expect after defeating the last enemy that shall be destroyed.
The Muslim afterlife’s much more detailed, incidentally, but it’s just your standard feasts-and-gardens paradise, more or less equivalent to Valhalla but with different cultural foci of enjoyment. I don’t find it much more eternity-term compelling than what little we can infer of the Christian version, although I’d probably be more inclined to visit it as a holiday destination.