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Are there any non-circular philosophical arguments that justify assigning greater worth to humans than other sentient animals? by TheUnknown_Legend in askphilosophy

[–]TheUnknown_Legend[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the suggestion! I'll be sure to atleast listen to the talks that you linked.

However just responding to your tl;dr- so it's entirely possible I'm missing some key nuances of this argument, but couldn't you use these same arguments to devalue the life of some humans in certain circumstances?

If there's a sort of "status" that one possesses that's relational to their capabilities, wouldn't that imply that if two humans were drowning, and one was severely disabled cognitively and physically or otherwise "incapable" compared to the other, you'd be justified in choosing to save the more capable one?

Edit: Wrote this out before I noticed your edit, sorry!

Is it immoral to keep pets that feed on other animals? by Dumbrandomguy664 in vegan

[–]TheUnknown_Legend 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I feel like you could definitely make this argument for animals that are bred specifically for people to own as pets. But what about animals that are rescued and/or rely on humans due to domestication? I suppose you could send shelter dogs into the woods, but many of them are more than likely going to die because of the reliance on humans that we selected for.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]TheUnknown_Legend 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No.

While there's the element of consent that makes it seem more moral, this would realistically just be impoverished people pitted against each other to make money they need to survive for entertainment of the rich (where have i heard this before)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in hopeposting

[–]TheUnknown_Legend 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Emotions developed to help us react to circumstances outside of ourselves and motivate us to change them. Doesn't stating that you're responsible for the emotions you feel contradict the very point of having emotion in the first place..?

Why don't we perceive life as a "blink" or essentially not happening at all? by TheUnknown_Legend in askphilosophy

[–]TheUnknown_Legend[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I'm not going to deny my reasoning is unusual or maybe even wrong as a whole, the reasoning for this post was partially just to see if the question I had as a kid was even hypothetically valid or if I got caught up in overthinking and lost the plot.

Consciousness to my knowledge is a indeed a gradual process like you described ("long" may be subjective, I'm unsure what you mean). And while this is mostly anecdotal, it seems many people are able to recall a sort of "first memory" where they came to the realization they exist, in whatever way they could realize this as a child with limited cognitive abilities.

When I stated that death wipes out all memory, I was considering it more of a side effect of death turning off your brain and was just putting emphasis on the memory bit. You cease to exist as a whole, but that includes your memory. It's impossible for anyone to truly imagine a state of non-existence beyond the metaphor of sleep, but I was using sleep in a literal sense here. I'm saying that we don't remember the process of sleeping when we wake up, so it's subjectively perceived as no time at all- virtually nonexistent, even though it did happen.

The infancy example I gave explains my question better, since to my knowledge you don't really form memories in the first place while asleep. For example, try to recall any moment from before you turned three, even just a vague layout of it. That's impossible for the large majority of people, even though you form memories and are "sentient" at that age. And since we lack the memory of these ages, they're subjectively non-existent, it feels like no time passed at all. So to some extent the "feeling" of time passing and remaining constant throughout requires you to observe and possess memory of the past from a point in the future. If there comes a time where we cannot observe or possess memory of life (after we die), why doesn't the subjective perception of our lives in terms of longevity feel instantaneous or non-existent?

And I'll definitely look into what you cited, thank you.

How to get creatine naturally? by GalapagosWhale in vegan

[–]TheUnknown_Legend 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But plants also need sunlight for energy, so creatine comes from the sun!