This is a really good articulation of the thoughts I've also been having!
I'm not sure if you share this view, but I really don't like the phrase 'moral worth'. It's pretty convenient that humans are the one who assign 'moral worth' to different things and we just so happen to have the highest amount of it. In my eyes, it's labeling things with a faux intrinsic value, when their real intrinsic value is their ability to experience the world.
It assumes we can make moral errors, not necessarily that morality is objective. Lots of anti-realists think that we can be mistaken about morality if we're wrong about our deeper values or something.
Yeah my comment was imprecise. I think what I mean to say is that it assumes non-particularist morality, which is usually associated with objective morality but does not have to be.
You might not believe that you're The moral center, but you're Your moral center, for example. Maybe I'm not using the right words but it seems common to believe morality is agent-relative and indexical
If you want to convince me whethr to read a book, or listen to a song, it seems like appealing to particularistic characteristics about other things I like will be persuasive, and appeals to "Great American literature" or "harmony of the chords" or other nonsense like that would if anything be anti-persuasive.
Perhaps other people are less philistine than me and are more likely to treat musical preference as objective and allow for the possibility that one can be mistaken about music or literature or w/e, but it always seems kinda confused.
We were part of nature until just a couple of thousand years ago. Most of nature doesn't even care about the death of others. Most don’t even understand it. Lions, falcons and tiger sharks don’t care, unless the potential dinner is family. If they are hungry, they kill something and eat it. We did that too until a few decades ago.
Most of those animals think they are the centre of the universe. I know I do. I have a wife and two children, and they are important to me. I have One Dunbar of people outside my family who I will help, if they need it. Beyond that, the rest of you are on your own.
It’s quite natural for us to think this way and to behave this way; it’s what Mother Nature intended. In recent centuries, we’ve agreed we shouldn't be cruel to other tribes, mammals and even chickens — I’ll avoid cruelty when I can. Maybe future generations will leave their natural preferences behind, but for now, meat is still tasty.
What? If the natural isn't automatically good then why in the world does anything you said about it being natural not to care much about animals matter?
Whether it was good or not, the natural was all we had until recently, and the natural didn't require us to care about dead chickens. I expect that will change the further we get from the natural world we came from.
I tend to oscillate rapidly (and sometimes exist simultaneously in both) this view and the view that our only conception of morality is inherently human-created, so it would make sense that without humans it could not exist. For something to matter or have value there has to be some "other" assigning the value.
> Similarly, if the Assyrians declare that they are God’s favorite people and that most of what God cares about is what happens to them, you should be a bit suspicious of that.
Hey, I quite agree with that one, but there's a quite famous ancient scripture that goes just like that... and you were just recently saying that it might be true, because those not-quite-Assyans have "main character energy". I think your argument here applies just a bit too well!
For the main point, yeah, if it's sentient its well-being has moral value, I'll readily agree to that too. May all beings be happy and all that.
"The Mormons say that God instructed Joseph Smith to have a bunch of hot, underage wives (they don’t usually phrase it that way)."
I'm certainly not LDS, but this seems unfair. The consensus among historians is that Smith had between 30 and 40 wives. At the time of their marriages, 2 were fourteen, 2 were sixteen, 3 were seventeen, 4 were nineteen, 11 were in their 20s, 10 were in their thirties, 1 was in her forties, and 4 were in their fifties. Even today, more than half of U.S. states allow marriage at age sixteen with the parents' consent. So your "bunch" is two out of thirty-seven.
I'm not denying there are serious issues here! But "a bunch of hot, underage wives" seems a detraction.
I have no opinion on whether they were "hot". However, the photos show them in unattractive dresses, and even their skin tone is greyscale. :-)
I may have over-read your original statement, or maybe I'm being too nit-picking, or maybe I'm the one with bad definitions. We often read in the papers* today about cult leaders who take tons of underage wives. To me, when I read your statement, it conjured up that kind of image. My point was merely that this picture (which may not have been intended by you) is historically inaccurate. These cult leaders do not take a mixture of underage wives and wives in their fifties.
Poor analogy: If someone hits 37 people over the head, and 10% of them die, I would object if someone called him a "serial killer". He's a serial batterer, and also a murderer.
I agree with your original point: It is hard to imagine a theology in which God would command a prophet to take 37 wives, and easy to imagine a leader who wanted to take lots of wives. Then one could apply Bayes' theorem, etc. Also, in at least one case, the woman was already married to another member of Smith's church, and he told him, "God has commanded you to give your wife to me," and he did. Tbh, this story fascinates me, not because I'm trying to figure out what was going on in Smith's mind, but because I would love to know what was going on in the other guy's mind! Even some of Donald Trump's most loyal supporters might hesitate to accede to such a demand!
* Gen Z readers: this is short for "newspapers". It was sort of like a phone printed out on paper. Ask your grandparents.
I agree with almost all of this, especially that non humans deserve much more consideration, but I think I got one possibly plausible argument that humans are the center of the moral universe.
Would love to hear what u think of the common claim that only humans have eternal afterlives. So even one of those could outweigh all the experiences contained in finite time.
First of all I got to say I'm grateful for ur great replies.
On the one hand I agree: truth is not determined by a popularity vote.
But on the other hand, idk much about Christiainity or theism so if I'm unqualified to judge the issue do u thinking a head count of experts make sense?
Either way, I appreciate ur time and consideration.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think most western religions affirm that only humans get eternal afterlives (and idk about u but I don't have 0 credence in all of them, especially after reading Scott Alexander's post on Our Lady of Fatima).
In one of your posts you responded to me that the net life worth of the planet is likely negative and yet in another you said you believe God create the universe ebcause it is better than only God existing. Is it contradictory? Do you beleive God to have created unvierse with more suffering than happines?
More suffering than happiness I think is present on Earth (not sure about the universe). However, I think we'll have good afterlives so overall existence is a very good thing.
Certainly I think to describe some action as morally right or wrong that requires agency. But to describe something as bad doesn't. Tornadoes are bad but don't have agency.
This is a really good articulation of the thoughts I've also been having!
I'm not sure if you share this view, but I really don't like the phrase 'moral worth'. It's pretty convenient that humans are the one who assign 'moral worth' to different things and we just so happen to have the highest amount of it. In my eyes, it's labeling things with a faux intrinsic value, when their real intrinsic value is their ability to experience the world.
This article seems to assume there's a deep truth of the matter about morality!
It assumes we can make moral errors, not necessarily that morality is objective. Lots of anti-realists think that we can be mistaken about morality if we're wrong about our deeper values or something.
Yeah my comment was imprecise. I think what I mean to say is that it assumes non-particularist morality, which is usually associated with objective morality but does not have to be.
Wait no I think particularism isn’t related at all.
I think your arguments make much less sense for readers who believe in moral error but also particularism
Why? Even if there aren't general pricniples it would be surprising if we're the moral centers of the universe.
You might not believe that you're The moral center, but you're Your moral center, for example. Maybe I'm not using the right words but it seems common to believe morality is agent-relative and indexical
If you want to convince me whethr to read a book, or listen to a song, it seems like appealing to particularistic characteristics about other things I like will be persuasive, and appeals to "Great American literature" or "harmony of the chords" or other nonsense like that would if anything be anti-persuasive.
Perhaps other people are less philistine than me and are more likely to treat musical preference as objective and allow for the possibility that one can be mistaken about music or literature or w/e, but it always seems kinda confused.
We were part of nature until just a couple of thousand years ago. Most of nature doesn't even care about the death of others. Most don’t even understand it. Lions, falcons and tiger sharks don’t care, unless the potential dinner is family. If they are hungry, they kill something and eat it. We did that too until a few decades ago.
Most of those animals think they are the centre of the universe. I know I do. I have a wife and two children, and they are important to me. I have One Dunbar of people outside my family who I will help, if they need it. Beyond that, the rest of you are on your own.
It’s quite natural for us to think this way and to behave this way; it’s what Mother Nature intended. In recent centuries, we’ve agreed we shouldn't be cruel to other tribes, mammals and even chickens — I’ll avoid cruelty when I can. Maybe future generations will leave their natural preferences behind, but for now, meat is still tasty.
The natural isn’t always good
Right. Only when you are trying to figure out the centre of the moral universe.
What? If the natural isn't automatically good then why in the world does anything you said about it being natural not to care much about animals matter?
Whether it was good or not, the natural was all we had until recently, and the natural didn't require us to care about dead chickens. I expect that will change the further we get from the natural world we came from.
But I'm making an argument for why animals matter. So descriptive facts about nature are irrelevant.
Matter to whom? Animals with a natural view of world? Or people who have moved beyond that?
I tend to oscillate rapidly (and sometimes exist simultaneously in both) this view and the view that our only conception of morality is inherently human-created, so it would make sense that without humans it could not exist. For something to matter or have value there has to be some "other" assigning the value.
> Similarly, if the Assyrians declare that they are God’s favorite people and that most of what God cares about is what happens to them, you should be a bit suspicious of that.
Hey, I quite agree with that one, but there's a quite famous ancient scripture that goes just like that... and you were just recently saying that it might be true, because those not-quite-Assyans have "main character energy". I think your argument here applies just a bit too well!
For the main point, yeah, if it's sentient its well-being has moral value, I'll readily agree to that too. May all beings be happy and all that.
The two arguments point in opposite directions and it's unclear which has more force.
“…despite our capacities being broadly continuous with other life.” Bro you’re begging literally 100% of the question?
BB, you wrote:
"The Mormons say that God instructed Joseph Smith to have a bunch of hot, underage wives (they don’t usually phrase it that way)."
I'm certainly not LDS, but this seems unfair. The consensus among historians is that Smith had between 30 and 40 wives. At the time of their marriages, 2 were fourteen, 2 were sixteen, 3 were seventeen, 4 were nineteen, 11 were in their 20s, 10 were in their thirties, 1 was in her forties, and 4 were in their fifties. Even today, more than half of U.S. states allow marriage at age sixteen with the parents' consent. So your "bunch" is two out of thirty-seven.
I'm not denying there are serious issues here! But "a bunch of hot, underage wives" seems a detraction.
I have no opinion on whether they were "hot". However, the photos show them in unattractive dresses, and even their skin tone is greyscale. :-)
You rejected my claim that he had a bunch of hot underage wives, and then you pointed out that he did in fact have that. So I'm confused.
(well, IDK about hot--that was a bit of a creative flourish).
I may have over-read your original statement, or maybe I'm being too nit-picking, or maybe I'm the one with bad definitions. We often read in the papers* today about cult leaders who take tons of underage wives. To me, when I read your statement, it conjured up that kind of image. My point was merely that this picture (which may not have been intended by you) is historically inaccurate. These cult leaders do not take a mixture of underage wives and wives in their fifties.
Poor analogy: If someone hits 37 people over the head, and 10% of them die, I would object if someone called him a "serial killer". He's a serial batterer, and also a murderer.
I agree with your original point: It is hard to imagine a theology in which God would command a prophet to take 37 wives, and easy to imagine a leader who wanted to take lots of wives. Then one could apply Bayes' theorem, etc. Also, in at least one case, the woman was already married to another member of Smith's church, and he told him, "God has commanded you to give your wife to me," and he did. Tbh, this story fascinates me, not because I'm trying to figure out what was going on in Smith's mind, but because I would love to know what was going on in the other guy's mind! Even some of Donald Trump's most loyal supporters might hesitate to accede to such a demand!
* Gen Z readers: this is short for "newspapers". It was sort of like a phone printed out on paper. Ask your grandparents.
This is utterly ridiculous, come on.
I agree with almost all of this, especially that non humans deserve much more consideration, but I think I got one possibly plausible argument that humans are the center of the moral universe.
Would love to hear what u think of the common claim that only humans have eternal afterlives. So even one of those could outweigh all the experiences contained in finite time.
Why think that? Seems good to give animals infinite afterlives too. Dustin crummett has a paper on this
Btw I looked into Dustin Crummett's paper and I didn't have access to it but i liked the ChatGPT 5 summary of it.
However I'm afraid his views are affirmed by minority of Christianity, and especially other western religions.
In case ur curious how common eternal animal lives are: chatgpt.com/s/t_6910faf346388191b95a15c1c6249795
The fact that most Christians think X is false doesn't give one decisive reason to think X is false, even if one is a Christian.
First of all I got to say I'm grateful for ur great replies.
On the one hand I agree: truth is not determined by a popularity vote.
But on the other hand, idk much about Christiainity or theism so if I'm unqualified to judge the issue do u thinking a head count of experts make sense?
Either way, I appreciate ur time and consideration.
I just think you should consider the arguments. But in any case, even if you think animals have 50% odds of afterlives, they still matter a lot.
True, u convinced me of that in ur recent post about what it takes to refute arguments with "astronomical stakes".
And since I can't argue with that let me just say I donated $500 more (on top of the monthly donation) in large part thanks to ur convincing posts.
Plz keep up the great work!
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think most western religions affirm that only humans get eternal afterlives (and idk about u but I don't have 0 credence in all of them, especially after reading Scott Alexander's post on Our Lady of Fatima).
I have a question:
In one of your posts you responded to me that the net life worth of the planet is likely negative and yet in another you said you believe God create the universe ebcause it is better than only God existing. Is it contradictory? Do you beleive God to have created unvierse with more suffering than happines?
More suffering than happiness I think is present on Earth (not sure about the universe). However, I think we'll have good afterlives so overall existence is a very good thing.
Hmm why not just spawn people into afterlife directly?
Certainly I think to describe some action as morally right or wrong that requires agency. But to describe something as bad doesn't. Tornadoes are bad but don't have agency.
Some being can be harmed even if it's not a moral agent. This might be true of babies or some very mentally disabled people.