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Originally Posted by Original Position
I think you (and neeeel) are both trying to draw an implication that isn't there--and to a certain extent making the same error as Dawkins. Someone can say that they would rather not exist with diminished cognitive capacity (here is a recent and somewhat pertinent example) without thereby claiming it as a moral principle that everyone should feel the same way. Rather, they can acknowledge that as a matter of personal choice and freedom rather than as resulting from a general moral principle.
Right. Dawkin's error is claiming that this is a moral principle, based on the utilitarian framework of a "happiness minus suffering" type of measurement, and that his conclusion does not follow from those premises.
My claim of arrogance was outlined earlier:
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Originally Posted by Aaron W.
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Definition of arrogance: an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people
In order for you to think that mental ******ation is sufficient cause for you to prefer not being born, you must believe something about mental ******ation is beneath you. Somehow, they're worse than you, dumber than you, or less important than you. And that makes them unworthy ("in your opinion") relative to you.
To boil down an entire person's life (even as an abstract quantity) on the basis of a single measure (mental capacity) and declare that it's so much below where you are that this life (whatever it is) isn't worth living is very arrogant-sounding to me. I do think it's quite an insulting way to talk about those with mental deficiencies, and that such a belief is rooted in a belief of "I'm better than that person."
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Anyway, I think the counterfactual is probably not very useful as in the most important sense I don't think you are the same person as the person with diminished cognitive capacity in the thought experiment. So what intuition are you actually eliciting?
It's true that you are not the same person in the thought experiment. But how you construct the person in the thought experiment, what attributes you attribute and the hypothetical life you envision, say a lot about how you envision that class of people as a whole. That's the intuition I'm eliciting.
My claim is that saying "I'd rather not have been born than be that person" is significantly stronger than merely saying "I'd rather not be that person." And that the basis of that conclusion is intellectual capacity alone is also a strong statement.
There are objective ways to say "my life is better than that person's life" that are not arrogant. My life is objectively better on the bases of economic status, job satisfaction, and so forth than someone living in the ghetto working a tough job and barely scraping by.
I think you have to start taking some very extreme pictures (slavery) before such a position even begins to have a chance at not painting such an arrogant picture. And in the case of slavery, the reason for not wanting to be that person has nothing to do with any inherent properties of being that person, but the circumstances of that person that are imposed from the outside.