Self-Awareness, Morality, Elephants, and the Prime Directive

[scarlettina]

This morning, jaylake posted a link to a Centauri Dreams blog entry that discusses the philosophy of Star Trek's Prime Directive and then extrapolates more nuanced principles that might be more effective, more practical, and more ethical than the broad concepts that Trek put forth. (Go read it; I'll wait. It's fascinating

Comments

[scarlettina]

Thanks, Wolf.

What the worst of us can get away with

[the_same_andrew]

You pose the question above, "How do we treat an alien race [etc]?"

I think the answer, sadly, is (or will be) "As badly as we can get away with."

Although Great White Sharks can kill humans with ease, and very occaisionally do so, we're far more threatening (species vs species) to them. (Come to think of it, the same applies to elephants.) Neither species, despite whatever intelligence they possess, is a threat to us as a whole. We can get therefore get away with being as bad as we want. There's no need for an accommodation. Certainly there's a moral need-- but not a need in the sense of, "Stop killing the sharks or they're going to get organized."

The species Variola major (if "species" is even really the right word) threatened us more than sharks ever did, and we wiped it out of existence, save for the few remaining captives in the deep freezes

Re: What the worst of us can get away with

[scarlettina]

You're probably right.

[seankreynolds]

{if cows demonstrated self-awareness in the way that elephants do, I might feel differently... I'm trying to think all of this through with some shred of objectivity

[scarlettina]

Arrogance? Maybe a little. I'm not entirely convinced by the comparisons you're drawing--I did say that there are problems here and that no one said this wasn't complex and challenging--but that's OK. I'll still eat cow and chicken. I'll also still refrain from eating elephant, dolphin, and chimpanzee. And even though you've called me a racist, I still like you anyway. I hope you won't hold my racism against me. At least, from what I've seen, you haven't so far.

[seankreynolds]

Hmm, I don't see where I called you a racist.

[scarlettina]

An enlightened person says, "hey, maybe we shouldn't be racist just because we were raised to be racist." I like to think an enlightened person also says, "hey, maybe we shouldn't eat animals just because we were raised to eat animals."

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting, but this looks a lot like a one-to-one comparison you're making. If I've misunderstood, I apologize.

[e_bourne]

Its an interesting question -- One of the things that I would expect to accompany a legal document is the definition of terms. What do you mean by "intelligence"? What is a "person"? How are morals defined

Outliers do not prove the rule

[the_same_andrew]

You're right that outliers don't prove the rule, but they do get away with some appalling things.

Does humanity allow (or tacitly accept, or at least abet) unspeakable acts of cruelty against the defenceless Other? Well, we do, in the sense that some of us keep getting away with it, time after time.

We'll rise higher as a people, but I'm afraid that this will increase the domain throughout which some of us will get away with ever-more-appalling behaviour. Now, I take this as an imperative for the good among us to be always vigilant against evil and cruelty and deception-- but there are as many who'd take it as a licence in the opposite direction.

[ghilledhu]

Somewhat tangentially...I recently watched a program on cats (Discovery, or Science, or one o' them edumacational channels) that put forth the theory that cats self-domesticated - that they saw the advantages of living with humans (easier hunting due to rodents being attracted to our food stores) and essentially chose to live with us because they enjoyed it. I obviously don't know how true this is, but I find the idea intriguing that a race of wild creatures would voluntarily choose our company. Particularly one as pleasant as cats.