tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post392699377595144162..comments2024-03-27T20:37:09.185-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: More on fungibility and naturalismAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-41023914300352252042014-06-12T17:50:55.463-05:002014-06-12T17:50:55.463-05:00I'm still trying to interpret the idea of a pr...I'm still trying to interpret the idea of a process that is “value-relevant” if replaced. <br /><br />Different agents value different stuff. For instance, and to go with your example, the painting of the Mona Lisa is such that, if it's replaced by an exact copy, some agents would care. Others would not care. <br />Personally, I might care to the extent that some people care about it, and may suffer because of it – but rather, I would care about them in that case. <br /><br />But other than that, let's consider destructive teleportation of the Mona Lisa (that may not be nomologically possible, but that's not the point I think, so let's assume it's doable). So, instead of transporting the painting, the information is transported, and then a new copy is made. <br />If no one cared if that were to happen, then I would not care, either. And I'd say I wouldn't be doing anything immoral because of my not caring. <br />Even then, that would not be an exact copy. There is no exact copying. <br /><br />But that aside, if I'm getting this right, you're saying it's a bad thing if people are killed and replaced by copies, all other things equal? <br /><br />I would tend to agree, provided that embryos aren't persons. <br /><br />But I don't think the naturalist would agree that our non-fungibility comes from the non-fungibility of the process, at least not in any relevant sense of “comes from”.<br /><br />Granted, I don't know what “naturalist” (and not sure about fungibility), but if we consider, say, moral obligations, or moral goodness, or other moral properties, people who describe themselves as “naturalists” do not need to hold that they come from the process that made us, or from any other process. <br /><br /><br />In particular, they may hold that the replacement is a bad thing because the death of a person is a bad thing, and that is dependent on the traits of the object being killed (in this case, a person), not their origin.Angra Mainyuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16342860692268708455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-58023185023645014012014-06-12T16:08:24.686-05:002014-06-12T16:08:24.686-05:00I don't really need a first person for the arg...I don't really need a first person for the argument. All I need is a first non-fungible being. While I realize that naturalists think that personhood comes in degrees, it's hard to see how non-fungibility could come in degrees.<br /><br />And even if non-fungibility came in degrees, it's plausible that if x's non-fungibility derives from the non-fungibility of the process generating x, then x's degree of non-fungibility will not exceed that of the process. But if non-fungibility comes in degrees, it's clear that our non-fungibility exceeds that of our animal ancestors.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-6891385167262981662014-06-12T11:51:54.860-05:002014-06-12T11:51:54.860-05:00Alex,
I would like to ask what you mean by “fung...Alex, <br /><br />I would like to ask what you mean by “fungible”, and “materialism”, but that aside, I don't believe that a non-theist who does not believe in souls is committed to infinite regress or a first person, due to vagueness, just as she's not committed to a first nanosecond at which a cat is an adult, etc. <br /><br />For example, the non-theist in question may hold that our colloquial language is not precise enough to be properly used in the context of arguments involving an alleged first elephant (on Earth, to set aside infinite regress), a first cat, a first human, or a first person, etc., just as she may hold it's not precise enough to be used in arguments involving a first nanosecond at which, say, Obama's mother had a son who is a person (or a similar thing), and so on. Angra Mainyuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16342860692268708455noreply@blogger.com