Re: Duplicates Are Selves

From: Pete Carlton <pmcarlton.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2005 10:43:53 -0700

On Jul 4, 2005, at 8:11 AM, Lee Corbin wrote:
>>
>> You think that person A ought (in the ethical sense) to have a strong
>> desire for the future existence of person B - no less, in fact, than
>> for the future existence of person A. You imply this when you say
>> the subject is selfish. I see your point, that normally we have a
>> strong desire for the future existence of -- the person who will wake
>> up in our bed tomorrow.
>>
>
> Hmm? You are still seeing that I'm making an *ethical* statement
> here somehow? Well, I suppose that in some sense highly selfish
> behavior could conceivably be described as ethical in some sense,
> but it's sure confusing.

The statement of what a person should or shouldn't do falls under the
domain of ethics. When you say

> "definitely in the case of very close copies, to be
> consistent one should to the greatest degree he can
> extend the boundary to include close duplicates."

You're making a normative statement. I was arguing that one's
intuitions will likely pull the other way. You may say that "your
duplicate is you", but it is undeniable that there are two organisms
present, and an organism normally acts in such a way to prevent
damage to its body, and as you say, these instincts are forged by
evolution. These instincts form the basis of our ethical
intuitions. Your wish for "consistency" would seem to be in
opposition to how most people's instincts would lead them to behave.

What would the Lee who stands to receive $5 in my experiment say to
the Lee who is observing in a remote room, pondering which choice to
make? "Please kill yourself so that I might live; after all, I'll
have $5 more than you and so will be slightly better off. But, if
you do decide to kill me instead, I won't mind so much, since $5
isn't really that much money." ? Can we really imagine people saying
these things without previously carrying out some intense
philosophical gymnastics?

I don't know; I think Stathis has a good point that this duplication
isn't really possible so all the conclusions we're drawing from it
might be suspect - and entities that are duplicatable might have
vastly different intuitions about what is moral and what is not.
  
Received on Mon Jul 04 2005 - 14:14:52 PDT