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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   35271 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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Now, I am pro-choice and also one of these much hated Singerians who think that babies do not have more of an intrinsic right to life than other mammals of similar cognitive capabilities.

Do you consider sleeping adults morally valuable? They have arguably worse cognitive capabilities than babies.

I've participated in some dynamic, interesting stories while dreaming. I've threatened imagined entities with destruction if I choose to wake.

Nevertheless I agree with your main point that cognitive ability at any given point in time is not the sole criteria for judging right to life. Many are capable but evil and should be killed.

Your brain is not deactivated whilst sleeping. It is quite busy.

I take your point if applied to sci fi suspended animation or something very unlike sleep.

Busy is not the same as capable of thought. Whales' brains, for example, have much more total cognitive activity than our waking brains, but are less capable of thought.

We have some level of thought while sleeping too--I can remember reasoning some things out in dreams--but dreams/REM are the most mentally active part of sleep, and I'm not sure most of us are smarter than babies even in REM.

Their capability isn't worse though, they just aren't utilizing it.

Well, no, as soon as they are utilizing it they're awake. A sleeping human does not have the capacity to think at all, they have the capacity to wake up. Some, like people in comas or under anesthesia, don't even have that. It's not that they aren't using their capacity for thought, it's that they literally can't use it, and therefore do not have any capacity for thought.

"Cognitive capabilities" sounds like a solid, principled way to define moral worth, but it hides endless moral complexity under the hood.

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