tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post7382169978050991831..comments2024-03-25T11:49:21.281-07:00Comments on The Splintered Mind: New Essay in Draft: Dehumanizing the Cognitively Disabled: Commentary on Smith's Making MonstersEric Schwitzgebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-26998309500919077682022-04-18T15:47:41.508-07:002022-04-18T15:47:41.508-07:00Went back through the comments, because I was conf...Went back through the comments, because I was confused about where the matter of privacy surfaced. Found it! Then, I considered physics, as it emerged in the later comment. All good. But, I submit that physics is an enabling realm of reality: it did not create living things---only the environment in which life could emerge and evolve.<br />Water. Air. Well, you know. So, however it was that primordial soup gave rise to something more,it must have taken more than lightning strikes to affect the transition. There were elements, sure---wherever those came from---I mean, did lightning, fire and ice create those,or,given that they did, physics remains enabler, not creator. The notion of God eludes some of us: we just don't 'get' the how of a supreme something that created everything else. So, that is why we have metaphysics?Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-54888196088248070432022-04-18T09:49:56.897-07:002022-04-18T09:49:56.897-07:00Schwitzgebel said: and I don’t feel that I’ve seen...Schwitzgebel said: and I don’t feel that I’ve seen the issue fully through...<br />...Was this question from a philosopher a psychologist a caregiver...<br /><br />Sometimes I hang on your every word here, this time searching cognitive restraint then self regulation...<br /><br />I propose you and Amelie also include yourselves in this Issue, myself too...<br />...I mean actually spell out what you would do-what you do when confronted with cognition and cognitive disabelments...<br /><br />Then cognition may stand more by itself (in the universe) and self and ourselves might have more standing and a self be less complicated...If this is the Issue...Arnoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02580641063222662041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-45604838714831439082022-04-18T09:15:10.717-07:002022-04-18T09:15:10.717-07:00I agree professor that privacy protection can be a...I agree professor that privacy protection can be a tricky issue to balance given competing interests. Simply educating the public about how the mentally impaired tend to be put into abusive care situations should be helpful, as you and Amelia seem to be doing. If I were to bring a family member into such care I’d now want at least some degree of objective monitoring of daily life to help ensure that they’re treated reasonably. My family would do no less for me I think, and yet many should be less fortunate and so certain government monitoring regulations might indeed be in order.<br /><br />Actually I would roughly say that the degree of sentience equates with the degree of value, though let’s backup a bit to unpack that luggage. What I mean is that there should ultimately be a single objective physics based element of reality that constitutes the value of existing for anything, anywhere. Clearly the brains of many animals, such as the human variety, have harnessed that physics in order to create sentient beings. Thus existence might be very good here, or utterly horrible, though always given exactly how that physics happens to play out.<br /><br />Does this mean that a dog, or fish, or even an insect which effectively feels about as good/bad as yourself at a given moment, will have the same level of objective positive to negative value of existing that you do at that time? Yes that’s exactly my position. This is not a species or even communally derived parameter of value, as in the case of our moral notions, but rather a value parameter that’s entirely physics based. Of course that physics has not yet been empirically established, though does seem to exist anyway given that we do feel good/bad and seem to live in a natural world.<br /><br />Here one might wonder if I’d say it’s morally wrong to kill a line of ants in my house with bug spray if they would thus suffer horribly as they die? That should be morally wrong in certain societies though fine in others given differing social beliefs. I try not be too disrespectful regarding rightness and wrongness speculation given that it’s a social conception that’s only loosely based upon the value of existing itself.<br /><br />Instead I like to ponder the nature of value directly. Did the sprayed ants suffer horribly as they died? If so then it should have been exactly that horrible for them. Would it be any worse if this were instead experienced by a similar number of humans? No, in that case these same experiences should simply exist for different creatures. But did I not grasp the suffering of these ants as they died and so not feel bad for them? Furthermore was I rewarded by their deaths since now they couldn’t continue defiling my house? If so then the spraying should have promoted the value of existing as me over that period to the degree that I felt better than I otherwise would have. Once we get down to the physics of value itself, welfare should reduce to a matter of standard arithmetic.<br /><br />I realize that this may seem quite consequentialist and so irk some. I mentioned last time that there’s a conundrum here. It’s difficult for us to acknowledge that sentience constitutes value, and thus that our moral notions ultimately reduce back to our sentience, when our moral notions themselves tend to discourage us from openly acknowledging that sentience constitutes value. I’m sure you’re aware of all sorts of repugnant implications associated with this perspective. I don’t think this is because it leads us astray however, but rather because reality itself can be horribly repugnant. My solution would be for us to begin exploring psychology just as amorally as hard forms of sciences are already explored so that the field might finally become founded well enough to make true progress. Then as we better grasp our nature we should also be able to use these understandings in order to better lead our lives as well as structure our societies.Philosopher Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11126076811765843302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-12842793491896798502022-04-17T15:01:39.308-07:002022-04-17T15:01:39.308-07:00Sorry I managed to befuddle you, Matti! As you sa...Sorry I managed to befuddle you, Matti! As you say, of course you didn’t offer a full theory. I just wanted to note that theories that rest entirely on existing social relationships have some unattractive consequences. It sound like your theory isn’t of that kind!Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16274774112862434865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-21488904910099648232022-04-17T14:56:09.376-07:002022-04-17T14:56:09.376-07:00I am, to say the least, befuddled. I was offering...I am, to say the least, befuddled. I was offering only a small snippet (implying other relevant components) of a long argument I would make recognizing the moral standing of each and every member of the human family. I fail to comprehend the apparent non sequitur in your response. How does acknowledging a relationship with all humankind lead to a desire to “nuke [an alien] from orbit before making contact”? The two thoughts are apples and oranges.<br /><br />Any method that I or anyone else uses to get to that position was not the point of my suggestion. My point was that there are various arguments that justify recognizing the unqualified and full moral standing of each and every human being. And the path to that result is, I suggested, the only reasonable path. <br /><br />Moreover, I claimed that making that sort of argument divorces the issue of human moral standing from issues of robot moral standing, nonhuman animal moral standing and, I need to add, the moral standing of a solitary alien intelligence attempting to make contact!Matti Meikäläinenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17250656315124480579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-85753197114500844932022-04-17T12:50:15.842-07:002022-04-17T12:50:15.842-07:00Thanks for the continuing comments, folks!
Matti:...Thanks for the continuing comments, folks!<br /><br />Matti: I’m inclined to agree that cherry-picked human traits will tend to yield what I think of as the wrong results for people who lack those traits, unless we pick traits so common that we end up with probably too broad a view of the type of entity that deserves to have human or human-like rights. I also am inclined to agree that relationality has an important role to play (as exemplified by greater duties to fellow community members than distant strangers and to pets than to wild animals. But I also don’t think relationality can be the whole thing. If we found a solitary alien intelligence, for example, we shouldn’t nuke it from orbit before making contact.<br /><br />Phil E: Constant monitoring (eg wearing cameras) would presumably have some advantages. But of course there’s also the issue of privacy, for both worker and client, and the power relationships between monitor and monitored, which could be toxic. So it’s a tricky issue! I’m inclined to agree that every sentient being has intrinsic value, but I wouldn’t go so far as to equate degree of value with degree of sentience (which you might not be suggesting). I’m inclined yo think we owe something special to fellow citizens that goes beyond what we owe to even a highly sentient wild animal, for example. But again it’s complicated, and I don’t feel that I’ve seen the issue fully through.Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16274774112862434865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-77875182521469242372022-04-16T13:14:06.627-07:002022-04-16T13:14:06.627-07:00Look,friends. I have no stake, one way or another,...Look,friends. I have no stake, one way or another,in cognitive science or artificial intelligence. No horse; no dog. There is a whole community out there who does. Understood. My thinking and working remains where I have some understanding...where I might hope to offer contribution. Still forming my own notions about truth and reality and their inextricability. Several recent posts in the realm of traditional philosophy have been supportive---or perhaps my notions have supported them? Synergy is an atom of metaphysics. Or even a molecule? Thanks to any, whomever you may be...Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-66480781515316648552022-04-16T09:23:31.854-07:002022-04-16T09:23:31.854-07:00To know cognition affects us, then our questioning...To know cognition affects us, then our questioning can have its place in implementing effective change.<br /><br />Understanding ourselves as an effect of cognition may get us before semantics, where we can see with more feeling and less thinking-in our daily living...<br /><br />Do cognitive disablements have to be seen and felt in oneself before in others...<br />...when/then is the right time to ask this of AI and algorithms...Arnoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02580641063222662041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-88410971934788250202022-04-16T08:37:51.363-07:002022-04-16T08:37:51.363-07:00Yes professor, what I’ve said here does supplement...Yes professor, what I’ve said here does supplement the position of your paper. And to be sure, this idealistic “beauty” is meant to address traits that are far more broad than facial structure and the like. In a greeting can a subject walk up to you with an appropriate smile, shake your hand, and perhaps even say something that you consider witty? That would get to more of the “idealistic human” that I mean. Mental patients tend to score very low on this metric for a number of reasons. In a sense they might be considered high maintenance pets, though without the capacity to either look after themselves or to be attractive. Therefore if your paper could highlight this deficiency, it seems to me that being forewarned that care workers thus tend to abuse their patients, could also be forearming. The current functional prescription that I offer is to let them know that their activities will be monitored. Similarly, police officers are progressively being required to wear body cameras given that the jobs they do naturally entail trouble. <br /><br />Then as for long term solutions, my answer is nearly too big to even mention. Matti and I seem to be in a similar spot in this regard, though I suppose with different answers. My own credence lies with scientific reduction, and aided by effective philosophical principles from which to do that science. <br /><br />So what would a thumbnail sketch be? I think we must psychologically reduce our nature back to its basic components, somewhat as physicists have successfully been doing for a few centuries in their own domain. The main conundrum that impedes psychology, I think, is that it’s difficult to acknowledge that sentience constitutes value, and thus that our moral notions ultimately reduce back to our sentience, when our moral notions themselves tend to discourage us from openly acknowledging that sentience constitutes value! For this paper I don’t expect you to get into any of that, obviously. It is my hope however that someday you will.Philosopher Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11126076811765843302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-90715405011466366762022-04-14T07:15:02.175-07:002022-04-14T07:15:02.175-07:00I appreciate that you seem to agree. Although I’m...I appreciate that you seem to agree. Although I’m not so sure. I enjoy assisting in this crowdsourcing of ideas and arguments. I fear, however, it would be too taxing for me to go all the way down the road with the points I tried to make. So, I’ll offer a brief thumbnail sketch.<br /><br />First, I’m not so sure we truly agree at a fundamental level. I’m recalling our recent discussion of the ethical structure in Toby Ord’s book. At first, you did not see “…so much lack of concern for current human beings in the book, ...” But subsequently you saw my point that there was, as I described, a “dangerous seed” embedded in his longtermism ethics. In short, Ord’s thesis privileges a future evolved human species over ordinary people. I think that dangerous seed is a particular problem with consequentialist based ethics like Toby Ord’s. And I don’t think it’s unreasonable to call this nascent dehumanization just as I previously described the future Soviet man as a form of dehumanization—which, historically, it turned out to be. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn noted that in the old Soviet Union dissidents who were not banished to the Gulag might end up in an insane asylum. After all Marxism was scientific and to resist the inevitable evolving soviet man must be a form of insanity. I noted in that discussion that throughout our history attempts to perfect humankind usually results in killing people.<br /><br />Likewise, the concern with so-called “robot rights” may also contain a similar dangerous seed. That is, are we concocting arguments to humanize (future) machines which may simultaneously argue for not recognizing the full humanity and even accepting the dehumanization of the cognitively disabled?<br /><br />I don’t think you can thread this needle by merely suggesting that we develop “a more capacious understanding of the human.” To extend the metaphor, I submit that you have to sort out these other confusing threads first. And It may be that one’s starting ethical assumptions—the basic moral concepts—are a handicap to doing that. For some, including consequentialists, it tends to be.<br /><br />Do humans have moral standing because they can perform long division? I would hope that most people would say no! Moreover, any similar argument basing moral standing of any set of cherry-picked (even if common) human abilities or properties is similarly suspect.<br /><br />In the Christian tradition there is a nonnegotiable overarching moral principle—we are all made in the image and likeness of God. It’s a moral trump card—so to speak—given to everyone. Every human being has full moral standing—no ifs, ands, or buts. That proposition has the advantage of divorcing this issue from the issue of robot moral standing as well as the issue of the moral standing of nonhuman animals. But that answer won’t do for many of us obviously. But could there be a philosophical equivalent? I submit that there is. I’m not prepared to articulate how I would reach that result. There are some good moral philosophers who are tapping their way along different paths to this proposition. But, more importantly, I think a path to that result is the only reasonable way out of this moral thicket.<br /><br />I feel obliged to offer a tiny snippet of my thinking on the matter. Let me just say that we are all situated. Every human being is born into a web of relationships. We are not free individuals in a totally atomistic and unfettered sense as John Rawls and so many modern liberals and libertarians posit. No matter who we are we find ourselves within a complex set of ready-made obligations. We exist within a social reality created by ourselves within our human community. We are “political animals” in a real sense as Aristotle claimed—a term often misunderstood. And that comes with moral obligationsMatti Meikäläinennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-44842228366157607332022-04-13T07:36:17.046-07:002022-04-13T07:36:17.046-07:00Thanks for the comments, folks!
Paul: That’s a di...Thanks for the comments, folks!<br /><br />Paul: That’s a difficult issue, for sure. My preference is to default to the standard term used by scholars who support the good treatment of people in this group. “Disability”, though challenged by some activists especially in the 1980s, is now thought to accurately reflect their disadvantages in society as it currently exists.<br /><br />Phil E: I think I basically agree with all of that, but I think it supplements rather than contradicts our view. Beauty judgments might directly disadvantage some of the cognitively disabled, and they might also indirectly do so thorough amplifying dehumanization.<br /><br />Matti: Yes, I agree with all of that! Suggestions welcome on ways to implement effective change.Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16274774112862434865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-64498417264328204332022-04-10T06:05:36.666-07:002022-04-10T06:05:36.666-07:00We’ve gone from a discussion of what our ethical r...We’ve gone from a discussion of what our ethical response towards fictional (perhaps future) robots should be to a discussion of what our ethical response towards disabled human beings should be. <br /><br />The juxtaposition of your two essays is fascinating. I think it may give us an opportunity to reflect on the depth and richness of our ethical perspectives in general. You recommend that we cultivate “a more capacious understanding of the human” as a way to overcome our tendency to dehumanize the cognitively disabled. However, you don’t suggest how we could do that.<br /><br />As you know, I’m a mild dissenter of the position you take in your discussion of robots rights. Perhaps I can relate the argument taken there to this discussion. If we go about cherry-picking a few specific attractive qualities of our favorite fictional (perhaps future) robots in a process of “humanizing” them, do we inadvertently create a justification of a less than charitable attitude toward the cognitively disabled—perhaps even justifying a tendency of some to dehumanize the disabled?Matti Meikäläinennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-3105528217350309222022-04-08T06:21:55.473-07:002022-04-08T06:21:55.473-07:00Professor,
It seems to me that Smith set you and ...Professor, <br />It seems to me that Smith set you and Amelia up to write a very good paper. What I most appreciate is that you seem not to be demonizing these workers, but rather seeking to descriptively illustrate human function in this regard. Why do humans in these situations tend to abuse the cognitively impaired? <br /><br />Beyond convenience and sadism, on dehumanization I think I’d go a bit more idealistic. You’ve written before about how the beautiful are treated far better that the opposite of beautiful (and note that here I avoided any words that might be offensive). We evolved such that certain people, with their appearance, facial expressions, cognitive behavior, and so on, tend to make us happy when we’re in there presence. This would be the idealistic object of concern, or a trait that needn’t only reside in a given human. Various domesticated and wild animals may tend to be given more sympathy than a given human. I presume that the patients from Amelia’s past would score quite low on this metric. (Disregard me here if she thinks that high scoring patients were treated with equal abuse.) <br /><br />As for solutions, changing human perceptions that cognitive ability is what renders us “human” is an admirable goal, though clearly long term. Ultimately I believe that science, aided by an new amoral brand of philosophy, will acknowledge that sentience constitutes value and so validate your prescription academically. Social implementation should take longer. A simple solution today however might be government mandated care home video streaming to interested parties.Philosopher Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11126076811765843302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-52744124911829458312022-04-07T14:39:44.650-07:002022-04-07T14:39:44.650-07:00One of us in our sixth grade classroom fell to flo...One of us in our sixth grade classroom fell to floor and went into convulsions...<br />...I watched her, the teacher said don't try to move her and we left the classroom...<br /><br />I have learned, in seventy years since, at times, to watch my thoughts and feelings and to see what I am doing...<br /><br />Learning or being taught to observe oneself first, in life...<br />...is towards conscientiousness and away from monterious carelessness...<br /><br />As to the source of cognitive disablements...<br />...sympathies to the scientists, medical doctors, philosophers and their representations...Arnoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02580641063222662041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-42615316310046126282022-04-07T05:49:18.429-07:002022-04-07T05:49:18.429-07:00Over a working lifetime, wherein mental disorder w...Over a working lifetime, wherein mental disorder was a concern from a civil rights perspective, I heard many descriptives used to identify persons with disabilities. Some of those labels were ill-conceived from their beginnings, and discarded when found to be less useful than originators may have hoped. I have written about this before, so will not repeat it here. I have some familiarity with Professor Livingston-Smith. My day-to-day activities no longer involve the paralegal sort of duties, once set forth in a job description. And, I understand that language changes, over time.<br />So, I'm not grinding any axes here. But, I wonder about the term, cognitive disability. Not following new legislation, I freely admit ignorance. What I wonder is, does the term hold a useful purpose, and, if so, for whom?Paul D. Van Pelthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13508874039164282696noreply@blogger.com