"Ordinary people" are quite capable of understanding that racism is bad.

And surely it makes no sense to place more importance on someone who lives 100miles from me rather than 1000miles. Even the "ordinary person" would be able to understand that both of these persons are equally deserving of basic human rights and decency.

In fact the "ordinary person" can even understand that their own child and a complete stranger have equal rights.

What you're perhaps more importantly speaking to is personal responsibility: I have a personal responsibility toward my family that I do not have toward a stranger. That has nothing to do with how the law should deal with my family vs. strangers to me however. The law and philosophy need to treat all persons equally. "Ordinary people" do understand that.

It means somebody will get crushed, horribly, slowly, painfully and then they die, no reward at the end of the struggle, except the release of death.

Not sure how else to explain it, lol.

As long as people exist, it will happen, so unless they dont exist, then it cant be solved.

So the question is about the morality of letting it happen because we are willing to sacrifice some people in exchange for the good lives of others.

It seems that people perceive their surroundings in concentric circles, family is closest, friends and colleagues close, the "in-group" also quite close and strangers are far away and not considered important. It is not racism to fail to place significant value on the lives of strangers, unless one arbitrarily places value on certain strangers because of the color of their skin. So I don't want to legitimize racism, and racism is probably not relevant to the fact that "distant" strangers are automatically given a lower value than close relatives.

I think it's pointless to make an elaborate philosophical system, if it is likely to be ignored by ordinary people, I think that is the case with deontology and utilitarism, both are really far from the way people make decisions in reality.

I'm saying, a company shouldn't have rights or benefits, it should have obligations only.

Can we please retire the word "normative"?

All sentient beings have a moral right to holistic social/behavioral information entropy.

First of all, let me apologize for posting this rather lengthy ocean of confusion wisdom.

Second, here are some definitions:

Sentient being: a system capable of organically modeling its environment, its location within such environment, and has preferences with regard to such environment. Many animals may qualify as such.

Person (sapient being): a sentient being with sufficient mental capacity to form a holistic worldview and distinguish right from wrong. Humans may qualify as such, although they may not be the only ones.

Morality: A model of the ideal behavior of persons or groups of persons.

Ethics: The study of morality. The logic applied to prescriptive modeling.

Moral Right: Something a sentient being or group of sentient beings would be-able-to-do/possess in a moral ideal scenario regardless of the desires/demands of other sentient beings or groups. A moral right held by a sentient being usually implies a moral obligation imposed on persons to respect/support such right. As such, a rights model is a type of moral/legal model.

Information Entropy (H): a measure of the “spread” of possible states a system can be in, or the open-endedness of a system [0]. In simple form, the entropy (in nats) of a system is given by H = ln(Z), where Z is the number of possible states the system can be in, and “ln()” represents the natural logarithm function.

[0] https://brilliant.org/wiki/entropy-information-theory/

Information Negentropy (D): a measure of the “collapse” of possible states a system can be in, or close-endedness of a system. In simple form, the negentropy (in nats) of a system is given by D = ln(Z0) - ln(Z) = ln(Z0/Z), where Z0 is the maximum number of possible states the system can be in.

Socio-Behavioral Information Entropy (SBIE): Information entropy applied to sentient beings and their social interactions.

Social-Behavioral Information Negentropy (SBIN): Information negentropy applied to sentient beings and their social interactions.

With that out of the way...

In most moral models, prescriptive terms tend to either remain undefined, or are defined in an ad hoc “just because” manner. This has led to countless mutually exclusive moral codes being proposed, even under the same ethical framework. Up to this point, there has been no success in deriving a foolproof, non-arbitrary, moral model.

This post will attempt to remedy this problem, deriving a rights based moral model, here called social entropian rights (SER). This will (ostensibly) be accomplished by introducing a new tool to general epistemology, namely, the principle of maximum entropy (PME). The PME states that the model most likely to be valid is the model with the highest information entropy given our background knowledge [1][2][3].

[1] https://www.statisticshowto.com/maximum-entropy-principle/

[2] https://deepai.org/machine-learning-glossary-and-terms/principle-of-maximum-entropy

[3] https://pillowlab.princeton.edu/teaching/statneuro2018/slides/notes08_infotheory.pdf

If a system is known to be in one of Z0 states, then the probability that the system will be confined to Z states within the Z0 states is given by

P(Z) = Z/Z0 = exp(ln(Z/Z0)) = exp(-ln(Z0/Z)) = exp(-D)

, where “exp()” represents the exponential function. Note: As Z approaches the maximum number of states, Z0,

P(Z) --> P(Z0) = Z0/Z0 = 1

, which is the maximum possible probability. The corresponding entropy is H = ln(Z0) which also happens to be the maximum possible entropy. This is a highly simplified “proof” of the PME.

An example of the use of the PME would be a scenario where a marble is contained in one of eight boxes with equal probability of being in each box. We do not know which box the marble is in. Suppose there are 3 models that try to describe the location of the marble.

1. A model that insists that the marble is in box 1.
2. A model that insists that the marble is in either box 2, 4, or 7.
3. A model that insists that the marble is in one of the 8 boxes.

The corresponding entropies, negentropies, and probabilities are

1. H = ln(1) = 0 _________ D = ln(8) - 0 = ln(8) ____________ P = exp(-ln(8)) = 1/8
2. H = ln(3) _____________ D = ln(8) - ln(3) = ln(8/3) ______ P = exp(-ln(8/3)) = 3/8
3. H = ln(8) _____________ D = ln(8) - ln(8) = 0 ____________ P = exp(-0) = 1

The probability increases with increasing entropy. This should give you a general idea of how the PME functions.

Using the PME, social entropian rights can be derived in the following steps:

​

1. By parsimony of general epistemology (avoiding epistemological double standards), the same logical rules that apply to descriptive notions would reasonably apply to prescriptive notions. The laws of logic/probability and the PME are thus imported into ethics.
2. The preferences/motivations of sentient beings, being prescription type entities, can be used as ingredients to generate moral facts. To avoid bias, the preferences/mental-motivations of persons are black-boxed as the moral framework is derived.
3. In order to be meaningful, a moral model is not constructed in such a way that it implies its own violation due to the physical impossibility of following it, otherwise it contradicts itself and violates the laws of logic provided by Premise 1. The boundaries of the physical universe are thus imported into the boundaries of ideal behavior.
4. There is little to go on with regards to what persons ought to do other than the physical limitations people as a whole have (Premise 3) given that their wills are black-boxed (Premise 2).
5. By the PME, provided by Premise 1, the moral model representing the maximum information entropy given our background information is the most probable moral model.
6. The moral model with the maximum information entropy is the one with maximum SBIE for everyone as a whole (holistic SBIE) given the background information of what is physically possible (Premise 3).
7. If the preferences of sentient beings conflict, the preferred conditions closest to maximum holistic SBIE would therefore best qualify as the objectively ideal conditions (Premises 5 and 6), and should thus take precedence. This forms a basis for moral entropic rights.
8. Therefore the SBIE of sentient beings should not be suppressed without said sentient beings’ agreement.

A rational person agrees to any SBIE suppression they intentionally inflict upon themselves. Any controversy about said person’s intentional behavior must therefore involve the suppression of SBIE in others. Applying the PME, the probability that a person has a right to c is given by the social entropian rights equation (SERE).

R(c) = exp(-D0(c))

,where D0(c) is the imposed SBIN (suppressed SBIE) on other persons as a result of c. A more detailed description of social entropian rights and SBIE can be found in the following text [4](mine):

[4] https://www.mediafire.com/file/al4xn6fhb14oeea/S-B-I-E.pdf/file

In summary, the principle of maximum entropy can, through the simplification of general epistemology, be imported into ethics leading to the derivation of social entropian morality. From social entropian morality, a system of moral entropic rights, SER, can be derived from the core moral right to holistic SBIE.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your feedback.

Just to be clear: Are you condoning racism? Why or why not?

And do you actually think we should base philosophy and/or laws on what the individual prioritizes in their private life? OR do we recognize that our subjective preferences are not a good basis for general rules without reference to more objective things?

Personhood is a legal construct. Its other things too, but the legal construct of personhood is where the rubber hits the road for enforcing rights, duties, privileges, etc.

The article notes several countries that have declared certain animals to be non-human persons, and the notion of corporate person is widely recognized.

If "we" refers to the USA, there isn't the political will to extend these rights to animals such as elephants or primates for many reasons (eg., Voter apathy, special interest groups that use animal testing, zoos, etc.).

Even if one sovereign decided to grant some animals personhood, that wouldn't necessarily be recognized outside that jurisdiction (e.g., two nations, state vs. federal govt.), so they would likely only be a "person" in specific contexts.

"Why is X?" is, like, the entire concept of philosophy.

There is a phrase I use called "return to nature". If something is trying to live outside it's natural environment, it should be returned to it, if possible. And sometimes things cannot coexist in unnatural settings. I would destroy the worm because I had to, but I would make a charitable donation in its honor. And someday hopefully make a world where worms and people can live in harmony.

So is everybody, inherently. Everyone prioritizes the health and well-being of those closest to them over the health and well-being of strangers. People spend thousands of $ on their pets and nickles on relief for developing countries.

> Sentience has no inherent moral value.

That is the argument.

Should we treat an elephant the same as a rock? If not - why?

Plus, a lot of people confuse sentience with intelligence, when they are not the same.

It's all good, I assumed that is what happened (I've made the same mistake, so we're basically doofus-twins).

Yeah, there are a ton of people that argue that this random trait is somehow significant, and this is always taken as a given, and noone seems to be able to argue coherently, why that would be the case.

If you get a parasitic worm in your intestines, does that have a right to live, even if it causes you significant distress?

the piece is a little disorganized, imo, and doesn't really get into the topics that it brings up. It certainly does stand as a point about how facts and values can overlap and how natural language is an imperfect tool for expressing ideas. I would tell the author to put the first paragraph down three or so paragraphs, so that we don't read about an elephant and then wonder why we are talking about a candy bar. I would also ask the author if they wanted the "paper" to be about elephants and personhood or if they wanted it to be about the unfortunate situation of overlapping concepts that share the same word.

tldr: you want the good stuff read 4. you want to actually get the good stuff read all this.

1: Just because one wants to speak does not require others hear them. If many people agree they don’t want to hear you, that’s not censorship. It’s society telling an antisocial person in a gentle way their opinions are unacceptable.

However, the person claiming they are being denied an audience then ups the stakes. Instead of being ignored on their soapbox, they grab the megaphones of newspapers, radio, TV.

It’s curious to consider that the promotion of the antisocial, either by algorithms that explicitly promote controversy or by the gatekeepers to the printing press and the broadcast studio, isn’t considered censorship of those who instead hold the seemingly bonkers view that treating people with respect does not mean treating their ideas that advocate inflicting pain on others and self respectfully, which necessitates exclusion of the person holding those antisocial views unless they alter their views to something socially acceptable.

I will point out there latter concept isn’t just fundamental to how human communities have worked for millennia. It’s identifiable as a means other species with high sociality operate. Bonobo society excludes individuals that act antisocially with return only permitted if they actually behave.

This does concede, though, that there’s an obvious hack to the concept of shaping up or shipping out.

Some hold antisocial views and merely act like they don’t in public. “Private vice and public virtue” is a well known concept. In public, they say all the right things for their social circle, but privately they don’t follow their own rules.

The “homophobic legislator who has a publicly accessible history proving his actual preference for the intimate companionship of those of the same gender” can be found in Congress as well as Hungary’s fanatically anti-queer ruling party. It takes no imagination to think of clerics who talk about protecting children at the public ceremony then violate children in their private offices, whether said cleric is named Priest, Pastor, Rabbi, Imam, Sri.

This also explains a phenomenon evident in modern polling. There is complaint by conservatives that polling is useless because polls don’t sync with results of the vote.

A person I know who has remarkable demonstrable accuracy in predicting poll results around the world (they called 49/50 states in the 2020 election and bang on 77 Labor seats with 52% 2PP in the 2022 Australian election) calls this “The Shy Tory Effect.”

Modern viewpoints that have become linked with conservative political parties are understood to be antisocial. Publicly, some who espouse antisocial beliefs either claim to be apolitical or they say they support progressive ideas. In the privacy of the polling place, though, where none know one’s true intention, they vote for the Tory that supports their actual beliefs.

2: I didn’t say he does it too. I said he actually does what others allege nobodies like this random chick do and I counter by saying I will entertain an actual rebuttal.

Today I’m bored though so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

3: Responsibility of being held accountable is simple.

If one chooses to advocate ideas that inflict pain on others and self, one should be excluded unless those antisocial ideas are renounced.

Millions of words published, printed, and transcribed going back millennia already exist on variants of this principal one finds central to philosophy and religion.

Wil Wheaton summarized this succinctly: “Don’t be a dick.”

The great philosophizers Ted “Theodore” Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq. mused, “Be excellent to each other.”

Anons that advocate antisocial views are tolerable as long as the options to ignore the anon or to unmask the anon are reasonably available whenif necessary.

Visiting 4chan is a choice an individual can make. 4chan is the incubator of memes for this exact reason: anonymity allows those who come up with an idea to share it at the cost of instantly and irrevocably losing control over the idea.

A billionaire using shell companies and think tanks to advocate antisocial views on every platform while staying obfuscated via the legal fictions in between, that’s dangerous especially in a place that foolishly says money is speech.

(It is worth noting that Stevens’ 90 page dissent on Citizens United was prescient in accurately predicting the horrific fallout from that decision, including the current popular opinion SCOTUS is illegitimate. Law students may see it as footnote but philosophers should see it as a master class on logic.)

4: I don’t mind discussing things with anyone that holds any view other than a view that is diametrically opposed to my existence if they actually want to talk.

An antiziganist holds a foundational opinion that Roma should not exist. They believe in extermination of Roma. This person’s entire being is dedicated to that proposition. What does it profit Roma to engage this person?

That’s a very narrow window, though. Most people that hold antisocial views are not absolutists or zealots.

They can be reasoned with though the caveat that this is dancing a waltz backwards and in heels across a live minefield must be mentioned.

The misogynist self-indoctrinated those antisocial views on women and on who they are told is their political enemy, “the Left,” who they are told wants to inflict pain on them so they must inflict pain on them.

You would think that would preclude a person who calls herself a leftist from speaking to that person. That’s logical, right? Why would a leftist chick talk to someone who hates lefties and women and lefty women?

Lol nope. Try again.

I don’t talk to them. They talk to me.

I just act with genuine sincerity from the position of choosing to not inflict harm on others and self in all spheres of life.

I don’t attack people. Attacking people looks easy but is hard.

I consider myself violently nonviolent, though, because I am at war against ideas that advocate inflicting pain on others.

Attacking ideas looks hard but is obscenely easy.

All one needs to do is demonstrate a counterexample that challenges the premises underpinning the hateful view.

Sometimes one reflects, points to the mirror, and realizes the counterexample just needs to be.. you.

Writers call this concept, “show, don’t tell.”

I engage in deradicalization for fun. I know it’s a weird hobby, but my life is an exercise in absurdity to begin with, so I roll with it.

The most important lesson anyone going into derad needs to know is that no one can force change into another person’s mind if they acknowledge agency.

That is a contradictory concept and it’s toxic.

It also explains that certain style by those who spread hate online: they pay lip service to agency but did not believe others have it.

The alt-right YouTuber starts by saying, “I’m just sharing my opinion..” but leaves unsaid: …and I expect you to latch onto it, sheeple.

Public virtue, private vice. Shy Tory effect. Hey look, callbacks.

It’s almost like these are the same thing wearing different masks.

Turns out they are. They are all bullshit per the Frankfurt definition.

All one needs to do to counter is approach with sincerity and genuine openness and invest the time. (And actively avoid amygdala hijack. And have discipline that makes a drill instructor look like a slovenly civvie. But that’s in the advanced courses, which are conveniently available for the low low price of zero dollars for a limited time only, offer expires upon your expiration.)

If it takes me 48 hours of vulnerable, open conversations to help someone realize that, “wait, those ideas i supported, they are not what i actually believe,” and chose to give them up, beats any paycheque in my eyes.

…even if it makes it a challenge to feed the bills and pay the cat. Hours work for me but the pay is nonexistent.

Yeah, I just dont agree that that is the point here. Sentience has no inherent moral value.

Humanity ≠ Personhood, or at least that's the premise here.

For example, any of numerous aliens from many different Sci-Fi universes would almost obviously be counted as a person (though the legality of that consideration would not be automatic), but would not be human.

So the question here was, what makes for 'a person' in any of various ways we use the term, the legal definition being just one of them. Many people would argues that self-awareness, empathy, intelligence, awareness of death, etc. are all qualities that we associate with 'persons', whether human or otherwise.

> I believe my treatment of other organisms should be determined by that organism’s capacity to suffer from whatever action I am taking against it and whether that action is necessary.

I don't think this a reasonable or practical perspective. I care more about one of my kids scraping his knee, than the death of a starving child on the other side of the world, and even if they do not admit it when asked, so does everybody else, who do nothing while our society perpetuates a situation where we let starving children die. We as a society are certainly not treating people or animals according to their capacity for suffering.

What is the conundrum? Don't kill stuff. Feed everything. Farm a ton of food. Easy.

New laws require legislative acts, which are hard enough to get for uncontroversial things that a majority of people want.

The activists took the legal approach because there was potential to get the goal they wanted without legislation. A judge could have theoretically ruled that Happy constitutes a legal person, and was thus entitled to the protections afforded to legal persons. They didn't, but they could have.

I suspect that if not the activists involved in this example, some activists are working on getting legislation passed, but this probably seemed like a tactic worth trying as well.

I don't really see much difference between a person and an elephant. I think all animals are people and there should be a worldwide ban on ALL killing.

I think it is fruitful and meaningful to take a descriptive approach to ethics. From a descriptive perspective, ethics is largely about reciprocity. people feel a high degree of ethical obligation towards those closest to them, less obligation towards strangers they perceive as "in-group" and none or very little towards strangers from various out-groups. This is why people frequently to donate a kidney to a family member but ignore starving migrants. People naturally also have a justified expectation, that the obligation they themselves feel towards their loved ones, is matched by an ethical right to support the other way.

The descriptive approach to ethics is a necessary starting point for discussions about ethics, as there is no indication that people can be convinced to act based on any of the more theoretical approaches to ethics (deontology, utilitarianism, etc.).

It is hard to see how to get from mutual commitment to animal rights. In the descriptive approach, it is not difficult to explain why the senile and brain-damaged have rights, but that is impossible if cognitive abilities is taken to be the foundation of rights: I risk becoming senile and brain-damaged myself, and in that situation I wouldt still want help; I am consequently obliged to render the same assistance. On the other hand, it is difficult to see how the same contract-like relationship can arise in the relationship with an elephant. Animals can have protection to the extent that they are someone's property, they cannot enter into an ethical relationship with humans because such relationships are always based on solidarity. Pets may be an exception, but not because they have "rights", pets are also "part of the family" and given priority above human members of out-groups.