From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc Wed Feb  5 11:55:36 EST 1992
Article 3335 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Strong AI and Panpsychism
Message-ID: <NV1eFB1w164w@depsych.Gwinnett.COM>
Date: 31 Jan 92 13:05:22 GMT
References: <accran.696787869@gsusgi1.gsu.edu>
Lines: 51

accran@gsusgi2.gsu.edu (Robert Nehmer) writes:

> rc@depsych.Gwinnett.COM (Richard Carlson) writes:
> 
> >>     You could start by explaining why I should treat *you* as more worthy
> >> of ethical consideration than a rock, given that you are conscious and
> >> the rock is not. What is so important about being conscious?
> 
> >For some reason Kant thought that consciousness (nonepiphenomenal
> >sentience that played a role in choosing or deciding on a
> >behavior) _logically_ entailed treating that conscious entity as
> >an end rather than a means.  I've never understood the force of
> >that.  _Why_ should someone's consciousness, status as a
> >for-itself, capacity for choice, etc., _logically_ require me to
> >treat h/er as an end.  I think it would be a nice thing to do and
> >I am in favor ot it.  But is it in any way _logically_ necessary?
> 
> It's been awhile since I've picked up the _Critique_, but from my 
> understanding of Kant's correspondence concerning his reasons for
> writing the second one as well as some subsequent comments by others,
> he was stretching to determine a limit to the inherent instumentality
> in his _Critique of Pure Reason_. And he knew this was the case. The
> argument, the logic, as I've been able to make it out, is that an
> individual conscious entity (with an appreciation of the improbable 
> wonder of its own existence - this is important) will, of necessity
> (i.e., logically), "honour" Others of its own type. This is partially
> because that entity realises that the problems of the categoricals
> with which it filters external stimuli are also encountered by the
> Other. So the two are "closer" in a sense than non-conscious entities
> since they are both filtered and filtering. Logically, they should
> be "allies," brothers/sisters under the skin, so to speak. Ah, I think
> I remember the title now:_Critique of Moral Necessity_. I hope this
> isn't too foggy, Kant uses a bit more text to get the points accross

No matter how many times you go over this it still looks more like
a species of Hume's empathy -- the non-logical alternative he
proposed and to which Kant was largely reacting.  The fact that
you are in the same existential boat as me in terms of filtering
information through the categories of your mind may make me see
you as similar, which is a logical process in terms of sets or
classes, but the additional notion that I should then treat you
differently than an entity that is less similar is a normative
(prescriptive, deontic, whatever) notion rather than a logical one
and seems to be a kind of descriptive statement of a prescriptive
feeling.

--
Richard Carlson        |    rc@depsych.gwinnett.COM
Midtown Medical Center |    {rutgers,ogicse,gatech}!emory!gwinnett!depsych!rc
Atlanta, Georgia       |
(404) 881-6877         |


