Probably consciousness and sense of self? (Not GP). Or lack thereof.
Full disclosure: i don't think the debate is on these grounds, i think the violinist or the seed-people are better ways to think about abortion right now (and at least until unwanted children are completely taken care of by the society and not the mother, and until a pregnancy gives you a white year/have no influence on your career prospects).
But I did some research last year about consciousness in animals (i was always a functionalist, Chamets made me an illusionnist, i wanted to understand what it meant for animals and for AI). I was quite shocked to learn that a baby in his first weeks had a worse sense than any newborn mammal, and than most birds.
What does that mean? For functionalists (probably GP is one), going full moral utilitarist, killing a litter (to avoid getting overwhelmed by kittens) is probably ten time worse than killing a three weeks old baby. Luckily, while i think utilitarist moral intuitions are probably the most accurate, I'm not fully utilitarist, and this kind of intuition repulse me.
All of this to say that thinking logically, being pro-life to avoid 'murder' should push people to go full vegan (or eating only insects and seafood), and aborting a cat or killing a litter should be prosecuted as well.
I had to look up the violinist thing, I'll summarize: it's a thought experiment where you wake up and somebody has sewn your body up to a violinist who has a disease and who needs your blood in order to survive. Will you allow this trespass on your bodily autonomy to help the violinist live, or will you demand the doctors separate you, (most likely resulting in the death of the violinist)?
The argument seems to be made in defense of allowing abortion because, ostensibly, who wouldn't want to say "get this violinist off of me" in that situation, and of course if one were raped and found out pregnant wouldn't you definitely want to be able to get that violinist out of your uterus.
But, it's not the same thing at all, because if you were to separate yourself from the violinist, they would die from their disease / from not being given very extraordinary aid, but if you were to separate yourself from the fetus, it would die from not being given very ordinary means of sustenance.
... and then something about saying that tialaramex is a functionalist (? I can't say whether I agree here). I am also repulsed by any thought that some calculus would allow us to say that N kittens are "worth" M human babies (for whatever M,N).
> being pro-life to avoid 'murder' should push people to go full vegan
Murder is a particular word we only use when a person kills another person. We wouldn't use it for killing animals, ... or for an animal killing a hum-- wait, here:
|--------------------+--------+--------|
| perp | victim | result |
|--------------------+--------+--------|
| human | human | murder |
|--------------------+--------+--------|
| human | horse | kill |
| lion | human | kill |
| cat | bird | kill |
| dog | dog | kill |
| bacteria | ape | kill |
|--------------------+--------+--------|
| thinking rocks [0] | human | kill |
|--------------------+--------+--------|
> But, it's not the same thing at all, because if you were to separate yourself from the violinist, they would die from their disease / from not being given very extraordinary aid, but if you were to separate yourself from the fetus, it would die from not being given very ordinary means of sustenance.
Why does whether it's a common (pregancy) or uncommon (violinist hooked up to sleeper) occurrence alter the moral status of disconnecting the person who is reliant on their connection to another for their continued existence?
The difference is not in how common the occurrence is but whether the aid is extraordinary or ordinary.
If instead of being sewn up with a violinist, the person in the thought experiment woke up with an embryo implanted in their uterus, then separating themselves from the embryo would be removing ordinary aid and the embryo would die from being deprived of basic nutrition.
This latter case is what happens in e.g. date rape, which is, I think, the whole purpose of the "violinist" thought experiment to begin with.
Full disclosure: i don't think the debate is on these grounds, i think the violinist or the seed-people are better ways to think about abortion right now (and at least until unwanted children are completely taken care of by the society and not the mother, and until a pregnancy gives you a white year/have no influence on your career prospects).
But I did some research last year about consciousness in animals (i was always a functionalist, Chamets made me an illusionnist, i wanted to understand what it meant for animals and for AI). I was quite shocked to learn that a baby in his first weeks had a worse sense than any newborn mammal, and than most birds.
What does that mean? For functionalists (probably GP is one), going full moral utilitarist, killing a litter (to avoid getting overwhelmed by kittens) is probably ten time worse than killing a three weeks old baby. Luckily, while i think utilitarist moral intuitions are probably the most accurate, I'm not fully utilitarist, and this kind of intuition repulse me.
All of this to say that thinking logically, being pro-life to avoid 'murder' should push people to go full vegan (or eating only insects and seafood), and aborting a cat or killing a litter should be prosecuted as well.