Jason

Fellow Unbelievers,

If it’s just incompatibility about goals, itenerary, chemistry, or styles, then, yes, courtesy and forthright communication is a good way to deal with breaking up and going separate ways.

However, if someome does something that wrecklessly or deliberately deceives and harms you, you have no obligation to “telegraph your…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
In this scenario, are you maybe doing something rude but not morally wrong? Or is it wrong?

I don’t think you can extricate the answer to that question from the context. Let’s see what I mean with a few examples. How would you analyze these hypotheticals if I behaved in these ways?

I come in contact with a woman through a dating…[Read more]

Davis wrote:
In this scenario, are you maybe doing something rude but not morally wrong? Or is it wrong?

It’s reasonable to politely ask to be treated as a human being, and not an ant or a fly.  If nothing else, it might improve the other person’s behaviour in the future.

In my version of evolutionary ethics, ghosting would come under the category of “unnecessary harm”.  Most of the time, people could take the time to let someone down gently and using words rather than ghosting.  So they don’t need to be causing this harm by ghosting.  They are able to give benefit rather than harm, and what’s more, they have a re…[Read more]

Encoginator, you are assuming that life would develop on other planets the same way that it does here. The development of life is disinterested in our happiness or suffering and any mechanism which ensures the continuation of life will be ruthlessly utilised including the terrible byproduct of suffering. If life can continue, even with immense…[Read more]

PopeBeanie,

You wrote:

Q2: That one’s tougher, like the trolly car conundrum. I’m basically utilitarian by nature, so I’d probably say yes, move aside you miserable lot, but not loudly enough for them to hear it or anything that’s coming before we eliminate them. (There’s still a we here, in on this decision together, right?)

This reminds me. …[Read more]

Robert,

Q1. I would say No. Even if you studied them, you are seeing them through your own limitations and values. It is the “prime directive” in the Star Trek series… they constantly violate it.

“General Order 1”, and the “non-interference directive” is a guiding principle of Starfleet, prohibiting its members from interfering with the internal…

[Read more]

Davis,

These kinds of ethical questions are always irksome.  If one doesn’t grant the premise of the question, how can one answer it?

Surely a species cannot live a life of complete suffering or it would be too immobilized to do life-sustaining, reproducing acts and would eventually become extinct.

Also, even waste products of a species have…[Read more]

Secondary question:

If these creatures could indeed be re-engineered to suffer much less and yet still continue be able to somewhat adapt to this barely ever changing planet…would you consider enabling this? If you had the choice between a little less suffering (totally pointless suffering) but a tiny chance to develop intelligence would you…[Read more]

just because we can’t “conceive” of a way…does that necessarily preclude a path to advancement

Robert that is an extremely good point (one of the few nitpicking with this scenario that is as interesting as the actual answers themselves). I would say that this would have to be part of the risk assessment formula. Even if we cannot fathom how the…[Read more]