cloned slave fun
- Thread starter Nasor
- Start date
So if someone pointed a gun at you and said "Load my suitcases into my car for me or I will kill you" and you really believed that they would do it, you would tell them to go ahead and kill you? You would really rather die than be forced to do some trivial chore for someone? If that's true, then I think you have a few screws loose.Theoryofrelativity said:
You seem to be admitting here that you would be willing to be a slave (albeit a scheming, rebellious slave) rather than die.
Nasor said:
I never said I would kill myself I said repeatedly I would kill you and that is what I would do to the gun toting nutcase, as soon as I had the chance.
In fact I would have disarmed him before the first case was loaded.
Meanwhile your question was a choice, gun toting nutcase offers no choice. I would not choose to exist rather than not as a slave for 30yrs. Not ever having existed leaves me with no desire to exist.
You also said you would offer the slave whatever existance was preferable to death, the statement should have been, whatever existance was preferable to your death as it is you who'd be on the chopping block not me. Having slaves could seriously endanger your health!
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I am attempting to examine the moral/ethical issue. I'm not especially interested in whether or not it would be practical, useful, or safe for the person keeping the slave.Theoryofrelativity said:
Pretty much any argument that you will encounter about why slavery is bad/impermissible will be based around the rights of the slave; essentially, slavery is bad because it's bad for the slave. What I find interesting about the cloned slave question is that in this case although slavery would be bad for our hypothetical slave, not being a slave (and therefore not existing) would be even worse. So, it’s no longer clear that the standard argument against slavery could be applied. This is all predicated on the assumption that the slave would prefer to exist and be a slave for a while rather than never exist at all - so you have to assume that the slave is treated well enough that he prefers to exist rather than not. Obviously that threshold would vary from person to person, but it's not really necessary to quantify it.
Nasor said:
You're still not getting it are you? If you do not exist you have no desire to exist.
Once in existance you FEEL identical to every other being IN existance.
In other words, This IS NOT HYPOTHETICAL, its already been done!
People were BORN into slavery
so you having a
clone born into slavery would result the same!
END of hypothesis
The moral and ethical issues start as soon as you bring this pseudo being in to existance just to pose the question. Technically this being is already your slave so why even offer a choice, you'd just be putting ideas into their head?Nasor said:
Nasor said:
It <I>is</I> morally wrong. You've provided only two choices, but both of them <I>could</I> be wrong. So you've begn with the wrong premise that since the second choice is morally wrong, the first one is right (if that's what you mean). But in this case, the second choice isn't morally wrong, actually. You are not liable to bring someone into existence, so not doing so does not make you immoral.
Moreover, the first choice is wrong. I'll show a similar argument which will make things obvious. March up to someone and say: "You can eiher be my slave for thirty years and live, or I'll kill you now". It may be that the victim will agree to be your slave. So did you do the right thing? Obviously not! Yo don't have any right to his life anyway. All you're doing is giving him two choices which are both wrong in the first place. WE have a similar situation here.
For a really interesting look at clone slaves/helpers and the issues of identity and consciousness try reading David Brin's "Kiln People".
Ah, but there is an important difference! It’s universally accepted that people do not have a right to be conceived. In your example I would be threatening to deprive another person of his right to life, while in my example I am simply threatening to not create the clone – which would not be a violation of the clone’s rights.Rosnet said:
A better analogy would be telling a person “I’ll give you the money you need to pay for your life-saving operation if you agree to be my slave,” assuming the sick person doesn’t have a right to the rich person’s money.
I'd rather be a slave than not alive. Well, servant perhaps. If good treatment meant adeqaute sleep, not being beaten/raped, getting enough to eat, one day off a week and comraderie with the other slaves, I'd be happy enough.
Would you treat the slave properly, or would you beat it?
So long as the slave never knew what "being free" was, it wouldn't know what to compare it's slavery to. If your clone was brought up as a slave from birth, it'd be okay.
It's the same thing with animals that we harvest for food, especially those that are locked up. A chicken or lamb won't know what being free is if it's lived it's complete life in a barn.
However, if you take someone, a regular person, or clone, who's lived a life of freedom and then you make it a slave, that's completely morally wrong. So long as it's lived in complete ignorance from it's conception, there's nothing wrong with it.
- N
It's the same thing with animals that we harvest for food, especially those that are locked up. A chicken or lamb won't know what being free is if it's lived it's complete life in a barn.
However, if you take someone, a regular person, or clone, who's lived a life of freedom and then you make it a slave, that's completely morally wrong. So long as it's lived in complete ignorance from it's conception, there's nothing wrong with it.
- N