X-Message-Number: 22817 Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 17:31:06 -0700 Subject: Morality argument References: <> From: (Tim Freeman) Message #22800 From: "David Pizer" <> Subject: Need your opinion. >1. All moral value emanates from living beings. Without life there is > no morality. Some people think morality emanates from God or some such. >2. So, to have any morality, we must first have life. Life is a > necessary condition for morality to exist. Again, some people think that there will be a second coming of Christ, all life on Earth will end, and the righteous people will wind up in Heaven. A bunch of spirits in heaven aren't alive, but morality, I presume, can still be an issue in that context. >3. Since it is moral to seek morality, it is moral to seek the > underlying necessary condition for morality - life. We are alive at the moment, so we don't have to seek life. You don't need to seek something you already have. >4. If life can have any morality, long life can have more morality > than short life (all other things being equal) All things aren't equal. God might tell you to get to Heaven on a reasonable schedule or give you other instructions about medical care (e.g., no blood transfusions for Jehovah's Witnesses). Catholics, I believe, are told not to take extreme measures to extend (or shorten) their lives, since that's interfering with God's will. Some Buddhists believe that, since they'll get reincarnated anyway, taking special care to extend their lives now is a form of attachment that creates suffering. On the other hand, if I understand correctly, the Bible instructs Christians to take good care of their bodies. If someone believes this then you can avoid all the rest of the conversation. I had a pleasant discussion at the recent ACT training with a Seventh Day Adventist who believes that scripture supports his personal interest in cryonics. His pastor was motivated to convince him otherwise and had no scriptural grounds, and fortunately this is a flavor of Protestantism so the scripture is the authoritative guide rather than pastor. I disagree with this guy about the basic tenets of his religion, but unlike most other Christians I've known, I can't see any way in which his belief system is harming him now or is likely to harm him soon. (I wish I had thought to ask him about what he thought of uploading when I had the opportunity.) > and eternal life can have more morality than limited life. The > most amount of morality possible, (in principle), is infinite > morality. For a creature to obtain infinite morality, he/she must > first have infinite life. Physical immortality is a necessary > condition for infinite life. I think one of the rules of some forms of Christianity is that if you can avoid committing any sins before the last time your sins are forgiven and the time you die, then you've achieved perfect morality. If you've repented recently, it's better hurry up and die to avoid the risk of screwing up, except suicide is a sin in itself. People can sin while they're alive and not while they're dead, so more life doesn't necessarily lead to more morality, if morality is defined negatively as an absence of sinful behavior. For example, I've talked to a Mormon who described people born too brain-damaged to do anything as fortunate, since they are unable to sin and therefore certain to get to Heaven and experience eternal Joy there. (If morality is defined positively as doing God's will or anything else worthwhile, then the believer is in a better situation. See below.) >5. If it is most moral to strive for the most life - physical > immortality, then it is immoral not to. As far as I can tell, this last step is valid, but the ones leading up to it aren't so you still don't win. I prefer this argument: 1. People generally have something in their life that motivates them to get out of bed in the morning. This even applies to religiously motivated people. 2. This motive can generally be pursued more effectively by living people than by dead people. This is generally also true for religiously motivated people; it's very rare for a person to be more effective as a martyr than as an ordinary person who is doing some sort consructive work. 3. Therefore one way to more effectively do what you want to do in life is to take care to stay alive. But IMO verbal reasoning about things like this is at best a rationalization for preexisting non-verbal beliefs (at worst it's trolling), so the whole enterprise of trying to verbally capture and manipulate these issues is a dead-end. People need some sort of kinesthetic experience. For instance, I've read reports from people who jumped off the Golden Gate bridge intending to commit suicide and somehow survived. In every case, they report that once they start their fall, they immediately realize that their decision was bad and that life is, in fact, worth living and their problems are at least potentially solvable. (But then, these reports are written by people who did not immediately choose a more effective suicide technique after their failed jump. Hmm.) Too bad aging is such a slow process, and the techniques for mitigating it are also slow or questionable. If it were more dramatic it would be easier to get people to confront the issues. -- Tim Freeman GPG public key fingerprint ECDF 46F8 3B80 BB9E 575D 7180 76DF FE00 34B1 5C78 Computers don't like it when you anthropomorphize them. -- Chris Phoenix Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22817