I suppose I can agree that being the subject of the life has some value, in that we do not really need to deal with the ethics of how to treat rocks and dirt. I think, however, that the focus should fall more on certain relevant characteristics of life. Sentience, for instance, is a relevant characteristic of life, whereas the ability to respond to a stimulus is less relevant, given that it doesn't really require much in the way of biological complexity in order to do so. I don't think it would suffice to choose more complex relevant characteristics given the diversity of the human experience and ability. I imagine that we could draft some more relevant characteristics.
I suppose that the problem, after you choose the relevant characteristics, is deciding what kind of treatment is appropriate for each degree/extend of the relevant characteristic. We need to be ever aware that humans can fall very low and very high (since they are currently the point to which all others are scaled) on the degree to which they hold any characteristic.
(This response is also on my blog: http://valueultimate.blogspot.com/2013/02/response-to-initial-thoughts.html)
ReplyDeleteI also think that the criteria for being subject of a life need to be considered further If the reason that animals have rights is because they are able to value themselves to some degree or another, then the capacities that give them the ability to value themselves must be given precedence over the ability to value in a more general way.
Thus the ability to remember one's life is important because it contributes to one being able to value one's self. If you where a sort of fish without the ability for memory but still experienced pleasure and pain, it would still be wrong to arbitrarily harm you, but it would be less wrong than harming a fish that was able to remember it's life and experience pleasure and pain.