I don’t come here often, and don’t plan to write something verbose whatsoever. I have one simple thing to say, speaking as a neuroscientist—why on earth would you think something like the number of neurons in a brain is a good proxy for moral weight?
What age group has the most neurons in humans? Babies. It’s babies. The ones you constantly have to tell what is right and what is wrong? To stop hitting their siblings, being selfish, etc? This is not a nuanced conversation, it is one that, if you subscribe to scientific materialism, is quickly and efficiently done away with.
To utilize logic in parallel with the way it’s been done here so far : in humans, decreasing neural count is correlated with increased moral intelligence (incl. the development of empathy, moral reasoning, etc.)
I have one simple thing to say, speaking as a neuroscientist—why on earth would you think something like the number of neurons in a brain is a good proxy for moral weight?
What age group has the most neurons in humans? Babies. It’s babies. The ones you constantly have to tell what is right and what is wrong? To stop hitting their siblings, being selfish, etc?
I’m confused. It seems as if you’re arguing against using neuron counts as a proxy for moral agency, not moral weight.
I appreciate your interesting point! I would note that as Erich mentioned, we’re interested in moral patiency rather than moral agency, and we ultimately don’t endorse the idea of using neuron counts.
But in response to your comment, there are different ways of trying to spell out why more neurons would matter. Presumably, on some (or most) of those, the way neurons are connected to other neurons matters, and as you know in babies the connections between neurons are very different from the connections in older individuals. So I think a defender of the neuron count hypothesis would still be able to say, in response to your point, that it’s not just the number of neurons but rather the number of neurons networked together in a particular way that matters.
I don’t come here often, and don’t plan to write something verbose whatsoever. I have one simple thing to say, speaking as a neuroscientist—why on earth would you think something like the number of neurons in a brain is a good proxy for moral weight?
What age group has the most neurons in humans? Babies. It’s babies. The ones you constantly have to tell what is right and what is wrong? To stop hitting their siblings, being selfish, etc? This is not a nuanced conversation, it is one that, if you subscribe to scientific materialism, is quickly and efficiently done away with.
To utilize logic in parallel with the way it’s been done here so far : in humans, decreasing neural count is correlated with increased moral intelligence (incl. the development of empathy, moral reasoning, etc.)
I’m confused. It seems as if you’re arguing against using neuron counts as a proxy for moral agency, not moral weight.
Hi Rhiza,
I appreciate your interesting point! I would note that as Erich mentioned, we’re interested in moral patiency rather than moral agency, and we ultimately don’t endorse the idea of using neuron counts.
But in response to your comment, there are different ways of trying to spell out why more neurons would matter. Presumably, on some (or most) of those, the way neurons are connected to other neurons matters, and as you know in babies the connections between neurons are very different from the connections in older individuals. So I think a defender of the neuron count hypothesis would still be able to say, in response to your point, that it’s not just the number of neurons but rather the number of neurons networked together in a particular way that matters.