Itās not clear to me what it would mean to ātreasure a non-living thingā in the same way that we should ātreasure a living [Iād add āsentientā] beingā. When I treasure a sentient being, what I mean by this is that:
(1) I recognize that sentient beingās capacity to feel positive and negative states of mind;
(2) I recognize that that sentient being has interests of their own; and
(3) I take the previous two facts into consideration in my decision-making so that I donāt, unnecessarily, make that sentient being feel negative states of mind, or deprive them of their interests.
However, in the case of non-living things, such as rocks, knives, toys, etc, facts (1) and (2) are absent, and therefore I cannot treasure them in the same way I treasure sentient beings.
I can, of course, decide that some non-living thing has value (such as a potato), in so far as it can, for instance, satisfy the interest of a sentient being not to be hungry, and make that sentient being not experience the negative state of mind associated with hunger, but rather experience the positive state of mind associated with satiation, and the ripple effects of nutrition that flow from this.
In your example of reducing waste, who (or what), exactly, is being treasured? The waste, or the future sentient beings who, because of an environmentally friendly disposal of the waste, will have their interests satisfied by not living in a depleted Earth?
The difficulty I have with this argument is where do you draw the line with sentience? And if thereās a living thing just below the line, without āreal feelingsā or interests, but still able to experience pain or other feelings would you not treasure it?
One issue with my post I realise is that maybe by definition you need a sentient being to feel real empathy with, but what I had in mind wasnāt strictly just empathy, but caring for or treasuring things.
In a sense itās more of an invitation for a thought experiment to extend our circle of concern regardless of utility. So to answer your question, itās treasuring /ā appreciating /ā valuing /ā finding delight in anything really, just for the mere fact that it came together from cosmic dust. So even if something doesnāt have utility for a sentient being, favouring not destroying or harming them.
That being said, of course Iām not saying we should care more about a tuft of grass over a goat for example (and prevent the goat from eating the grass out of concern for the grassās wellbeing) or to put more effort into preserving minerals than farm animal welfare, etc. Instead, as a concrete example, to consider the effects of our (over)consumption in increasing entropy and decreasing natural beauty, even if mining a bare hill without vegetation doesnāt impact anything living.
Itās not clear to me what it would mean to ātreasure a non-living thingā in the same way that we should ātreasure a living [Iād add āsentientā] beingā. When I treasure a sentient being, what I mean by this is that:
(1) I recognize that sentient beingās capacity to feel positive and negative states of mind;
(2) I recognize that that sentient being has interests of their own; and
(3) I take the previous two facts into consideration in my decision-making so that I donāt, unnecessarily, make that sentient being feel negative states of mind, or deprive them of their interests.
However, in the case of non-living things, such as rocks, knives, toys, etc, facts (1) and (2) are absent, and therefore I cannot treasure them in the same way I treasure sentient beings.
I can, of course, decide that some non-living thing has value (such as a potato), in so far as it can, for instance, satisfy the interest of a sentient being not to be hungry, and make that sentient being not experience the negative state of mind associated with hunger, but rather experience the positive state of mind associated with satiation, and the ripple effects of nutrition that flow from this.
In your example of reducing waste, who (or what), exactly, is being treasured? The waste, or the future sentient beings who, because of an environmentally friendly disposal of the waste, will have their interests satisfied by not living in a depleted Earth?
The difficulty I have with this argument is where do you draw the line with sentience? And if thereās a living thing just below the line, without āreal feelingsā or interests, but still able to experience pain or other feelings would you not treasure it?
One issue with my post I realise is that maybe by definition you need a sentient being to feel real empathy with, but what I had in mind wasnāt strictly just empathy, but caring for or treasuring things.
In a sense itās more of an invitation for a thought experiment to extend our circle of concern regardless of utility. So to answer your question, itās treasuring /ā appreciating /ā valuing /ā finding delight in anything really, just for the mere fact that it came together from cosmic dust. So even if something doesnāt have utility for a sentient being, favouring not destroying or harming them.
That being said, of course Iām not saying we should care more about a tuft of grass over a goat for example (and prevent the goat from eating the grass out of concern for the grassās wellbeing) or to put more effort into preserving minerals than farm animal welfare, etc. Instead, as a concrete example, to consider the effects of our (over)consumption in increasing entropy and decreasing natural beauty, even if mining a bare hill without vegetation doesnāt impact anything living.