It’s my understanding that in the hypothetical under discussion the person remains awake and aware for the whole process - they simply ‘reset to a save point’ at some future point, forgetting the intervening time. Thus there’s no reasonable argument for saying that the soul isn’t attached to the body for that time, especially if you consider “soul” and “mind” equivalent terms.
Consider the fact that the question doesn’t materially change if the memory loss is applied after the fact - suppose that the memory loss is carried our not by a drug taken in advance, but instead by a blow to the head afterwards. At the start of the ‘period to forget’, how would the soul know the hit was coming?
This is not my understanding of the hypothetical - it is my understanding that the drug, while active, impedes the ability to form new memories and immobilizes the body. It is administered before the operation and not after, hence under dualism we can say the drug severs the connection between the soul and the body.
In your situation the doctor performs the painful operation first and then removes your memory with a blow to the head after-the-fact. I refer to the operation plus blow to the head as “the procedure”. I assume the doctor has not neglected some other aspect of ethics such as medical necessity, and that he is competent.
You say this situation is materially the same as the situations described in posts [POST=21595856]#15[/POST] and [POST=21598580]#31[/POST]. It may be “materially” the same for you, but dualism implies a non-material plane of existence. The situation is materially different for adherents of dualism, so as to make dualists come to the same conclusion as non-dualists.
To an adherent of dualism, this situation does not involve separating the mind from the body. Rather, the doctor by striking the patient’s head has the effect of removing qualia from the soul. Therefore the dualist cannot say “I did not experience the operation” or “the operation did not affect me”, which could be claimed in response to posts [POST=21595856]#15[/POST] and [POST=21598580]#31[/POST]. Instead the dualist would say “I do not remember the operation” or “I forgot the operation” or “it is as if I did not experience the operation”, exactly as a non-dualist would conclude.
Therefore with your scenario the dualist’s justification for going through with it is the same as anyone else’s might be - “I understand the risks and think it’s worth it, so go ahead and cut me open, doc!”
Now for a moral analysis of the situation:
[LIST=I][li]If the patient consents to the procedure they must be aware of any risk of failure. The operation may fail (although this is unlikely since the doctor is competent). A bystander may stay the doctors arm, leaving the patient with memory of the painful operation. Some emergency might prevent the doctor from inflicting the blow. The blow to the head might not induce memory loss (although this is unlikely since the doctor is competent). The blow to the head might cause other problems (although this is unlikely since the doctor is competent). The doctor and patient form an agreement: the doctor will operate on the patient, and the patient will probably not remember the operation, and there is such a chance of failure in such and such ways.[/li]
Once informed consent is obtained the doctor is morally clear. The patient knows what they are getting into and is morally culpable. Therefore this is the most ethical scenario.
[li]If the patient consents to this procedure but is unaware of the risk of failure, the doctor might not be morally clear. It will depend on when we assign morality. There is an agreement between the patient and the doctor: the doctor may perform the operation so long as the patient does not remember the operation.[/li]
[LIST=A][li]If morality is assigned in-the-moment, the doctor cannot morally perform the operation without advising the patient of the risks of failure. To do so otherwise would be a misrepresentation on his part, although other moral considerations such as an urgent situation may override this conclusion.[/li]
[ol][li]If the patient thought they would feel no pain, they would freak out when the doctor starts operating and they start feeling pain. To the patient at that moment, the doctor lied and committed an immoral act. The patient is simultaneously horrified at the prospect of remembering the pain or forgetting the doctor’s betrayal.[/li] [LIST=a][li]If the doctor successfully wipes out the patient’s memory, the patient forgets how the doctor betrayed their trust and the doctor “gets away” with an immoral act.[/li] [li]If the doctor fails to wipe out the patient’s memory, the patient remains pissed off and the doctor is “caught” committing an immoral act. Doubly so because the patient thought they would not remember the operation.[/li] [/ol]
[li]If the patient knew it would be painful but they thought they would not remember the pain, the patient evaluates the doctor’s morality after-the-fact.[/li] [LIST=a][li]If the doctor successfully wipes out the patient’s memory, the doctor will “get away” with his misrepresentation.[/li] [li]If the doctor fails to wipe out the patient’s memory, the doctor will be “caught” misrepresenting the procedure to the patient. The patient will likewise be quite angry with the doctor, who probably opens the bar hoping alcohol will let the patient forget…[/li] [/LIST]
[/LIST]
[li]If morality is assigned after-the-fact, the doctor will be morally right if he succeeds and morally wrong if he fails.[/li] [ol][li]If the doctor successfully wipes out the patient’s memory, the doctor will be morally clear.[/li] [li]If the doctor fails to wipe out the patient’s memory, the doctor will be “caught” misrepresenting the procedure to the patient. The patient will likewise be quite angry with the doctor, who probably opens the bar hoping alcohol will let the patient forget…[/li] [/ol]
[/LIST]
[li]If the patient does not consent to the procedure, the doctor has committed an immoral act - violating the patient’s body without consent - no matter when you evaluate morality.[/li] [LIST=A][li]If the doctor is successful the patient won’t know who committed the act or possibly that an act was committed. This doesn’t change morality from the doctor’s viewpoint. The doctor still violated the patient’s body without consent. Just because a harm is not realized does not mean there was no harm. The doctor likely “gets away” with committing an immoral act.[/li] [li]If the doctor fails to wipe out the patient’s memory, he will be “caught” violating the patient’s rights and probably sued.[/LIST][/li][/LIST]
Yes, I am. But it’s trivial to establish if the clone is a sentient being, so I don’t consider it a large leap (given I don’t believe in P-zombies or qualia)
No, sorry, that little bit of legerdemain isn’t going to work. Proving the clone has a mind is trivial. Proving the clone has a soul is impossible (since you can’t prove statements devoid of meaning, which “souls” are.)
That was sufficiently weasel-worded that you must have thought it would slip by - do you, or don’t you?
I really don’t know whether to believe in souls and dualism, or exactly how to define the “mind”. I am not trying to be obtuse, only to present another perspective. I don’t consider myself married to dualism or pluralism or monism. At least, not until I work out my own philosophy of epistemology. Until then I’m a free agent as far as debates go.
If you dismiss dualism, then a dualist argument is baseless. I only wanted to point out the possibility that another perspective exists. The original post asked for philosophical implications and I provided one consistent with dualism.
My personal, practical opinion is laid out in [POST=21597209]post #28[/POST]. I also provided a non-dualist, or should I say neutral, moral analysis of bergbert2’s hypothetical in the spoiler of [POST=21599945]post #44[/POST]. I would love to read your (or anyone else’s) opinions on these.
It’s generally polite if you’re playing Devil’s Advocate to announce the fact beforehand. Don’t be like James Acaster on the jury…
I think most of the spoilered part in #44 is on point. I don’t agree that scenario 1 is *free *of moral quandary for the doctor, obviously, since I think there’s still a sentient being suffering - but there’s a case to be made that because there’s continuity up to the memory wipe, the patient who consents has continuity with the patient that suffers so even if the patient that suffers is erased, they consented to their own erasure, so that’s OK.
The dualist is living a lie, because it’s explicitly stated in both hypotheticals that the patient is aware and reacting to the procedure as it happens. (It’s also explicitly stated that they don’t like the experience.) Now, if were were to entertain the silly dualist notion that the soul/mind is departing the body and vacationing in Cancun for the duration, then who’s screaming in pain? Clearly there’s a mind in there the whole time. Does an extra, second mind spontaneously appear for the duration of the operation? What happens to it when the operation is complete?
Clearly the second mind is murdered to make space for the original mind to return. Both the doctor and the patient are accomplices to the outright and intentional murder of a sentient mind. The dualist position is the most immoral position of all.
Er, this is dense and seemingly overcomplicated. I don’t feel like picking it apart.
Suffice to say, I feel that the only moral position is when the patient is both aware of what will happen (it will suck hard for a while, and then you’ll forget it all and not remember the experience), and consents to it in advance. Oh, and neither of them can be dualists who think the soul is departing the body for the duration, for the reason mentioned above.
Just a heads up that I am arguing as a devil’s advocate - I am neither convinced that the below arguments are true or false.
I suppose I have redefined the hypotheticals. “The patient seems aware” and “it seems that they don’t like the experience” rather than “is aware” and “they don’t like the experience”, as to invite dualist interpretations. Maybe that is not OK, in which case we could both agree that dualism is precluded by the hypothetical.
The original soul doesn’t wander to Cancun, it doesn’t exist in the physical realm and it is nonsensical to imagine a soul moving across the physical realm except through the link to a physical body. The soul just sits tight in its spirit realm or what have you.
One dualist theory is that by disconnecting the body from the soul, the body becomes a zombie - a body without a soul. The “person” screaming in pain is a zombie, therefore there is no second soul to murder. Killing or permanently harming the zombie is still unacceptable because the original soul was promised their body back in good condition. If the soul was permanently disconnected from the body it would almost be moral to kill the zombie outright (almost because others might think the zombie to be a person, and killing of non-persons is not morally neutral).
Yes. But that’s because the victims memory has nothing to do with whether the act towards them is immoral. The torture itself is wrong, due to it being fueled by the intent to cause intense, non-consensual pain. An intentionally quick death is fueled by the intent to minimize intense, non-consensual pain.
It’s exactly how it’s still wrong if a woman who is black out drunk was raped during that time. The rape still happened. The torture still happened. And someone deliberately caused it to happen.
Because said clone consented to the procedure. The clone still has the same continuity, and thus the same past as you. So the clone is just as much the one who consented as you are.
(I know you made a subsequent post about this, but it was unclear to me whether you agreed with this or not.)
That is, of course, presuming their is consent. I admit I had considered only consent and obvious non-consent, not situations where checking for consent is not an available option. That gets a lot messier. The normal idea is that you can act if you have reason to believe they would consent. That’s why, say, grabbing someone forcefully to save them from falling and killing themselves is generally considered a moral act, when grabbing someone forcefully in other circumstances is not. You presume that, if there was time to ask, they would choose for you to save them. And, if you’re wrong, they can always just choose to go back and fall intentionally.
That is where the problem lies, as there is apparently a group of people who find such procedures so unethical that they would not undergo them, but have no real way to undo the choice after the fact. However, I would expect most medical professionals to choose to perform the procedure anyways if necessary to preserve life, presuming that most people would rather be alive, even if that means doing something they find unethical.
It probably also helps that this is almost always a fallback. Even if they need the patient conscious, they will still try and numb out the pain. Doctors do have an ethical responsibility to attempt to minimize pain as much as possible. It’s the same intent issue as before. The idea that the other entity is not me does not make it okay to deliberately cause it pain.
They must act as if the memory erasure might not work.
What is your opinion on the doctor’s culpability if, in his/her professional opinion, the procedure is medically necessary? If the procedure is medically necessary and the patient makes informed consent, I can’t assign any moral culpability to the doctor except possibly a less painful alternative. But if there were such an alternative this calls into question whether the procedure is medically necessary.
The main issue for me isn’t the prior consent, it’s what happens if they subsequently *withdraw *consent (even if non-verbally) once the procedure starts i.e. once they start choking/crying/pleading, does the doctor proceed anyway based on the assumption they won’t remember? Are they strapped down? I don’t know, but that would strongly influence my take. A sentient being is suffering, is it OK just because they are disposable?
All cool - the devil needs all the advocates he can get.
I’m okay with dualism (at least theoretically) - what I’m not okay with are “philosophical zombies”. Which is what that “seems” business is all about - declaring something that’s obviously aware and obviously not liking the situation as ‘just a zombie’, which allows you to dismiss their obviously real feelings as being fake and thus torture is now okay.
Fine, be pedantic. The soul already and always existed in a spirit realm (specifically, one called “Cancun”), and all that happens is that it cuts the puppet strings connecting it to the body, causing the body to topple over like, well, a puppet with its strings cut.
Or not, because in the soul/mind’s absence, something takes over…
Philosophical zombies are inherently nonsensical, which isn’t surprising, because the entire notion of them relies entirely on both having a concept of ‘souls’, and deliberately refusing to define what a soul actually does. Specifically souls are declared to be super-valuable (for some reason), but they are NOT what is controlling the body - or at least, the body doesn’t need them around to function perfectly well. The idea is that the soul is the driver and the body is the car - and it’s a self-driving car. Looking at the car we can’t tell if the soul is in there or not, and the car can do everything it does without one, but if the car lacks a soul then it’s okay to rape and murder it. (As one does.)
Now admittedly, a person could make the argument that people on Versed (or black people, or mexicans, or accountants) don’t have souls and thus it’s okay to abuse them. And by “a person” I mean “not you”, because you’ve already sabotaged your use of this argument, by equating “soul” with “mind”.
There’s no way to tell if a person has a soul (other than asking them if they’re an accountant), but one can easily tell if a person has a mind - you just check to see if their strings have been cut. In this hypothetical they haven’t been, so there’s definitely a soul/mind in there. Now, it might not be the original soul/mind, which means -oh, wait, I’ve just been handed a card saying that they have the same memories as the original body, which means they really do have the same mind.
By equating souls and minds, you’ve disqualified yourself from referencing philosophical zombies at all, because philosophical zombies are incompatible with the concept of souls and minds being linked.
But yes, if by “soul” you mean “importance fairy”, an invisible, mythical beast that floats around completely independently of people except that they occasionally land on them - and anybody who doesn’t have a fairy on their shoulder can be abused freely without guilt or moral consequence. Under a cosmological model where importance fairies are driven off by taking Versed or getting an accounting degree, it would be perfectly moral to abuse people on Versed.
Quoted for truth. I’ve had my share of Versed in the last few weeks–acts fast, big smokin’ hole where the unpleasant memory would be, no groggy recovery.
There is no such thing as “now”, everything you know is a memory. Maybe a very young memory barely a tenth of a second old, but a memory by the time you’re thinking about it.
If something prevents the formation of memory, it effectively prevents the formation of experience.
Within my skull, there was no attempt to reset my elbow*, and there was no surgery to put it back together.
There is no mental trauma because all I know is I felt poorly, and then I felt better.
*The Missus recorded the attempt (it failed, radius head was too fragmented) and I was definitely responsive to all the fuss, but not at all interested in getting them to stop. Looks very much like moment to moment consciousness with no ability to plan or even form a reaction.
Generally informed consent includes agreement on the process for withdrawing consent, as well as a point of no return. This would be something to the effect of “there’s no turning back after I cut open your stomach.” The point of no return should be clear to all parties before going into surgery, and be based on risk to the patient’s health.
If the patient voices objections while under the effects of anesthetics, before the point of no return, everything should be put on hold. The care team then follows the process for withdrawing consent, which usually involves an evaluation of the patient’s decision-making capacity. If at a hospital, the attending physician might ask an on-call doctor or ethics committee member for their opinion. If the patient is found to be in their right mind, the procedure is aborted; otherwise, the procedure goes ahead possibly with more anesthetics. Again, this whole process should be agreed upon by the patient before the procedure begins.
a) Yes, it happened.
b) Yes, it mattered that it happened.
I’d argue that there are two ways of looking at this experience, from within and from without. From within: If we’re arguing about long-term psychological damage, there wasn’t any. That does not mean those moments did not exist. In a lawsuit, the amount you’d be awarded for pain and suffering might be lower than if you suffered painful memories of the traumatic experience, but the experience still happened, and those moments still count, ethically and probably legally.
From without: If I stole $20 I found in the secret stash you’d forgotten you had and you never realized it was gone, did I still steal it? Of course I did, and you suffered loss, even if you don’t recall it. It was still theft. You may not have any conscious recollection of the money and therefore don’t experience the pain of loss, but the loss is still there.
Furthermore,* I* still know it happened. We’ve been focusing on whether or not the experience mattered if you don’t recall it, but of course it’s also relevant that the people who were present and not on Versed remember the experience, whether it’s with guilt, regret, indifference, or smug pleasure.