[ExI] Fwd: Morphological freedom

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 5:06 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
>
>
> Note that wards do not lose all their rights; their protector can only
> legitimately impose things on them compatible with the set of rights they
> retain because of their capacities. Morphological freedom is generally a
> complex right requiring full freedom, so the wards might not enjoy it if
> they do not enjoy their freedom right. But the limitation of freedom of a
> ward does not mean freedom is not inalienable (just that the expression of
> freedom may sometimes legitimately be constrained).
>
> ### Having your rights legitimately constrained still does take them away,
doesn't it? And for some types of wards the constraint persists
indefinitely in time. Outside of a Platonic realm, rights are given or
taken, and not intrinsic or unalterable.

Is ethics more like mathematics, the permanent realm, or physics, the
temporal realm?

I tend to see ethics as a set of insights from analysis of real-world
interactions. This makes me rather wary of the notion of inalienable
properties. In the real world new discoveries are possible, upsetting
existing certainties.
---------------------


> The suicide argument is fun. I think it does not follow if one grounds MF
> in autonomy, since the loss of autonomy in death is different from the loss
> of autonomy in self-reduction.


### Is it a true qualitative difference or merely one of degree?

-------------------


> But I am not convinced in-group norms make for good ethics (they might
> make for good morality), especially if universal ethical principles turn
> out to exist.


### If by universal ethical principles you mean applicable to all
conceivable communities, then I would proffer that such principles do not
exist. You could say that all valid ethical principles must have computable
results relevant to their target audiences - but this is more of
meta-ethical consideration, maybe even a partial restatement of the
definition of ethics.

------------------

>
> My own position, relevant to my chosen in-group, is that existing ingroup
>> members generally have full ownership rights to their own bodies and minds,
>> unless they voluntarily relinquish them (in a meaning much different from
>> Carrico's "non-duressed choice"), and this entails the right to modify
>> themselves using the resources they have at their disposal. This does not
>> entail a duty on others to provide such resources. New members of the
>> in-group such as children and other wards should be gifted such ownership
>> rights on achieving the age of majority, or be allowed to pay a market
>> price to purchase such rights. The details of modification rights should be
>> freely tradeable among in-group members.
>>
>
> Sounds nice. As a Bayesian libertarian I generally agree.
>
> ### I'd be interested in hearing where you disagree, since disagreeing
with you offers learning opportunities for me.

Rafał
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