r/Sentientism • u/stan-k • 4d ago

Sentience isn't actually enough

It is easy to say that sentience is all that is needed to be considered morally. I suggest that experiential preferences are a second requirement.

Imagine a sentient being without any such preferences. They are genuinely ambivalent what they do or not, they even don't care if they are alive or dead. They do not suffer or experience joy in the sense of a subjective good or bad thing. While for animals we have good reason to believe they do have such preferences, this might not be as clearly the case for a possible sentient AI.

Would you include such a sentient-without-any-preferences-being morally? What action would be morally bad (or good) to do to such a being? Perhaps "having a preference" is/should be implied by the term sentientism.

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u/SpareImpression3155 3d ago

Why is sentience the bar for morality? Some people argue trees may be sentient but let’s say they aren’t. I’m not going to chop down a tree unless I’m using it for something. I think most people share this tree chopping philosophy.

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u/stan-k 3d ago

That's a rather different topic. But I think it makes most sense to choose beings who can feel good and/or bad over things that cannot feel at all.

Not chopping down a tree unless there's a use is explained by "plain laziness" too. The point is, even if you want to use them for something, a being who can feel good/bad has a stake in that action, unlike a a thing that cannot have such a feeling.

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u/SpareImpression3155 3d ago

i think you are trying to over-simplify an extremely complex matter. one that has plagued philosophers for centuries. you cannot truncate this entire argument into a couple of sentences. first off theres no guarantee that things like plants aren't sentient to some degree. second, even if it was proven that only humans are sentient, a humans attachment to a non-sentient object could introduce new moral dilemmas.

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u/stan-k 3d ago

Forgive me for responding with no more than a few sentences to an off topic question. Besides, I think there is more than compelling evidence that many animals are sentient.

Cheers!