Q&A: The Suffering of Creatures with Choice
The Suffering of Creatures with Choice
Question
A question about your view regarding free choice. (1) I think I understood from your position that a creature without choice, even if it has consciousness, is comparable in your eyes to a robot. (2) You are not sure that animals such as a dog possess free choice (and apparently you lean toward saying they do not). (3) You do attribute importance to the suffering of animals, and you also describe feelings of affection toward pets. How does that fit together?
Answer
Feelings of affection are a psychological matter, not a value. But if there is a creature that suffers and feels pain, there is an obligation not to cause it suffering. It has no rights, but we have duties. A computer not only lacks choice; it also does not feel pain.
Discussion on Answer
Interactionist dualism is a necessary but not sufficient condition for free will. There can be interactionist dualism without choice.
Please clarify this for me. Are you accepting here the existence of a creature in which “deterministic dualism” holds—meaning, one that has a mental layer but no free choice? And if so, is it only in human beings (a negligible minority among living creatures) that there is “interactionist dualism”? Maybe I’m not remembering the Science of Freedom correctly, but I thought that denying the existence of such a creature was a necessary component in one of the main arguments there.