>That makes the border very important. Even if drawing the line in the right spot is impossible, it's imperative that we recognize when it has gone from one side to the other,
No it's not. Because such a line may not even exist. Just as no line truly exists for what is hot and what is cold. It's more worth it to look at societal implications in aggregate then to debate about a metric.
It's not imperative at all to discretize the concept. Treat a gradient for what it is: a gradient. You can do that or waste time arguing about whether 75.00001 degrees is hot or cold.
>If we don't notice, we could accidentally cause a moral travesty orders of magnitude greater than slavery or genocide.
No this a bit too speculative imo. Morality is also a gradient along good and evil and what's more complicated is the definition of good and evil is also subjective. It suffers from the same problem as consciousness in addition to being completely arbitrary even at the extremes. We may agree that a rock is not conscious but not everyone agrees on whether or not Trump is evil.
No it's not. Because such a line may not even exist. Just as no line truly exists for what is hot and what is cold. It's more worth it to look at societal implications in aggregate then to debate about a metric.
It's not imperative at all to discretize the concept. Treat a gradient for what it is: a gradient. You can do that or waste time arguing about whether 75.00001 degrees is hot or cold.
>If we don't notice, we could accidentally cause a moral travesty orders of magnitude greater than slavery or genocide.
No this a bit too speculative imo. Morality is also a gradient along good and evil and what's more complicated is the definition of good and evil is also subjective. It suffers from the same problem as consciousness in addition to being completely arbitrary even at the extremes. We may agree that a rock is not conscious but not everyone agrees on whether or not Trump is evil.