评论
打印
And if we're more concerned about our fellow primates than we are about insects, as indeed we are,
如果和昆虫做比较，我们比较关心我们自己的物种
it's because we think they're exposed to a greater range of potential happiness and suffering.
那是因为我们认为我们比昆虫能感受到更大程度的快乐或痛苦
Now, the crucial thing to notice here is that this is a factual claim:
其中的意义是这个说法是有实证的
This is something that we could be right or wrong about.
这中间是有对错的
And if we have misconstrued the relationship between biological complexity and the possibilities of experience
如果我们在生物复杂性和知觉体验的关系上做出了错误的推估
well then we could be wrong about the inner lives of insects.
那代表我们有可能错估了昆虫的内心生活
And there's no notion, no version of human morality and human values that I've ever come across
但是我发觉从没有一种道德和价值观
that is not at some point reducible to a concern about conscious experience and its possible changes.
是和人类的感知体验和尝试改变这感知体验的可能性无关的
Even if you get your values from religion,
就算你的价值观来自宗教
even if you think that good and evil ultimately relate to conditions after death
就算你认为善恶和死后的结果有关联
either to an eternity of happiness with God or an eternity of suffering in hell
永远和神在快乐的国度里逍遥或是永远在地狱之火中燃烧
you are still concerned about consciousness and its changes.
这仍然两种不同的感知体验有关
And to say that such changes can persist after death is itself a factual claim,
认为这些体验会一直持续到死后的世界也是在追求一种实证
which, of course, may or may not be true.
虽然谁也不知道死后的世界会如何
Now, to speak about the conditions of well-being in this life, for human beings,
谈到幸福生活的基础，身为人类，在此生
we know that there is a continuum of such facts.
我们知道有些事实一直存在
We know that it's possible to live in a failed state,
我们知道你有可能会住在一个失序的国家
where everything that can go wrong does go wrong -- where mothers cannot feed their children,
所有东西都有可能出错，母亲无法喂养她们的孩子
where strangers cannot find the basis for peaceful collaboration, where people are murdered indiscriminately.
人们找不到一个能保障和平的共识，人们被不分青红地谋杀
