Proving What We Already "Know"

[bennyboy]

I think I've figured out what you mean by a gods eye view - though I think you were simply expressing the idea that we have some better version of x. What do you think accounts for that difference, between car-worm-us?

There are any number of reasons that a thing could be bad in the absence of qualia.   To be blunt, there are more reasons that a thing could be bad -absent- any reference to qualia than to those references.  Do you think it would be more or less bad to beat a man in a coma, on the notion that they wouldn't experience it?  

At that moment in time, that person is a collection of organic materials and not much more. I'd argue the badness comes from the observer (or in this case the imaginer of the hypothetical example).

Things with minimal sentience and things with no detectable sentience whatsoever, even by your definition, are still routinely in danger.  Living and nonliving things.  Our rivers are in danger - our forests are in danger, etc etc etc.

I don't think rivers are in danger. They are changing in composition, for sure. The fish are in danger, because presumably they'd prefer not to suffer pervasive cancer and die-- their motivations to live, breed and by implication evolve may be thwarted. In the context of assessment by humans, THEN rivers can be said to be in danger-- but that's a property of our view of goodness as sentient creatures with preferences about things, not of the river itself.

But take some inorganic liquid flow anywhere else in the universe-- could IT be said to be in danger? Or is it just stuff that may or may not ever be noticed by anything?

Truth in context appears to be an empty phrase.  If the context of a truth is the set of relevant facts, than that's just plain old bog standard truth - for example.  Realism, relativism, and subjectivism are all cognitive theories of morality.  This means, simply, that they are truth apt.

The term "truth in context" is just my way of referring to scope. I'm perfectly happy substituting "context" for "set of relevant facts," because that's what it means. But I think my term sounds catchier and is less verbose.

Either way, the problem is the same. If you draw conclusions base on one set of relevant facts, and you intend to assert that the same conclusion applies to a broader set of facts (or completely different ones), then you either have to justify that generalization, or accept it as axiomatic.

Your description of inanimate objects as being "in danger" is a pretty good example. In the context of human experience, where fresh water is of fundamental importance, and where the misadventures of other animals serve as a canary in the coalmine, thinking of things like rivers as being alive and therefore in danger makes sense. But actually, it's about a step away from shamanism or talk of Mother Gaia.

Take away all the living things that might care about the river's composition, and you take away the "danger" that the river is in. "Danger" requires the "set of relevant facts" in which states of material organization can have import, i.e. sentient creatures. I'm reasonably certain that the river will be equally happy with or without sewage being dumped into it.