((راديو أحلام العصر)) is an ongoing project, the product of a sleepless night and its accompanying hysteria. It is a collection of absurd questions which seek to examine the intrusive thoughts so often discarded without being given their due. For many of these very few people answer in the same way, for the same reasons. Here is one:
You’ve been abducted by aliens, not as a victim, but as a guest. They take you to their planet and show you their most popular attractions, among which is a human zoo; a zoo where the exhibits are exclusively humans, nurtured for the viewing pleasure of these aliens. You will not be taken into the zoo or threatened in any way. It appears the aliens are simply interested in showing you around and do not appear to see the ethical implications of showing a human a human zoo. While touring the zoo you come to a startling revelation: the human exhibits, without exception, are severely mentally retarded. Does this make you feel better or worse?
I believe the way this question is answered, particularly in a smaller and trusted setting is ideologically revealing. How they value the role of the intellectually disabled in society? Their pride (personal or relating to humanity as a whole)? How important do they consider empathy? At the time of this writing there is approximately a 60-40 split in responses, with the small majority saying that they would feel worse.
The reasons behind feeling worse range wildly. Some have expressed disappointment that the exhibits are the aliens’ representatives for humanity. Others express anger that the severely intellectually disabled would be incapable of fully grasping the situation and would therefore be deprived of the opportunity to feel the indignation that they should feel by all rights. More than any other they express grief due to the belief that the severely intellectually disabled would not be able to cope with the situation, and as a result would suffer continuously. The last point is particularly telling as it is sometimes phrased as an inability of the intellectually disabled, and other times phrased as a belief that neurotypical people would be better equipped to help each other out emotionally and cope.
Quite interestingly, many of the reasons why people express feeling better are the same reasons why people are feeling worse but reversed. Some suggest that the intellectually disabled would be a more exotic exhibit. More often they suggest that the aliens’ choice in specifically abducting the intellectually disabled suggests a respect for neurotypical humans, as it would be unethical to put a “regular person” in a zoo. Relatively fewer suggest that regular humans would be able to fully grasp the situation, and as a result would be forced to contend with the total hopelessness that being put in a human zoo would inspire. Remarkably, very few consider their answers in terms of the people left behind.
One person answered as follows, “a retard being abducted is a tragedy, a father of five being abducted is a tragedy and a starvation risk.” This, I think, leads quite naturally to the question of the role of empathy in ethical questions versus pragmatic logic. Ethics appears to be primarily about empathy and instinct, especially meta-ethics. When we consider whether or not a proposed system of morals stands up to scrutiny, we tend to attack it with hypothetical situations which are intended to instinctually make people feel a certain way, thus either supporting or shaking that ethical system. For an example see the trolley problem and its corollaries, such as the surgeon problem, by Judith Butler. Logic doesn’t really tend to play a role in ethical calculations. That said, the human zoo questions seems to beg the question of whether it should.
Is the general inability to consider the people left behind an issue of scope? Does the question somehow preclude people from considering the neurotypical or intellectually disabled abductee a member of society, and therefore an individual who’s absence is meaningful for the people left behind, regardless of their fictional nature? Can we not empathise with the people left behind in the same way that we can empathise with those abducted, or do we merely avoid thinking about it?
Some people change their minds when confronted with the potential repercussions of abducting neurotypical people. Most do not. Regardless of the complication, people tend to stick to their gut feeling, whatever it may have been.
It appears that upon hearing the question people immediately make a value judgement and spend the rest of the time either finding the words to express it, gauging the room to see if their answer is socially acceptable, or dancing around the question in an attempt to avoid answering it, but the immediate value judgement remains. I wonder if it is the case that this is the source of so much ethical disagreement. Not a question of facts and figures, or even right and wrong, but simple stubbornness as a result of an immediate value judgement based on individual morality, regardless of the complications, potential repercussions, or logical corollaries of that moral judgement.
That is to say, the reason behind feeling better or worse, in a sense, does not matter in the slightest. It is merely a conscious attempt at explaining an unconscious gut feeling. I suspect this is useful to consider the next time you’re having a particularly draining discussion; it seems that when confronted with a new idea, or new information, most people make a nearly instant value judgement and base their opinions on that immediate value judgement. They do not consider the idea from all angles, but merely create a structure of ideas on top of that subconscious gut-feeling.
Most interestingly of all, though, only one person has answered “Neither, it’s a fucking human zoo. Who cares who’s in it.”