The Ethics of Star Trek: Holograms' Rights

I'll be presenting my constructive case this round. It will be taking the general form of the following syllogism: P1) The existence of moral rights is contingent on personal autonomyP2) Holograms do not possess personal autonomy C1) Holograms do not have moral rights Since this is a valid syllogism, all I have to do to affirm the conclusion is demonstrate that both premises are true. P1) Personal Autonomy & Rights What is personal autonomy? It is the capability to exercise full conscious control over one's own self (aka "free will"). Without it, morality becomes meaningless. If reality were wholly deterministic, then its resident beings would operate mechanically, driven solely by naturalistic processes, and would not have any ability to exert conscious control over themselves; they would more or less be inanimate objects-- completely devoid of any moral significance whatsoever. Suppose that a large boulder falls off a rocky ledge and crushes an unsuspecting passer-by to death. To hold this boulder morally culpable for its actions would be ridiculous, because it didn't really "commit" any action in the first place; it lacks consciousness and has absolutely no control over what happens to it. On the flip side, if a person were to use dynamite to destroy the boulder, we would not consider this person to have done anything morally wrong either. Why? It is for precisely the same reason-- the boulder lacks moral significance; it does not have any of the moral rights or responsibilities whichare intrinsic toethically relevant beings. Without personal autonomy, a being is reduced to an impersonal machine-- the moral equivalent of a rock or a tree stump. On its own, the ability to experience pain cannot grant ethical relevance; inflicting suffering upon a being which lacks the faculties of free will and consciousness is essentially just stimulating the flow of electrical signals through its nervous system. .. causing a physical reaction within an inanimate object is not immoral by any reasonable standard, and thus the capacity for suffering is not an adequate criterion for moral significance. Only if the being is *animate* can it truly have any such intrinsic value, and the possession of personal autonomy is precisely what distinguishes the animate from the inanimate. Therefore, a being's moral significance is completely dependent upon the possession of personal autonomy, and since moral rights obviously can't apply to a being which is not even morally significant, the conclusion follows: the existence moral rights is contingent on personal autonomy. By the way, having read my opponent's debates before, I should note that "personal autonomy" is in no way connected to "rationality". Infants, sentient animals, and the mentally disabled are perfectly capable of having basic rights because they still are autonomous to some extent; they are able to freely move about andexert control their own actions, even if they lack the cognitive capacity to understand their moralsignificance. Accepting personal autonomy as a criterion for ethical relevance does not conflict with our ethical intuitions at all. P2) Holograms are not Autonomous I assume that my opponent will be fair and agree that holograms in the Star Trek universe must abide by the same physical and metaphysical limitations that would bind holograms in the real world; after all, this debate is about applied ethics, implying that it should have some relevance to the reality. It would be abusive of my opponent to define holograms as being virtually identical to human beings and then somehow expect me to argue that they should't have the same rights as humans. I will be arguing that because of the limitations of computation in the real world, it is not possible for holograms to truly possess personal autonomy; it is only possible for their creators to producea convincingillusion of autonomyin them through highly complex programming. To simplify this a bit, picture two children who want to buy a teddy bear. One child is led into an expansive mega-store full of nothing but rows upon rows of different varieties and designs of teddy bear, while the other child is led into a build-a-bear workshop with all the tools and materials necessary to build his own teddy bear in any sort of style he wants to. The first child may have an enormous variety of options at his fingertips, but ultimately his freedom of choice is still very limited-- if for some reason he wants a teddy bear which is not included in the mega-store's inventory, then there is nothing he can do about it; he is entirely restricted to the limited choices available to him-- his seemingly unlimited range of choices is merely an illusion. Meanwhile, the second child is virtually without constraint as to what kind of teddy bear he can buy, as he has been empowered with the freedom to buildone in any fashionhe desires; he truly possesses the freedomof choice. If it wasn't already clear, the first child's situation represents "artificial intelligence", whereas the second child's situation represents true free will. Ultimately, artificially intelligent computers are limited by the choices afforded to them by their programming; no matter how vast the array of potential decisions may seem, they are still impersonal and mechanistic devices which lack the faculties of consciousness and free will that distinguish the animate from the inanimate. A computer program can, at best, mimic consciousness; it is simply not possible to actually replicate something like consciousness through syntax (i. e. 1's and 0's). A being with personal autonomy is able to fully control its own actions to do as it pleases; a hologram's actions are completely directed by and limitedto its programming. It is not conscious, and it is not autonomous-- it is an inanimate object which has been designed to merely emulate autonomy. This premise is affirmed. ::: CONCLUSION ::: The syllogism has been shown to be logically sound, and thus its conclusion holds true: holograms do not have moral rights. They fail to meet the fundamental qualifier for moral significance (personal autonomy), and thus cannot be said to have any sort of moral significance. The resolution is negated. Back to Pro! Disclaimer: If, by some incredible fluke, I happen to be wrong about this, I offer my most sincere apologies to any and all holograms which I have offended. I did not mean to objectify you. Sorry.