The brain injury case in depth

These ideas can be illustrated by an example of deprivation whose severity approaches that of death. Suppose an intelligent person receives a brain injury that reduces him to the mental condition of a contented infant, and that such desires as remain to him can be satisfied by a custodian, so that he is free from care. Such a development would be widely regarded as a severe misfortune, not only for his friends and relations, or for society, but also and primarily, for the person himself. This does not mean that a contented infant is unfortunate. The intelligent adult who has been reduced to this condition is the subject of the misfortune. He is the one we pity, though of course he does not mind his condition. It is in fact the same condition he was in at the age of three months, except that he is bigger. If we did not pity him then, why pity him now; in any case, who is there to pity? The intelligent adult has disappeared, and for a creature like the one before us, happiness consists in a full stomach and a dry diaper.

The topic

• Sensitive topic
• Not jumping over it

The vibes

• Finding a specific part to write about

They ask me, how did you write a whole paper on it. I respond, how did I manage to write only one

• The temptation is to go wide
• Vibes not enough
• Even if you have groundings for the bad vibe judgement – look past it

The two approaches (group task!)

• Build a critique of this analogical reasoning based on one of these two appraoches
• Biting the bullet
• Is it so obvious that the previous intelligent person is being harmed? Might we be willing to accept the conclusion that he is not?
• Can we think of an example where someone could change between time a and time b, where you at time a would hate the change, without you at time a being disadvantaged
• Developing a counter-example
• Are there any elements of the example he gives that might cloud our intuitions, and therefore make it a bad example?
• Finding the disanology
• Are there obvious ways in which this state is unlike death?
• Why could this break the analogy on which this argument depends?