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Luckynia wrote:

It's questionable that one can measure awareness, and in any case human ability to proactively act and react to stimuli is a spectrum; do you think of people with less consciousness as having somewhat less moral worth and liberties?

Yeah, that's a good point. It would be quite unfair and ableist to suggest that humans that are less sentient have less moral worth and liberties; I personally believe that all humans have the same moral worth and deserve the same liberties.

I think Canaltia makes some good points regarding this, as the potential for thought is indeed likely more important than the current state of one's ability to think. I mostly agree with their agreement. I do think that it might falter in some places; for instance, the argument from marginal cases, which argues that for every quality which is thought of defining humanity and confering rights, there is at least one person (a marginal case) who does not have that quality and at least one animal who does have that quality, thus it makes no sense to treat humans as any different in moral worth or liberties from animals. The argument from marginal cases seems to argue against Canaltia's argument, but there are some possible counterpoints to the argument from marginal cases (such as the argument that what makes humans different from other animals and thus more deserving of moral worth and liberties is the combination of these "human" qualities, not just them individually - essentially, the combination of these qualities forms a whole that is greater than the sum of their parts as these qualities interact with each other).