VeevaHon
9mo ago
I find your judgement very pertinent. In real life there is alway a unique set of conditions to be taken into consideration, and intuition is often better than a pre determined set of rules.
Still I find thought experiments of an ideal environment, while not applicable, are good to understand our own thoughts and values. Just have to be careful.
VeevaHon
9mo ago
That is an interesting case. But I am thinking there are benefits in her knowing it: there is a good chance she would find out later in a worse way, or that she could have been in danger, or that her knowing it could help bring about justice. Can't say for sure. But what if we could reasonably predict that none of these things would happen. Would it still be a good thing to tell her?
VeevaHon
9mo ago
Very consistent and straightforward approach - though some may call it controversial. Thanks for sharing your opinion
VeevaHon
9mo ago
Telling someone they are adopted would be true, probably not kind, and probably not necessary - it could be necessary in case their genetic history is relevant, or if there is a good risk they would find out in a more traumatic way. But assume a case where it is not reasonable to assume the necessity of it. Would it be ethical to hide that secret?
VeevaHon
9mo ago
That is a pretty straightforward way to put it, and probably a good approach. But I want to challenge it. Some people want to know things even when it does not lead to anything good - such as a cheating partner, or that they are adopted, or they were conceived by sexual violence. Their life may be worse after, but they do not wish they stayed ignorant instead. Is that a good reason to tell them?
VeevaHon
9mo ago
The being adopted case is an interesting one, we in general assume that it is not ethical to not tell someone they are adopted - maybe partly because we think the person will eventually find out anyway, so better tell them now.
VeevaHon
9mo ago
Suppose you know a secret about something.
And that secret would be profoundly distressing and traumatizing to a person if said person learned about it.
And there are no practical benefits to that person learning about it (ie learning about it would not incentivise said person to act in a way to protect themselves, or to do something beneficial in any way)
Do you think it would it be ethical to tell the secret to that person or not? What conditions are relevant in deciding whether to tell them or not?
VeevaHon
9mo ago
Can you give examples of what you call emotional salience, both in past feminism and in the presence?
VeevaHon
9mo ago
Sure, I agree with all you said. You further endorsed my point that the division of childcare and income earning is strongly (not exclusively) affected by external factors other than taste. Both for men and for women.
You can't attribute everything or most of what's wrong with gender roles to things men do
And I don't. If you think anything I said implies that I do think like that, I appreciate if you point out to me exactly where you got that impression, then I can work on making it more clear.
Sure, I don't disagree with what you said. I even think your anecdotes are actually representative of a trend.
If I read it correctly, you interpreted my text as an speculation about the specific examples you have from your personal surroundings, which it was not. I was questioning the general scenario. So I will not comment on them, as they neither prove nor disprove my claim that, in general, the division of childcare work is strongly (not exclusively) affected by external factors other than taste.
Btw, don't put words in my mouth; I don't think childcare is a lesser type of work, in fact I think it's under-appreciated compared to its importance (as are having children and families in general).
I did not put words in your mouth, in fact you seem to be the one doing it, because I never accused you of claiming that childcare is a lesser type of work. What I admonished you for doing, though, was providing anecdotal support to such claim first made by OP without also adding the criticism that I deem recommendable to include when in a debate with someone who lacks (or at least doesn't show) nuance like OP
1 Not that I know of
2 Children of Men (2006) fits the trope perfectly. Disney's Up (2009), Creed (2015) and Intouchables (2011) fit almost perfectly the trope, except the men do not die in the end
Biutiful (2010) also shares many of the same elements, except for most of the filme the main character does not act as a mentor, but rather as an abuser for ethnic minorities. He regrets and seeks redemption by leaving all his possessions to one of them before his death.
Me Before You (2016) and The Fault in Our Stars (2014) also have many of the same elements - with the dying-man mentor that gives everything they can to their intellectual protégé - however do not envolve ethical minorities - the low-self-steem-girl and the depressed-seriously-ill-girl do that role, respectively. Million Dollar Baby (2004) has similarities too.
3 The Green Mile (1999) sort of fulfills the trope. Except the saviour is disadvantaged in every way.
4 If the goal is to tell a story about the exchange between the two total opposite characters - the dying wise mentor's succession to the vulnerable one just starting their life - it is almost hard to tell it without picturing them as, well, opposites. And while ethnicity, age, gender or background do not necessarily have to be all different (few of the films have all the elements combined), the more the betterer! and you may end up with an accumulation of differences. Nothing can be more different than the old, grumpy, well settled white man and the young, vulnerable, foreign, optimistic, ethnic minority girl.
So, I don't think the way these stories are told is really a calculated effort to push an especific agenda. The characteristics of the characters are more of a necessary setting for the story to happen.
That is not to say that whether these stories are told is just as fortuitous, though. Maybe these scripts get a better chance of being produced in the first place, because these stories fit into a narrative of promoting said minorities and/or appealing to an audience who wants to see these groups more represented in films.
Fair enough.
This doesn't smell like a good starting point for a debate, though.
OP starts with the thesis that the men's "minimum deal" is worse than that of women's, illustrates with examples that are not part of the "minimum deal" package, presents some very controversial points (the "dating market advantage for women" being one of them. Typical redpill rhetoric), cherrypicks points that favor the view that men are disadvantaged (in his defense he makes some caveats, but thats all), overrepresents statistically unlikely outcomes, largely ignores the ways in which women are disadvantaged and does not acknowledge the role the men have in perpetuating these rules.
I would like to see where OP is going with this
VeevaHon
9mo ago
Do you think this tendency for mothers to maximize their time with childcare, while men don't, comes from mothers experiencing more satisfaction with childcare than with work?
Or could it be that mothers experience less satisfaction with employment (income included) than fathers do?
Or maybe a mix of both?
Because the way you put it, it is very easy to just attribute it to mothers having an innate taste for childcare that men don't have, maybe even a taste for childcare above anything else, and completely disregard other very important elements in that tendency - such as that the woman's income is lower than the man's, that her career opportunities have already been diminished anyway, that childcare is too expensive to outsource, that there is concern over whether another person would be sufficiently competent to take the task, that men often weaponise their incompetence in order to avoid childcare. Just to name a few.
Anyway, I don' t even know what the goal of this thread even is. I just don't like it when claims that childcare is a lesser type of work or that childcare is an easier work for women than for men are supported by examples like yours without due critical contextualization of the conditions that take women to take upon themselves the task of chidcare.
VeevaHon
9mo ago
I will not analyse the merit of the "who suffers more" discussion, at least for now. But I know this discussion hardly happens in a vacuum and I think some things should not be left unaddressed.
Is there a purpose in comparing the male and the female condition in terms of who gets the better "minimum deal"? Should any conclusions influence public policy, or individual behaviour? How?
Of course, there is nothing wrong with pure theoretical debate, but I am wary of how this one has been time and time again weaponised to influence culture and politics in less than fair ways.
I agree with you that the general opinions of "professional" bioethicists are very well up for questioning - I mentioned one particular instance of it but refrained from making any judgements about it, as it was not necessary for my exploration.
The way you illustrate this however doesn't seem very adequate as it derailed the debate, leading subsequent comments to the topic of death penalty.
I find that another interesting topic and would genuinely be interested in reading more and perhaps even participating if you create another thread.
Just wanted to give you a friendly advice for you to be more mindful about where to fit your takes, I think it would be more productive for both debates.
VeevaHon
10mo ago
Your comment is not sufficiently related to the topic I am trying to explore here.
If you would like to discuss views on abortion or death penalty, I recommend you start your own thread.
As I said in my post, a treatment has different purposes and effects in each case. Yes, very often the fact that children are expected to learn is a good reason to dispense a different treatment.
What I am saying is that the reasoning about purpose and effect of a treatment is sometimes simply overriden by an automatic assumption of difference of the subject.
Like autonomy and emotional comfort are unduly taken less into consideration in the treatment of children (in my view); and I don't believe that is a result of reasoning, but probably due to a fragmentation of the ethical standards applied to care.
I will give some examples that come to my mind when it comes to double standards in the care of children and of the intellectually disabled.
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it is more socially acceptable to say "If you don't stop crying I am going to walk away and leave you here forever" to a child. The same is more frowned upon if said to a disabled person.
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it is more socially acceptable to ignore a child's wishes to control the time when they eat, shower and go to bed, while for the disabled it is more often seen as a harmful disrespect to their autonomy.
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it is more socially acceptable to ground a child for misbehaviour than it is to do the same to a disabled person.
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It is (sometimes) more socially acceptable to allow an intellectually disabled person to engage in activities that are harmful to their health (smoking, opting out of a medical procedure) than it is for children.
I don't claim these things have the same purposes and effects in all cases, and no treatment is a one size fits all. So yes, very often the difference in treatment is reasonable and justified.
But I think people put the "ethical considerations for treating a child" and "ethical considerations for treating a disabled person" in two different boxes for no justified reason.
There are indeed cases of deception being applied to increase one's well being, as well as for causing discomfort in order to guide behaviour. Both for children and for the elderly.
What I would like to focus however are some things like for example:
-Use of fear to guide behaviour.
-Use of routines in favour of the caretaker's convenience, in detriment of the patients autonomy.
-Use of punishment for undesired behaviour
-Use of rewards as incentive for good behavour
-adequation of responsibilities according to the patient's ability
I think there are some double standards in the general view of how acceptable these things are in the care of children and people with intellectual disabilities. Of course, there is no consensus in each case, and it may even vary for different cultures. Also, the actual treatment is heavilly affected by the circumstances, and children more often enjoy the care of more goodwilling caretakers. But even in ideal situations, I think there is significant fragmentation between what what people believe are the best ethical standards for the treatment of children and for the treatment of the intellectually disabled
VeevaHon
10mo ago
It is true that children generally enjoy a level of goodwill and competence from their caretakers that other people with intellectual disabilities will hardly come across, and that there are differences in context that justify differences in treatment - most notably, that children will develop and have a long future ahead of them, while other people won't.
What I criticise is that there are many similarities between the different situations that do not seem to be widely acknowledged, and that people seem to have two separate sets of ethical rules for treting children or the intellectually disabled.
What I propose integrating more the discussion of ethical treatment of children and of the intellectually disabled as they are arguably of the same in nature, in order to improve both.
Maybe there could be benefits in introducing more elements of parenting to the treatment of the adult intellectually insufficient, and more elements of incentivized autonomy to the raising of children.
But as of right now I feel there is undue fragmentation in the ethical standards in the treatment of vulnerable people
Medical ethics is a field I am interested in, and I came across an old article in particular in the New York Times that drew my attention lately
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/magazine/nursing-home-pitfalls.html?ref=theethicist&_r=0
The article in question in The Ethicist column describes a method used to keep dementia patients from wandering to unsafe areas by placing a black doormat in the way. According to the writer, the patients tend to perceive the doormat as a “hole” and feel deterred from passing, and raises the question about whether it is ethical to use one’s disability and/or fear to guide behaviour. In the columnist’s opinion, this application is ethical.
It got me thinking about the treatment given to individuals affected by the most common form of intellectual disability, that is called childhood (I say that half jokingly. Just half).
The fact that the aforementioned question about dementia patients is raised, in a world where adults guiding the behaviour of children through their lack of judgement is just a fact of life, is curious to me. Is there a good reason why childhood and intellectual impairments should be considered fundamentally different, and that the dilemmas of one should be considered separately from the other?
That is not to claim that the purposes and effects of a given treatment are uniform in every context. Of course, there are different degrees and forms of intellectual disabilities, each requiring different types of treatment. But it seems to me that it is relevant to question whether these differences in context justify the difference in treatment.
Right now I tend to think that disproportionately more regard is given to the autonomy of adults with an intellectual disability than to that of children
Will skip most of the points here since we already have great comments and I don't have a lot more to add, but I feel a very important a very important aspect of it is often brushed off without much thought.
I don't know about you, but to me that alone sounds like an end in itself. I am not aware of any comprehensive study that dissects the impact of targeted ads on - at individual level - opinions, behavior, finances and mental health; and, by extention, at a societal level - social development, culture, economy and public health.
This ought to be better understood (recommendations for reading are welcome!), but given gargantuan size of targeted publicity businesses (including Big Tech names) it seems like the impact of targeted advertisement can hardly be overstated. And I do not - and neither should you - trust that private corporations should hold that power.
Of course, privacy hacks can only do so much in terms of protecting you from big baddie tech, whatever that means, and people who do that are already very likely savvy enough to block ads anyway. But as a policy, I think GDPR and other initiatives are a great step forward, although not so effective yet.
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