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Come on. There's a difference between "I am suggesting that people do this to learn life skills" and "I am suggesting that people do this to justify my claims". Ethics classes are recommended in the former context. Your "recommendation" that Pasha study things himself was in the latter context. You should just explain it, since you are the one making the claim, not demand he study it himself.
People are supposed to back up what they say here. "I want you to do it on your own" is a filibuster, not an honest argument.
You have confused the former for the later. I may not have written well enough and so be partly to blame for your misconception, but unless you have developed internet mind reading skills that allow you to identify motives that I am unaware of, I am confident I know my motives, and my separate claims, better than you.
My claim is that Pasha should learn life skill do this because it can be interesting, and with later elaboration, useful. This could fairly be characterized as "I am suggesting that people do this to learn life skills (that can be interesting and are useful)."
My suggestion of how Pasha should go about it, with the reasoning as to why elaborated after the post, is a claim of a way to avoid (and thus respect) his distrust of the institutional actors who normally teach the subject matter. This could be fairly characterized as "I am suggesting a specific way to learn life skill (that differs from a ways that you have indicated contempt for).
I am not claiming Pasha should do the [this] that was the subject of what I quoted when replying to him-
My claim is not that Pasha should do [this] to learn life skills anyway. Nor am I making a claim that he should keep trying until he finds one by a non-dimwit professor. Or that the busywork he was assigned in the past was secretly meaningful and he just missed the point.
My claim is that self-driven study of certain sub-fields (professional ethics) is a way to get better value (interest and useful insights) in a way that isn't a disliked medium (ethics class) taught by distrusted instructors (dimwit professors) and or with make-work (busywork). The 'assignment' proposed- noting different lines of emphasis, and how some professions deal with the blanket moral prohibitions espoused by others- does not require any writing or feedback to anyone else. It exists not to provide something to do for a grade, but provide relevant insights for how different professional cultures interact.
One, if you do not consider 'this subject matter can be interesting and professional useful, and this learning way avoids your concerns' an explanation for why to self-study study material, I would suggest you are too used to the motte's tendency for essay-length responses.
Two, it is not a demand. It is a suggestion, hence 'if you get a chance,' which allows him full discretion to refuse on any grounds he wants. The emphasis on his discretion may not have been clear enough due to the words used and the filtering effect of internet, but even then demands have an 'or else [consequence]' attached to the back end. The only [consequence] for not partaking is that he might lose the benefits of [interesting and useful insights] of partaking.
No, it is not. On two fronts.
One, a short argument is not a filibuster.
The argument provided may have been too short of an argument. The argument may have been unclear, and used poor choices of word to seem more of a demand than it was. But recommendations with short supporting arguments and no time commitment are about as far from a filibuster argument as one can get.
Two, 'I want you to do it on your own' is an honest argument if it I honestly think he would enjoy and benefit more from doing it on his own and I want him to have that benefit.
Pasha seems highly skeptical of the university format- a format generally meant to guide students rather than have them do it on their own. Moreover, he has built this from personal experience. One can sincerely believe he would both enjoy the material more and be in a mindset to learn specific lessons if he engaged it on his own volition, in a more targeted nature, on their own spare time, rather than be compelled to (i.e. from a demand from dim-wit professors) in a time-constrained environment (university with competing classes).
Your argument is "to find out why it's useful, go do it yourself". That is neither short, nor has no time commitment. The sentence may be short, but reading the sentence is not enough to see the whole argument; the rest of your argument is hidden behind the time commitment.
Again, that's the difference between "do it to gain a benefit" and "do it to see the explanation". You are proposing that he go through an entire field of study in order to see the justification for your claim. This is unreasonable. If you make a claim, justify it. It doesn't matter how much he'd benefit from it, you should be willing to back up what you are saying.
It's also bizarre to suddenly give life advice in the middle of an argument with someone over the Internet. Clearly you told him to do that as part of the argument, not because you have a habit of giving random advice to strangers.
Direct question before anything else- are you confusing different posters and posts?
Are you confusing this sub-thread response to Pasha's perception of ethics courses to Pasha's top-level comment about cheating, where my only direct response was a non-sequitur that noted from the start I was merely going off of the same article that I'd been intended an effort-post on? This is a completely different thread-chain. That thread had no argument with Pasha, and Pasha did not even respond to my post on that. He did have a later reply over what 'modern' means in na different context that I did not respond to (because I felt it was fair and valid).
Or are you perhaps confusing the Dean quoted by Pasha here to be referring to me, the user who goes by Dean, and not the Dean of the AvocadoPanic's post that he was replying to, an academic title? I.E., the Dean of a school?
Like, I would be charmed if after all these years someone publicly guessed why I've had this username for nearly a decade. And if this is a general misunderstanding due to the nature of different subthreads, that would clarify a lot.
But if you are not confused about what response chain you are in, there are three problems with your claim of clarity.
First, I have not had an exchange with Pasha on the subject of ethics classes. I have not opined on the merits or demerits of Pasha's position on ethic classes. Pasha has not responded to my post on alternatives to ethic classes. The only exchanges on my recommendation have been with not-Pasha one, and not-Pasha two (that's you).
Second, there is no dispute/argument between Pasha's position that I quoted, and my response to it. I agree with Pasha's claim that he has "never been exposed to an ethics class that wasn’t total non-sense taught by dimwit professors." I certainly have no reason to doubt his account or perception.
Third, 'giving random advice to strangers' is what a substantial proportion of my posts on The Motte are. I am, if anything, notorious for unsolicited, loquacious, and sometimes unwanted advice on random subjects of debatable utility to the individual.
These are, admittedly, often advice on how to understand current events, history, or governmental affairs. But I have also been known to offer advice on things to listen to during workouts or car drives, family-friendly media recommendations, limits on the use of historical metaphors, and even writing advice that I don't follow enough myself.
Trying to cut down on loquaciousness is what ironically has led to this exchange. Giving examples of how studying ethics could be useful could itself be perceived as patronizing/implying that Pasha did not understand that utility argument.
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