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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   30559 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 14, 2025

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I wasn't debating whether it was rationally justified. It's simply a fact of human nature that most men feel an instinctive urge to protect female people from physical harm (an urge they do not feel when it comes to male people, or at least not nearly to the same extent), and that this urge does not discriminate on whether the woman in question is capable of bearing children or not. Indeed, I suspect the average man would think it was a far graver crime to assault an elderly (i.e. menopausal) woman than a woman in her early twenties. So your claim that women are only valued for a "doing" (i.e. the ability to bear children) doesn't really seem to describe male psychology accurately.

I think people are whitewashing their political opinions by calling them ‘facts of human nature’. You say most men feel an instinctive urge to protect female people from physical harm, but in numerous cultures it was normal to beat women. In honor cultures, even related men can kill them for a smile. Obviously rape was widespread, etc. This isn’t the feminist litany of oppression, men suffered terribly too. I just don’t think you can look at all that and see the instinctive urge to protect women. And I personally don’t feel the discriminatory urge to save a random woman over a random man.

Indeed, I suspect the average man would think it was a far graver crime to assault an elderly (i.e. menopausal) woman than a woman in her early twenties.

That's because they are less of a threat, like a child, or a cripple. Doesn't have anything to do with the inherent biological value of women.

I think people are whitewashing their political opinions by calling them ‘facts of human nature’.

Is/ought distinction. I never said it's a good thing that most men feel an instinctive protective urge towards female people (regardless of their capacity for bearing children), I only said that they do, in fact, feel this.

We disagree on the is anyway. The is/ought distinction is not real. That's why we disagree on the ought.

The is/ought distinction is not real.

What? You don't see any distinction between "this is the way things are" and "this is the way things would ideally be"? This ten-year-old child died in a house fire through no fault of his own And That's a Good Thing?

This ten-year-old child died in a house fire through no fault of his own And That's a Good Thing?

No one says this, that's my point. “this ten year old died in a fire, and that’s obviously a bad thing that ought not to be”. There, derived the ought from the is, like everyone always does.

It is a conceit of philosophers than an ought cannot be derived from an is. The is is the motte, the ought is the bailey. “I just described capitalism, I never said it ought to be destroyed. I never said men ought to sacrifice their daughters for their sons.(edit : I meant sons for their daughters)” I think if you honestly ask yourself, you think they ought.

“this ten year old died in a fire, and that’s obviously a bad thing that ought not to be”

Yes. The is is the thing that happened. The ought is what we would have preferred to happen instead.

You've freely admitted that the "is" and the "ought" are different things. That's exactly what I'm referring to when I'm talking about the "is/ought distinction". I truly don't understand what you're not getting about this.

There, derived the ought from the is, like everyone always does.

You didn't derive the "ought" from the "is". You stated the "is", then expressed an opinion about the "ought" by assessing the moral character of the "is" based on your existing moral values. Without a moral framework with which to assess the "is" you can never arrive at an "ought".

It is a conceit of philosophers than an ought cannot be derived from an is.

No, it is an accurate belief of philosophers that "is" and "ought" are separate magisteria, and the former has no bearing on the latter. Accurately stating that a ten-year-old died in a house fire does not in any way imply that you think it's a good thing that the ten-year-old died in the house fire.

I think if you honestly ask yourself, you think they ought.

So you are allowed to think the "ought" can be different from the "is" - but no one else is? You're allowed to say "ten-year-olds dying in house fires is bad", but if I describe reality as it actually is, you immediately conclude that that's how they think it should be?

I think humanity has wasted enough time on hume’s clever mind games that were never real.

You didn’t clarify the ought situation about daughters versus sons. You ought to, what? Do nothing? Save the son, perhaps? Are you taking the fifth because you can't derive?

I have zero interest in debating the "ought". It's not germane to the point I was making. If that's all you want to talk about, fine, but I'm not interested.

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That's because they are less of a threat, like a child, or a cripple.

You can always add more epicycles. At least in my experience, a man striking an elderly woman is widely seen as a more heinous crime than a man striking a wheelchair-bound man.

You make universal claims about male psychology I can refute with a single example, me.

You’re saying if a man sees a boy and girl drowning (perhaps his children, perhaps not), he always saves the girl?

Not universal, but widespread. I do acknowledge there are exceptions. I don't think my psychology is representative of masculinity as a whole, and I don't think you should draw the same inferences from your psychology either.

You’re saying if a man sees a boy and girl drowning (perhaps his children, perhaps not), he always saves the girl?

I think the average man would be far more likely to save the girl than the boy, yes.

I'm more of a case by case guy, but I think that's true on average, in the modern west. But that's culturally dependent. It's more typical in history for parents to let the daughter drown, because a dowry will have to be found for her, while a son will stay in the house and have the obligation to provide for his parents in old age.

You're basically saying it's a fact of nature that parents prefer to send their daughers to college rather than their sons. Now, they do. For most of history, they really didn't.

You're basically saying

A telltale sign that someone's putting words in your mouth. Where did I say anything about the relationship between parents and their children, or parents' desired level of educational attainment for their children sorted by sex? I was talking specifically about the male urge to protect female people from physical harm. There isn't even any contradiction between an intense desire to protect women from harm and a chauvinistic attitude towards female educational attainment.

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