site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   4103 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 5, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The master of trolling is at it again. Hanania:

Let's say Jeffrey Epstein wants to have sex with a 14 year-old girl, and will pay her $10 million. The money will go into a mutual fund that will pay out when she's 21. The girl agrees, as do both of her parents. Should this be allowed? And are you male or female?

As of this writing, the results are:

  • "Yes, male" - 5.9%
  • "No, male" - 78.1%
  • "Yes, female" - 1.3%
  • "No, female" - 14.7%

Look at the engagement metrics on this tweet: 94,000 votes, 3.4 million views, 4,700 comments, 273 likes. This might be the most "popular" Hanania tweet of all time.

Now, I am one of the apparent sickos who voted "yes", but I can see some decent arguments for "no". I'm still surprised the results are this lopsided, and I'm also surprised that there appears to be no gender gap.

The whole thing just boils down to deontologists, consequentialists, and virtue ethicists failing to recognize that this is how other people think about morality, coupled with a layer of modern weirdness about just how destructive teenagers having sex is. The basic perspectives for those three branches are going to be:

  • Deontology - Prostituting teenagers is awful, we have a duty to reject it and try to prevent it. The price doesn't matter, teenage prostitution is unacceptable.

  • Consequentialist - Prostituting teenagers may harm them but receiving $10 million in the future helps someone a lot. This could be a significant improvement in total wellbeing and that's what to consider.

  • Virtue ethicist - Do you really want to be the kind of guy that enables Jeffrey Epstein prostituting teenagers? The price doesn't matter, I'm not that guy.

The deontologist and virtue ethicist positions don't make sense to me. It just seems like they don't accept the existence of trade-offs. Do their virtues and ethical rules not say that the things $10 million can buy matter? You can do a lot of good and be extremely virtuous with $10 million. This just makes me suspect those ethical frameworks are fundamentally illogical.

You can consider deontology and virtue ethics shortcuts to considering second and third-order effects. Making child prostitution legal for the right price is likely to make it much more socially acceptable and less illegal in general. Keeping child prostitution illegal amd socially unacceptable is worth more than $10m.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats