This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
What you are saying is basically that first you write down the bottom line dictated by your gut feeling, "Therefore killing babies is always wrong.", then try to fill out the empty space above that to fill your page.
If you build a theory and something like this pops out naturally, then your choices are either to admit to that fact or muddy the waters to hide the issue.
Non-speciesist, Non-infanticide, Non-vegan: pick any two. Apart from its species, a pig is cognitively closer to a person than a baby is. If killing the baby is inherently wrong, then so is killing the pig. You could try to salvage this by looking at the future potential, but then you will have to be strictly anti-abortion because a fertilized human egg has basically the same potential to become a person as a baby has.
There is certainly something to be said about being careful with implementing newly found insights of your moral theory, and you will notice that Singer is not actually campaigning for infanticide. In the real world, babies bring tremendous utility to their caretakers, thus killing them would be wrong.
Read his argument in Practical Ethics. His first step is to taboo the word human, replacing it with "member of homo sapiens" and "person", just like EY taboos the word "sound" in the Sequences.
I think the bankruptcy is of intellectual sort. Newborn babies have many complaints and they make them loud, and while they are not very eloquent and detailed in their requests, all of them indicate willingness to continue living (and to have the uncomfortable things to go away).
More options
Context Copy link
And Utilitarian calculations are different? "Building a theory", in the context of philosophy, is not a rigorously deterministic process. Utilitarian philosophy in particular seems to optimize for the appearance of a rigor that does not seem to me to be possible even in principle, which means that people should be even more skeptical of it than other varieties.
More options
Context Copy link
Non-infanticide and non-vegan. I am absolutely speciesist.
Already have been for some time.
Correct and fair. Still, at best he is an edge lord dressed up in fancy degrees and tweed patches, then. Whatever you can call this, (maybe "experimental philosophy"?) is, in my opinion, just less readable sci-fi. "Wouldn't it be wacky if...." Sure, whatever, have fun. But trying to dress it up as Very-Serious-Smart-People work is insincere and will lead the earnestly interested astray.
I can't bring myself to pen a response to this beyond "oh, for fuck's sake." But that's directed at Singer, not @quiet_NaN.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link