Yet by your logic the fact they're incapable of giving consent means that cannot be any part of the story about why it is wrong. — Bartricks

Correct. If we're going to claim that children are not normally capable of granting or withholding consent to x, then we can't claim that x was done to them nonconsensually (or consensually). Saying that it was consensual/nonconsensual would be a category error if we're saying that they're not normally capable of granting or withholding consent to x. (I'm stating it with a variable because it would go for anything we're talking about.)

That's question begging — Bartricks

If it's question-begging in your view we have much bigger problems. So you're thinking that we might exist somehow prior to conception? Or are you thinking that nonexistent things might somehow be normally capable of granting or withholding consent?

So first, let's clarify that "Are the boundaries (borders) of objects real" and "What is it about the boundaries of objects that is real" are ontological questions.

"How do you know that is the case" is an epistemological question. And "What would it mean" is a question of semiotics or semantics.

Ontological questions don't require epistemology, because, for example, ontology can simply present a possibility, and that possibility can be chosen while discarding other possibilities for a number of reasons including coherence, pragmatism, and so on, where we don't have to be making a knowledge claim to not only present but to also choose an ontological stance. So making sense of an ontological stance, understanding the ontological stance, and choosing an ontological stance do not require epistemology.

When we start addressing the epistemological question as well as the semiotics question, we're doing something different than we were doing in addressing the ontological question.

We can move on to the epistemological question, but before we do, I want to clarify that the ontological stance was understood as a possibility. (And this includes the stance I presented as not my own, but a possible stance where one asserts there are no clear boundaries, yet there's a particular.)

ake procreation acts themselves - would it notake be better if they could be consented to? — Bartricks

No, because consent isn't an issue with procreation. Consent is only an issue when we're talking about things that are normally capable of granting or withholding consent.

Otherwise it's like talking about whether a rock consents to something you do to it.

What is it about the boundaries of objects that is real according to you? I mean you say that what is real about the boundaries of objects is not at all conceptual, which I take you to mean is not mental. — Janus

So for example, material particles have spatial extension, but the spatial extension isn't infinite. The limits of that spatial extension is a boundary.

The same is true of particles in bonds with other particles. There's a spatial extension that isn't infinite.

And the same is true of particles in dynamic motions relative to other particles--for example, where those dynamic motions are dictated primarily by electromagnetic forces. The motions aren't just random and infinite in terms of spatial extension. They only spatially extend over a particular area. The limit of that is the boundary.

Granting that a boundary is not something we merely think, it must be something we see or feel. — Janus

That's talking about perceiving boundaries, which is different than the boundaries themselves. The boundary of a particle is in no way dependent on us perceiving it.

What are your principles for deciding what amount of control is sufficient for ethical or legal considerations? — Echarmion

It has to be force in the sense of physical causality. Nothing less.

It's simply an intuitive stipulation based on my dispositions.

With anything less than force a la physical causality, the person could have decided to do something different.

I use "force" in the sense of physical causality. "Force" in your example is not actual force.

Re your example, I'd have a category of criminal threatening though. (I know I posted my definition of that recently, it may have been earlier in this thread.)

Since you're non-responsive on the point, may I take it that you agree that, while speech alone by itself cannot lift a stone, that that same speech may be deployed to persuade - and persuade - a human agent to lift the stone, and be intended to accomplish that exact result?

Or a different example: either of a policeman or an armed robber tells you to raise your hands; aren't you inclined, as a result of that speech act, to raise your hands? — tim wood

You certainly base decisions to do things on speech, sure.

What matters to me when we're talking about ethics, proposing legislation, etc., is the fact that you decided to do something and were not forced to do it.

Even philosophers that I'm a fan of are folks with whom I disagree at least 50% of the time.

Whatever the term is that's the starkest contrast to "fan" is how I feel about Heidegger.

It's not easy to find a picture of what I'm looking for (though it's easy to find in person), so for the pic below, you have to imagine the sign isn't in the frame.



What would you say is the physical border there?

If evolution is true then why aren't new life-forms popping into existence? — TheMadFool

https://www.sciencealert.com/darwin-s-finches-evolve-into-new-species-in-real-time-two-generations-galapagos

If you rather mean in the sense of abiogenesis, it wouldn't be easy to know that it's not regularly the case. It would be very simple, single-celled organisms, since that's how things get rolling. So in order to know that it's not regularly happening, you'd need to take samples of single-celled organisms and figure out a way to test their DNA/RNA that would rule out the possibility that they independently arose . . . but I'm not sure how we'd do that, because we have no way of knowing that it's necessarily the case that independently-arising DNA can't appear to be "familially" the same in different instances. (In order to really know that, we'd need many instances of independently arising single-celled organisms, where the fact that they arose independently is confirmed via some other means, where the evidence bears out that none of them appear connected to each other per their DNA/RNA)

It was claimed that it cannot be wrong to impose life here on someone without their prior consent due to the impossibility of getting it. — Bartricks

Right. But the point is actually that it cannot be wrong because it can't even be done. You can't impose life on someone without their consent. The very idea of that is a category error.

If you want to say that conception is morally problematic, the argument needs to be something other than "because it's doing something to someone against their consent."

The OP made things disappear simply on the basis of disagreeing. This isn't possible I believe. If we disagreed on matters of taste, which I presume is subjective, that would be different. Borders I hope are objective and disagreeing on it wouldn't make it magically vanish. — TheMadFool

Are you using "objective" to denote agreement basically?

We should also clarify that you weren't saying that politicians can't invent laws period, but that there are particular laws they'd have a problem either getting approved, recognized or at least that they'd maybe not bother to enforce.

Even if that were the case, it wouldn't be a matter of not being allowed to make a law.

You could argue that it's not being allowed to enforce a law that was made.

That's not very specific, unfortunately, and it looks like it's saying that politicians are creating laws that politicians aren't caring about, which isn't the same as them not being allowed to make laws.

So I take it there are no examples of this?

So, contrary to what you've claimed it IS wrong, other things being equal, to impose something significant on someone else without their prior consent (and especially wrong when it involves risks of significant harms). — Bartricks

It's impossible to conceive a child without their consent, because there's nothing that's (normally) able to grant or withhold consent prior to conception.

That doesn't make it okay to conceive a child against its consent.

It makes it literally impossible to conceive a child against its consent.

So you're basically talking about practical nullification? What would be an example of this--a law is put on the books, but not only the citizenry, but the law enforcement arms of the government in question ignore the law so that it's the same as if it didn't exist?

?? So what does "allowing" amount to here?

Politicians are obviously physically able to create new laws. They do this all the time.

Nothing happens to them in response to creating new laws that would amount to, say, "If you do x, you'll be arrested/imprisoned/etc."

So what does "allowing" amount to?

Islamic law does not allow for liberally inventing new extensions. Read the page on Sharia. The consensus of religious scholars will never defend the view that politicians would have the authority to extend Islamic law. That is unthinkable. — alcontali

That's the sort of "allowing" that doesn't amount to much, because what isn't "allowed" can be done, and with no repercussions.

So we'd need to clarify what "allowing" amounts to there.

What to think of people who believe that politicians are allowed to invent and enforce any new law to their liking? — alcontali

You don't believe that politicians are allowed to invent laws?

If hate speech is accepted using freedom of speech, then you've licensed the groundwork(the means) for war and bloodshed.

Pick an enemy. — creativesoul

The enemy I've picked is the idea that speech causes actions.

An inability to determine the truth of a proposition x doesn't imply that x doesn't have a truth value. We just don't know the truth value. The border exists but we just don't know where it is. — TheMadFool

How would you suppose the geopolitical border exists where we just don't know where it is? What, exactly, do you think the geopolitical border is?

If only we could make war, racism, and everything bad disappear by disagreeing. — TheMadFool

Racism is a way of thinking about people. So if racist folks thought differently, racism would disappear.

Likewise, war only obtains via people deciding to engage in particular actions. If people made different decisions, war would cease.

In a similar matter (no pun intended), there have been a few recent threads on this topic and wanted to get your thoughts on it too.
Can something exist by itself without observation? — 3017amen

Yes definitely. I'm a realist in that sense.

For example I'm sure you know there have been some metaphysical theories that posit math having always existed... . — 3017amen

I'm between a subjectivist and social constructivist on mathematics. I would say that what we're thinking about, what we're socially constructing is an abstract, systematic language with some foundational basis in real relations, but those relations that serve as our launching pad aren't the same thing as mathematics.

Is anything? — Wayfarer

Of course. Most things are real in that sense.

If you say there are no real, as opposed to merely conceptual, boundaries to objects, then it would seem there are no real particulars either, — Janus

Re that, by the way, if someone thought that there was no clear/discernible real border for "objects"--for example, maybe they think that everything is really a more or less lumpy continuum (and somehow they thought that there was no intelligible way to parse "borders" for the lumps), they could simply say that there's one real particular--the more or less lumpy continuum.

That's not my view, by the way. It's just a possible view.

Are the boundaries (borders) of objects real, according to you? — Janus

Yes, real, but (a) they can be more or less fuzzy depending on the point of reference, and (b) there's nothing about them in terms of concepts that's real(/objective).

I guarantee that that's not the case. You're arguing against what you hold to be unacceptable thought, belief, and statements all the time here. — creativesoul

I'm never arguing that it's morally problematic to have any thought/belief or to make any statement. Surely you're not using "unacceptable" in this context to refer to whether we personally accept something a la believing it or considering it to be true ourselves, are you?I

I argue against claims that I think are false here all the time. I don't feel that it's morally problematic to have a belief or to express a belief that I'd say is false (or even just not a good idea in the case of something noncognitive).

Sorry I just saw your reply / contribution and I thank you for that!

Are you referring to more of an epistemic or ontological aspect of observing things? — 3017amen

Ontological, and as I stress in the text, I'm not referring to a sentient observer (so necessarily it's a type of realism). The idea is simply that there's always some reference point for properties. Properties can't be some way from "no reference point," since there is no such thing as a "locationless location."

When I was a kid, a friend and I read Aleister Crowley's The Book of Lies and we were fascinated by it, because it was so subversive and weird and inscrutable to us. We spent a lot of energy trying to emulate its style. I often get the impression of people doing the same sort of thing with respect to Heidegger, Derrida, etc.

Right. Otherwise one would have to say that logic was primary to god and god has to obey it.

I agree with the initial post in the thread, but I also think StreetlightX's crack about the title you chose is spot-on.

The usual defense is that some ideas require difficult, dense expression. But I think it's rare that the sort of writing we're talking about couldn't be communicated just as well in a much clearer, simpler way . . . even if it would still have to be relatively challenging.

Exactly.

For awhile--back in the later 90s, early 2000s, I used to regularly ask, "Don't we teach 'sticks and stones' any longer?"

Apparently, we actually did stop teaching it.

It also seems to be wrapped up with the "participation award" culture. There are no more losers/failures. Everyone gets a trophy. Everyone moves on/graduates.

Actually, I think that one important thing that precipitated the social persecution/"you're going to more or less be assumed guilty" movement was the OJ Simpson acquittal in his murder trial.

Somehow we arrived at it being fairly popular beliefs that:

(a) any offense taken by someone in response to speech indicates something that needs to be corrected on offender's side, and this is believed strongly enough that the mere suggestion that the offendee rather needs to work on themselves to not be offended is itself seen as offensive, unreasonable/outrageous,

and

(b) it's obligatory to give others respect; respect no longer needs to be earned.

And both of these beliefs are strong enough that people literally want them to be legislated. Even social/peer-pressure enforcement isn't strong enough, though folks will do that, too (and that's part of what has seemed to be a movement of social persecution being preferred to deferring to the legal system, where the popular stance now seems to be "you're going to more or less be assumed to be guilty as long as someone is making accusations, unless you can make a pretty good case as to your innocence, but we'll still be leery of your motivations in trying to establish your innocence")

I don't know how any of that happened, but sadly, it did.

That's implicit in saying that this or that interpretation is right or wrong. — S

Again, people use right/wrong, correct/incorrect with a normative implication. Examples of that abound, and it's inherent in anyone correcting anyone who uses language unusually. We see it with grammar police all the time, for example.

But mere descriptive statements of how language is used among some population have no normative weight at all.

In another sleight of hand, some have applied the harm principle to speech, and based on this have evoked the paradox of tolerance in order to defend censorship. — NOS4A2

That's yet another problem with some of the papers being referenced. Hate speech is contributing to hate crimes in many cases simply because hate speech is considered a hate crime, with the idea that the speech is a harm in itself.

No, exceptions include explaining how language works. — S

Only insofar as making statements about how most people (in some population) use language.

It's irrelevant when it commits the fallacy of appealing to the masses and not otherwise. The exceptions have been explained to you. — S

The only exception is when we're talking about what the crowd thinks/believes per se.

So what the crowd thinks about hate speech is obviously relevant to what the crowd thinks about hate speech.

That has no implication for anything else, though. For example, "The crowd thinks that hate speech should be banned," has no implication a la "Hate speech should be banned."