I don't understand where you're getting with this. — baker
Not at all. See below.I was countering your view that "most of the conversations at forums like this are about people, ie. the people directly involved and the way some particular idea is relevant or irrelevant to them." Were that the case disagreement over the status of X would be irrelevant since one would have no reason to think its relevance to oneself might need to be corroborated by relevance to another. — Isaac
Sometimes, this is the case and people are in fact acting in such conceit.People do not simply passionately declare that X us relevant to them. They passionately declare that X seems to them to be the case in such a way as to imply that such a property renders X necessary, in some way.
This is the conceit we adopt when we imagine the 'polite debate', respecting the views of either side.
It's when people don't know yet how to properly formulate a syllogism, when they don't know much about informal fallacies, and so on. So they express their thoughts and their concerns in a pre-philosophical way. Hence all the "it seems to me" mixed with all those expressions of certainty.
A person could rightfully be accused of the conceit you mention if they also demonstrate that they are able to think and write philosophically, but that in some instances, they characteristically refuse to. — baker
So where seems to be the problem? — baker
So if someone were to come on and politely, patiently explain why Jews were the inferior race and need to be exterminated for the benefit of the master race, and I told them to "fuck off", I'd be the one in the wrong there? We should, rather, have a long in-depth and polite conversation exploring our difference of opinion about the extermination of an entire race.
Should I interfere at the building of the gas chambers? Or is it too soon whilst the debate is still to be settled? — Isaac
The constitutional clause of freedom speech drives a wedge between words and actions, as if the two would be in different categories.Another way of putting it might be that ideas are either meaningless or they affect the world. If the former, then what's the point in resolving disagreement? If the latter then it's no less morally relevant to hold an idea that it is to act.
We dismiss, ostracise, even fight with people whose behaviour is in opposition to our moral codes. Why do ideas get treated differently? — Isaac
Probably because the general consensus is that thinking or speaking about killing someone is not so bad as actually killing someone, for example.Why do ideas get treated differently?
Hold on. I've yet to see this! People who discuss models of the mind and use terms like "computational" and "connectionist" actually use phrases like "worst thing I've ever seen" and who knows what name calling??He believes that the mind is computational. She believes that mind is connectionist. He comes in the debate dripping with hatred for her position, calling her argument the "worst thing I've ever seen".. intersperse with ACTUAL content.. more ad personum attacks.. the End. — schopenhauer1
Hold on. I've yet to see this! People who discuss models of the mind and use terms like "computational" and "connectionist" actually use phrases like "worst thing I've ever seen" and who knows what name calling??
I thought that at that level, even the ad homs would be more classy ... — baker
It's more like — schopenhauer1
I'm just trying to give a type of an example. — schopenhauer1
fallacy of Appeal to Extremes — schopenhauer1
then? — Isaac
It is that balance over which most such disagreements are fought. — Isaac
The distinction you're making between "common sense" and "ideologies" sounds like a distinction between "facts" and "beliefs". — Pfhorrest
But are others here for those same purposes? — baker
Do you believe there are people here who come here to be taught by you? — baker
It's about what's actually being done to cheat the principles that basically everyone agrees upon, or at least pays lip service to; that's what most needs to be addressed. — Janus
Consider a group of people who believe that all Jews are conspiring together to commit white genocide and that it would therefore not be murder but righteous self-defense to gas them all to death. — Pfhorrest
And what solid evidence do they have for their belief in your thought experiment. None, I'll warrant, and for me that's the very essence of ideology; strong, even fanatical, beliefs without any actual evidence to support them. — Janus
People who want to uphold the constitutional clause of freedom speech have to, if they want to be internally consistent, maintain that words and actions are two different categories. — baker
Some free speech absolutists, for example, believe that words (ideas) can be neither moral or immoral or have anything to do with morality. It's the old sticks and stones. — baker
Probably because the general consensus is that thinking or speaking about killing someone is not so bad as actually killing someone, for example. — baker
Somehow, for some people, this "not so bad" faded into oblivion, or the above clause got truncated to "thinking or speaking about killing someone is not so bad", and further to "thinking or speaking about killing someone is not bad". — baker
this stuff happens on any debate in these forums — schopenhauer1
Isaac's contention is that we ONLY do this sort of "dripping with condescension and enmity" schtick when the debate is something as extreme as call to violence and bigotry. — schopenhauer1
It's not only vocabulary that determines level of insult — Baden
It is that balance over which most such disagreements are fought. — Isaac
Such fights are legal matters and can only be settled in the context of the current law. — Janus
individual autonomy and freedom to do whatever does not impinge on the freedom of others — Janus
...is one with which I doubt anyone would disagree, ideologues included, but surely you can see it intrinsically sets up a balance (how much must my actions impinge on the freedom of others in order to outweigh my autonomy?). It is that balance over which most such disagreements are fought. — Isaac
...and you're saying there's no moral element to that at all, it's just a matter of whatever the law of the country happens to be? — Isaac
Do you think those we disagree with realize that their evidence is bad?
Do you deny all possibility that despite your best efforts, at least some of your evidence could be bad? — Pfhorrest
Yes, there's no moral element involved in determining whether some moral principle is being transgressed by some practice.If we are asking the question we've already acknowledged the importance of the moral principle about which we are inquiring whether it has been infringed upon.
The enquiry is an empirical one. If an infringement is discovered then that is something to be addressed by the law. — Janus
Do you think they realize they’re not thinking critically? — Pfhorrest
The moral principle of personal autonomy is in conflict with the moral principle of care for the autonomy of others. — Isaac
To what extent? How much is it reasonable to expect others to tolerate by way of restriction to their freedoms such that I might experience freedoms myself? — Isaac
I think most people of reasonable disposition have a good sense of what constitutes encroaching upon other's freedoms. — Janus
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