Free speech is not some objective moral value. You value it because of what you perceive to be the positive consquences. The negatives have not been demonstrated to your satisfaction, but neither have you demonstrated the positive consequences to my (and perhaps others') satisfaction. — Relativist

To no one's satisfaction, with a possible exception of just one, meaning the Trump supporter who keeps contradicting himself and has been accused of trolling.

That same “stupid philosophical ideal” should prevent one from curtailing another’s freedom. I would be worried when people need laws to teach them right from wrong. — NOS4A2

We need laws as an authoritative reference point to enforce order and to protect citizens. Only a fool would have such faith in people as to actually believe that just knowing right from wrong would be sufficient.

As I've been explaining over and over in this thread, I don't accept that we can at all demonstrate that there are negative consequences (especially of the sort that I'd legislate against, as I've been describing just today, in posts just above) — Terrapin Station

Not being able to walk down a street because someone is throwing rocks off of a building is not a negative consequence in his world. Utter madness.

Ah. So you disagree with all laws aimed at protecting people from harm. You would allow people to throw rocks at passers by, shoot guns at them presumably? Only if they actually hit has anything happened worth legislating against? — Isaac

Terrapin's bizarre and extreme views on such matters would make for the stuff of dystopian fiction.

When I'm talking about causes and influences and their difference, I'm not forwarding an argument. — Terrapin Station

So I'm right to dismiss your point about removing free will because it wasn't part of any argument you're forwarding?

You obviously got confused somewhere along the line, lost focus, and somehow reverted back to a previous example I brought up. But whatever. Influences are prior causes. They are a cause prior to an effect. In the Elliot Rodger example, that would be a teenage boy reading about Elliot Rodger's expressed views, and about his crime, and so on, and that having an influence on his thinking and behaviour, resulting eventually in the boy taking a leaf out of his book and committing a similar crime of his own.

Now, setting your confused distractions and nitpicking aside, what's your response to that? To block out reason, disregard cause and effect, and play on words like "decision" and "choice" as though these are somehow magically independent of cause and effect, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary?

But that's what led to the influence comments. There was no other example between that and the influence comments. — Terrapin Station

You must have lost track of the conversation:

Influences are not causes in any respect.
— Terrapin Station

Of course they are. They're just prior causes. I already gave you an example, which you ignored. The writings of Marx influenced my thinking, which in turn was a causal factor in my act of purchasing books on Marx. Without that cause in the chain, I wouldn't have purchased books on Marx. That's fundamental to the explanation. — S

Someone call the brain surgeon!

That is an example taken from your life? — Terrapin Station

Oh my god. Yes, that's exactly what I was referring to. :up:

:roll:

In the example you provided, why couldn't the influence be immediately prior to the act? — Terrapin Station

Because it wasn't. I should know, it was an example taken from my life. That simply wasn't how the events unfolded, and I don't possess a time machine to go back and alter the past. I first acquired an interest in his writings, which was the influence I referred to, and it wasn't until much later that I actually purchased those books.

But an influence can occur immediately prior to what it's influencing. So why would you classify influences as "causes prior to other causes"? That's why I wouldn't read it that way. It's stupid. — Terrapin Station

I classified them that way because that's what they are, and your point about immediacy only makes sense if you ignore the context of what we were talking about and insert your own in order to make this silly point of yours where it looks like you're trying to prove me wrong about something I never meant or intended, even though in reality you're just appearing oblivious and looking to score a point.

In the example I gave, the influence is a prior cause. It is a cause prior to my act, which is itself a cause. Do you understand that? Can you stop wasting time now? Or should I book you in with a brain surgeon?

How was I "begging the question 'in full context'"? — Terrapin Station

Because you're assuming your conclusion in part of your argument. You would first need to reach the conclusion that we have free will, which you haven't done with me here.

Prior cause isn't a distinction. All causes are prior. — Terrapin Station

Obviously I meant that it was a cause prior to other particular causes within a particular context relating to what we were discussing. It was very silly of you to misinterpret what I meant in that way, as though I was randomly coming out with a linguistic redundancy for no apparent reason.

Maybe you think that other people are essentially robots? — Terrapin Station

If people are essentially robots, then you are essentially a robot with a malfunction.

All causes are prior to what they cause. — Terrapin Station

Silly point.

A good challenge for you is to find the speech that will cause me to think that speech can be causal to actions. — Terrapin Station

That test would clearly be compromised by your involvement.

But an obvious example would be if I was in my local pub and a newcomer asked me where the gents were, and I told him that they were over there, whilst pointing to the door on the other side of the pub leading back outside, and the newcomer took me at my word and walked over to the door, only to discover that he had been mislead.

There are about a million-and-one examples of this sort of thing, but I'm sure you'll find some way to explain them away rather than admit the obvious.

Prior causes? As opposed to simultaneous causes or causes after the fact? — Terrapin Station

Prior cause: a cause further back in the chain of cause and effort.

Sprechen Sie Englisch?

You chose, against better judgment, to purchase Marx books. Good judgment would have been purchasing books about the Marx Brothers.

If you had been caused to buy the books, you wouldn't have had a choice. — Terrapin Station

Either I didn't choose to do so, or I did so in a way that was consistent with what I just told you. Either way, I'm still right.

That's not what "begging the question" conventionally refers to, and you consider conventional usage correct, so per your views, that's incorrect. — Terrapin Station

In full context, it is an example of begging the question. You're just doing the whole autistic/pedant act again.

Influences don't remove free will. — Terrapin Station

That's blatantly begging the question.

Influences are not causes in any respect. — Terrapin Station

Of course they are. They're just prior causes. I already gave you an example, which you ignored. The writings of Marx influenced my thinking, which in turn was a causal factor in my act of purchasing books on Marx. Without that cause in the chain, I wouldn't have purchased books on Marx. That's fundamental to the explanation.

What would it take for you to concede the point?
— S

Brain damage, probably. — Terrapin Station

Oh, so you've already conceded. I must've missed that.

I would say that he decided to take the actions he did, where he at least decided to credit Elliot Rodger as an influence on his decision. — Terrapin Station

Decisions are influenced, and influences are causes in some respect. So you're conceding the point, then? What Elliot Rodger did and said was an indirect cause of the subsequent crime by his admirer?

I think it would be totally unreasonable of you to claim a causal link.

Obviously, different people think that different things are reasonable. — Terrapin Station

Yes, but you're the Flat Earther in this case.

"He was embroiled in incel culture"--is this known from people knowing something like a username he used on a message board or something? And if so, wasn't he someone posting "hate speech" himself? If that's the case, why wouldn't we think that both his hate speech and his actions were symptomatic of something about him, rather than being caused by someone else's hate speech? How would we conclude the latter? — Terrapin Station

Why are you drawing this out to such unnecessary and unreasonable lengths? What would it take for you to concede the point? What if some teenage boy had gone out and murdered a group of popular teenage girls at his school, and then killed himself, and left behind a suicide note and diary explicitly naming Elliot Rodger and incel culture as his motive?

Not that I needed to look him up to answer, actually, but no, of course I'd not say that someone should be held legally responsible for any crimes done subsequent to their speech. — Terrapin Station

We already know that. That's not a proper response.

The Manchester bomber was inspired by Choudary's hate speech. He was a known acolyte of his. It would be totally unreasonable of you to deny the causal link here.

Had to refamiliarize myself with who he was just now, but the Wikipedia page says that, per his manifesto, "He explained that he wanted to punish women for rejecting him, and punish sexually active men because he envied them."

What is the hate speech connection supposed to be there. What speech did he hear (from someone else) that supposedly contributed to him being violent? — Terrapin Station

He was embroiled in incel culture, and he has since become a hero in the eyes of those who delve in that twisted world. I would not at all be surprised if others have been inspired by his crime and by his words and followed in his footsteps.

How about Anjem Choudary? He wasn't partly responsible for any acts of crime that his hate speech inspired, I suppose?

That this is even up for debate is a joke.

I'm mocking the notion of there being a strong enough correlation to conclude that hate speech is causal to violence. — Terrapin Station

Which is also dumb. It is evident that hate speech has an inflammatory effect on certain kinds of people under the right circumstances, and that this can and most likely has lead to hate crime. Just look at a case like that of Elliot Rodger, and similar or related cases, and the impact that that has had.

If there's a correlation between hate speech and nonviolence so that 4,999 out of 5,000 people exposed to hate speech are not violent, then why can't we conclude that hate speech causes nonviolence? I thought that significant correlations were supposed to suggest causality, no? — Terrapin Station

Sorry, but that's just dumb. No one on my side of the argument ever suggested anything like a causal impact of 4,999 people for every 5,000. You think that we thought that hate speech was like 99.99% effective? Are you deliberately missing the point or something?

Of course I wouldn't say that it "proves" anything, since that's a category error anyway. — Terrapin Station

Don't be pedantic, like with "care" earlier. You know what I mean.

I'd simply say that there's not a problem with the methodology. — Terrapin Station

Of course you'd say that, because you're far too entrenched in your position to acknowledge any faults with it.

If only 1 in 5,000 people are violent after exposure to hate speech, then it would much more strongly suggest that exposure to hate speech does NOT cause violence but the opposite. — Terrapin Station

No, it wouldn't. It would suggest that it causes violence for approximately every 1 in 5,000 people, which would be more than enough reason for it to be banned. The population of London alone consists of around 8 million.

An experiment is set up where we have, say, 500 people in an auditorium who are exposed to hate speech
— Terrapin Station

Immediately that would fail the ethical standards. I can assure you of that because I have been partly responsible for writing them.

monitor those 500 people for a set period of time, let's say a week, and we note how many of them engaged in violent incidents
— Terrapin Station

We cannot risk inciting criminal action. Again, this would not get past the ethics board.

This isn't the only example that I'd say has no methodological problems for stating a correlation.
— Terrapin Station

Good. So seeing as the first one wouldn't even get off the ground, perhaps you could move on to the next possibility. — Isaac

But even if it did go ahead, and even if no one committed any hate crime afterwards, that wouldn't prove anything of relevance. What if it's actually more like 1 in every 5,000 who are the kind of person receptive enough to hate speech to commit hate crime at a later date as a result? And it seems unlikely, in the real world, that a single speech would be enough, unless they already had a background in that kind of world. We know that this can and does happen, regardless. We don't need an experiment in the first place.

Do you think that I might be challenging something where I don't feel that it's reasonable or warranted? — Terrapin Station

No, but that's the problem. Do Flat Earthers not also feel that they're reasonable and warranted in their "challenges"?

Why? Is this just a foundational feeling you have, or do you have some reason to think its bad. It seems like a really odd thing to decide is bad on the face of it. — Isaac

Wherever his peculiar view stems from, I think there's only a very slim chance, if any at all, of him seeing sense enough to abandon it. He wears it as though it were a badge of bride instead of an indication of unreasonableness.

He seems to see, "I'm a free speech absolutist!", as something like, "I'm a champion of the people!", whereas the rest of us seem to see it more as something like, "I'm ready to be sectioned!".

I'd never be saying anything like it "should." It's just a matter of whether you care whether I agree with something, whether you care if I have a particular view, etc.

Of course, I'd find it odd that someone keeps responding to me and apparently trying to convince me of something if they on the other hand say that they don't care whether I agree or have the same view, but people can be odd. <shrugs> Normally I'd expect folks who don't care if I agree to just ignore me. — Terrapin Station

You don't think whether your "challenge" is reasonable or warranted should be a matter of concern?

I'm challenging that there's the correlation that you're claiming there is. — Terrapin Station

But why should your "challenge" be given the time of day? This is not much different from someone "challenging" that London is the capital of England. We already know that speech can and does influence our course of action. (And the concept of influence wouldn't make any sense without cause and effect).

Suddenly, his words matter again. — Echarmion

Yes, well spotted. His earlier remarks are so absurd that he can't help but slip back into contradiction. Of course, the sensible thing to do in this situation would be for him to concede and withdraw his earlier remarks, but I somehow doubt that that's what he'll do.

But such pragmatic realism is precisely the kind of concessionary logic which allows for the political situation as it stands today. Why agree to a state of affairs which disproportionately disaffects so many people? — thewonder

I don't agree with the status quo, I just don't lend my support to unrealistic causes, for obvious reasons. When your pipe dream has become a realistic cause, then get back to me. I won't be holding my breath. In the meantime, if you really want to make a positive difference, then you should vote for your main left-wing party, as I do.

It should be coined as a fallacy, if it hasn't already, to confuse your own ethical stance for the definition of morality.

Normative ethics and semantics are two different branches of philosophy. Is it not ridiculous for ethical altruists to be claiming that the meaning of "moral" is to be of benefit to others? If you want to argue in favour of altruism, then go ahead and do so. No one is stopping you. If that's what you, personally, judge to be moral, then so be it. But words already have meanings, and you don't get to just make them whatever you want, otherwise you might as well be talking to yourself.

Ok. Logically, life has a definition. — Marzipanmaddox

Logically? Look, words have definitions, and the word, "life", has a definition, and an acceptable definition can be found in the dictionary.

I'm not going to accept your own made-up definitions.

You claim that this is an argument about collectivism, it's not. It's an argument about the definition of civilization and morality, it is pure coincidence that the definition I am able to derived from history is one that is similar to collectivism. The point here is not for me to defend collectivism, the point is for my to defend my reasoning and metrics from which I am able to derive the objective definition of morality. — Marzipanmaddox

You're delusional. You're also trying to reinvent the wheel, which is a foolish endeavour.

When I say that morality is based on flourishing, I don't mean that in a kind of "universalist" sense, but I am saying that is the most useful, fruitful and coherent way to think about it. — Janus

Why would you say that morality is based on flourishing when all you really mean is that you think that it would be useful to think about morality in terms of flourishing? There's a world of difference between those two statements. Are you just really bad at expressing yourself?

The very idea of being moral is conceptually based on the idea of benefiting others, and the idea of being immoral is based on the idea of harming others. — Janus

No, it isn't. That just shows that you aren't thinking about this impartially.

Well your historical reference is only compelling if you already have the stance you have. Its not an example that makes your case any more than the Hitler example. You can make as many such references as you want, they don’t agree with you as to whats actually happening in those examples. — DingoJones

Because they're idiots. You're right, the examples I gave won't work on you if you're an idiot.

Oh, shut up. I don't know why I'm wasting my time here.