How can one not consent to suicide? I may be missing something in the context here. If one does not consent to suicide, then it isn't suicide. It would be an accidental death caused by your own actions or a murder or something else.

Physical has no meaning anymore. It's a placeholder term.

You're right about that. I just can't think of any other filter that has so much more effect in distorting the observation of nature as religions. In my estimate, it is at least ten, maybe hundred times more potent a filter than the next closest one. — god must be atheist

Many of the naturalists were really quite religious. I mean, the Abrahamic religions, to a great degree, don't consider nature important. It's not like they have theories about how water gets to the leaves in trees or the mating habits of mongooses. There are some things in the Bible that created tensions with astronomy and evolutionary theory. But most of nature is not described, so no contradictions exist. At least not for most modern people. Me, I'm a panpychist, so I think current science has filters, but that's another story. I'm old enough to remember the huge resistance the scientific community had to animals having consciousness, intentions, etc. Talk about filters. You could destroy your career believing in that in professional contexts. Right now plants are on the cusp. I think the most damaging filter is reductionism. Now no one goes around saying they are a reductionist. So, it's a pattern - that is also extremely useful - that inhabits a number of belief systems. Now science, of course, in general has been fixing the imbalance with reductionism and holism in recent decades, but it is still there, especially when we look at application - anything from psychopharmacology to genetic modification as examples in the life sciences being applied. The we look at emotional pain, through the filters of psychiatric distribution of psychotropics and via the pathologization of individual emotional suffering is a huge and extremely damaging filter. And gm is playing fast and loose with all of us, since, amongst other things, those companies control their own goverment oversight and can create research results per order. Apart from their incredible lobbying and campaign finance powers, and then also connections to other powerful industries. The viewing of all life as modular individuals with replaceable parts and as chemicl machines we should tweak and are capale of tweaking without catostrophic risk is a filter that worries me much more than the Abrahamic filters.

I also said that I think that sometimes negative feelings in response to speech are a problem with the person with the negative feelings, not a problem with the person who said whatever they did to cause the negative feelings — Terrapin Station

So, sometimes, on the other hand, they are the problem of the person who said the whatever they said to cause the negative feelings. IOW above you say sometimes the problem rests with the listener, implying strongly that sometimes it is the sender's problem. (and of course both could be factors in any given instance) I can't see what the problem is with saying that it is immoral, in those cases where the problem is on the side of the sender. Where they intend to hurt the other person's feelings and to be cruel.

You can still want a society that does not punish these people, for a wide variety of reasons.

Otherwise it just seems like we are playing the progessive preschool teacher game, where instead of say it was bad when you did X to Cynthia, we say it was unharmonious. Here we can't say, for some reason it is immoral to tell someone they just heard that their father got run over by a bus, when it isn't true and the goal is to scare someone, but we can say that the problem is on the side of the person sending this message.

Or we can call them an asshole, but we cannot call the act immoral.

You would avoid assholes - those who get this label through speech acts, which you were willing to give some people -, but you want them to be assholes.

Not all we hate are immoral. — TheMadFool

Right but you said all we hate we forbid. That was the part I was disagreeing with. I could have been clearer.

But we'd still have culture and all our embodied filters and more affecting what we think nature presents to us. Religion is just one of the many filters one can have on nature.

Anything that shifts perception - learning a new language, meditation, intense physical activity, participating in another culture, drugs, working with animals, being nature - can change assumptions we have about reality, identity, relations, selves, morals, perception, ontology. We take things for granted and we often don't know those things.

If I am obviously missing the context, my apologies. But in general I don't think this is the case. There are things I hate that I would not forbid. I hate romance novels - in the sense of extreme dislike (which is part of the dictionary definition of hatred) - I hate cosmetic lip surgery, I hate people who stand in line behind me speaking very loudly on their cellphones. There are many things that I hate, but I would not want to outlaw or forbid.

I think the cellphone is a good warning signal. People are less connected to where they are even with the less intrusive cellphone. If children use cellphones, they lose the ability to read faces compared with peers. IOW amongst other effects, they are less empathetic. Not because they are not nice, but because they are not learning about facial expressions and tone of oice and how this relates to mood. Cellphones are adding stress, creating distance between people, reducing social skills and this is nothing compared to what an implant could do.

And if you have an implant, you will be hacked. You will get viruses. You've made yourself into a cellphone, however many wonderful apps you have, given your brain size.

We're talking about a lot of different cultures. I also don't think it makes sense to talk about communism and fascism, though I understand why they come up, because to me these are forms of society at much larger levels of most native cultures we know about well. And then you have things like the Aztecs which have feudal monarchy imperial aspects to them.

One facet of a number of native cultures is their ad hoc nature. Leaders needed support. They were not like fascist dictators. If people were displeased with the chief, someone else might get general consensus and take over. And any venture that the tribe engaged in: war, changing location, say - even a well respected chief might not get support for. So the whole time they are negotiating, developing support, dealing with factions and elders. It is not hardened down into fixed roles like we are used to. And I mean this even more than in the purportedly democratic nations. There was a looseness to roles. Of course, scale differences make this easier, but I think it is also a different approach than we usually have even in small groups.

You can’t blame reality for being real, just because you don’t agree with it. And you won’t change external reality by hating it. Lincoln, Rosa Parks and MLK understood that. — Possibility

I don't think you get to tell me what these people felt. And as public figures they are going to present themselves strategically - which could take lots of forms. We don't know for sure what they felt or thought. I do know from communication with people in the Civil Rights movement that despite being non-violent many felt a great deal of hatred for the systematic abuse. I know people feel things that fit the dictionary definition of hate, which I quote earlier, in situations much less abusive than what they experienced then. These are not people who are pathological in any way. Of course hatred can be a part of problematic patterns. But it need not be. And it often is not. And being raised in de facto apatheid situations or other situations with systematic discrimination or oppression, it is not problematic to have feelings of hatred arise, even with some regularlity.

None of what you write here justifies your judgments of strong emotional reactions. Reason has been used to justify all sorts of horrible acts. Emotions are not only natural, but part of what motivates us to do good things. Both reason and emotions can be part of processes that turn out to be negative. But there is nothing per se negative about emotions or what you judge as animalistic - empathy is also animalistic, love is, playfulness, taking care of our young and so on because we are social mammals with all that entails. For most people the word animalistic is very perjorative, and in the context of black people's reactions to racism...well, I would, myself, not even start down that road. In fact a very common practice by people with power, be it corporations or governments or other powerful groups, is to judge those who react negatively to abuse as overly emotional and sometimes as animalistic. They present themselves as the rational ones. And of course, given their priviledge, they are not as triggered, the status quo is working for them, so they can present themselves as rational and not emotional, or less emotional, or, as it is often framed, as not so negative or not having negative emotions.

The claim you and GCB are making here is that hatred can sometimes be justifiable, and you keep watering down your definition of hatred to include frustration and anger in order to support your argument. — Possibility

I mean, hate.

hate noun, often attributive
\ ˈhāt \
Definition of hate (Entry 1 of 2)
1a : intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury
b : extreme dislike or disgust : ANTIPATHY, LOATHING
had a great hate of hard work

Any person living in a society that regularly discriminates against them, it seems to me, is extremely likely to feel hate. This is understandable, natural, not unhealthy - though being oppressed is - and further telling someone that their hatred is unhealthy would be unjust. And probably not healthy either.

Natural, yes - it is an animalistic tendency. If you were incapable of abstract thought or of understanding how another person might feel, then yes - I could understand that you were unaware of the destructive nature of responding hate. But I don’t believe you are that ignorant. — Possibility

We are social mammals. Our limbic systems are inextricably involved even in our rational thinking.

I was arguing against the particular claim that Rosa Parks was an example of someone who acted on hate. — Possibility

I think it is very unlikely that she did not hate the laws and at times hated her treatment. If you google 'rosa parks hated' you will find that people who have written about her think that hatred of the systematic racism was with her since she was a child. You don't have to be a violent person to hate, and when you are regularly treated with hatred, and for a black of that time, afraid to express yourself in so many ways and afraid to do so many things for reasons having nothing to do with who you are hatred is a natural and understandable response. Just as the body will swell up and become red if you are slapped hard. Once might induce anger or frustration. Systematic 'slapping' will lead to something stronger.

Yeah, but that's not what I'm saying. I am saying Given that he is the guy who would be cruel like that, I want him to express it. You are leaving out the context. It is a lesser evil, because now I know who he is. I have a sociopathic doctor. I prefer I know this through speech acts over physical acts. No way my kid is around this guy again. I consider it immoral to tell me my kid is dying when he isn't. Glad that's out there, because it gives me information that may very well prevent something horrible. Me, glad he showed he immoral assholish nature. It is a lesser evil, but it is still an evil.

I'd prefer he doesn't prefer to be an asshole. Given that he is who he is, I prefer he commits the immoral speech act, hopefully early on in our knowing each other, so I can make choices based on that.

I'd prefer a telephone salesman tell me he's a telephone salesman up front, real clear. I don't want telephone sales calls. I wish he hadn't called me at all. (that's not necessarily a moral situation, jsut trying to show in another type of situation how I can want someone to say something I don't want to hear in general. You are confusing general contextless with specific situations.

And you still never address why you considered asshole different in degree, when all your arguments treat it as categorically different.

One thing we might be missing here, re making it explicit (I was assuming this would be understood), is that morality isn't just preferences about interpersonal behavior (more than significant than etiquette) towards oneself, but generalized, a la "how people treat each other, whether I'm involved or not."

Yeah, that doesn't change anything for me. I think it's good if the immoral assholes are open about it. It makes navigating the world easier for all of us. And if they say things I consider immoral, that's useful information and helps us all navigate.

And I prefer this in close relationships too. If my spouse thinks I am a piece of shit, I want that to be out in the open.

That doesn't mean that I prefer to have people tell me that I am a piece of shit. But IF THEY think so, then let's get it out. Now that's not an immoral think to think, hopefully it's just wrong.

But can you see the category error you're making? If someone is an immoral asshole I'd like to know and I think it is good for all of us to know. I'd prefer they weren't and I'd prefer that isn't what they'd want to say, but given that they do, a lesser evil happens.


And since my thinking it is immoral and even saying it is immoral cannot in any way inhibit them, according to, they is absolutely no drawback. They are free to express themselves.

But man, I give up.

I prefer that the doctor was honest. Sure. But if he wants to express himself that way, I want to know. I'd prefer he preferred to not be cruel. But it's damn good I know.

Sigh, I explained this. I can prefer, for example that everyone shows their true nature, because it makes it easier to know where the threats are, for example. So, I want to know that a doctor would tell me a lie about my kid's health, because if he would do that, he might harm my kid. I prefer the immoral speech acts occur, but still consider them immoral. And that is more or less my opinion. I'd like it out there. So, I would be very reluctant to make rules against that kind of speech, but I sure as shit am going to judge it. You are confusing the general preference for everyone expressing themselves for criticism of individual instances. I prefer that everyone is free to vote for the candidate they want, while preferring they vote for candidate X and preferring they would want that, is not a contradiction. That might not be a moral preference or it might be if they were voting for Hitler, say. I prefer democracy, but consider it immoral to vote for Hilter since he ran on an anti-semitic campaign or whatever. I prefer the general freedom and the general use of that freedom, because I think it is better if people can vote even knowing they may vote in ways I hate and even judge immoral. I prefer that people express themselves, but think some of these expressions are immoral.

And just anticipating this response, it's not just because other people want to be around some of the stuff I'm talking about that I'd say it's not immoral. The vast majority of people, including me, wouldn't want, say, a brown recluse spider as a pet, or wouldn't want to hang out with someone who only showers once per year but who goes to the gym every day, etc. but I don't think those things are immoral. — Terrapin Station

Right but I think it would be strange to call someone with terrible hygiene or a brown recluse spider assholes. You said immoral was a greater degree of judgment than immoral. Here you are different categories of things that make you want to pull away from people.

You responded to the calling someone immoral for speech acts as if this would meant you didn't want them to express themselves. But it doesn't entail that. As I argued above. Ah, well, there was a bunch of stuff there and this post of yours isn't really a response to any of the points I made.

But since I know now you hate arguing and I am arguing against your points or at least trying to make sense of what seem like contradictory statements or stated effects or entailments I don't think are there, I will drop it.

But I'm not in favor of banning anyone unless they're spamming in the sense of flooding the board with threads or posts that aren't at all conversational.

I could try a new line with this one, why people can't express themselves with this kind of communication. A communication that seems assholish, but nothing compared to trying to hurt people by lying to them, but hey, that's me. At least we've found that you will censor.

Hate and acting on hate - by and on behalf of slaves - did more to fuel the fear and hatred that sustained slavery, than it did to abolish slavery. — Possibility

How did you measure that?

You cannot argue that slaves who hated their masters and acted on it furthered the cause to abolish slavery in the US one iota. — Possibility

I didn't say anything about acting on it. If we are talking about slaves, they had very little power, so it was whites fighting and arguing against white practices, then actually killing people over it. It took the deaths, by intentional killing, of thousands of people to end slavery. Now most of the soldiers on the Northern side were probably not haters of slavery, except the black regiments, who while brave and serving well, played a small role in the whole project. But I am sure many abolitionists had hatred for the practice of slavery. Along with compassion, sense of justice, empathy and other motivations.

One of the biggest fears of the slave states was a violent uprising similar to the one in Haiti from 1791 - the only ‘successful’ slave rebellion that established a free state ruled by former slaves (and was maintained by slaughtering the entire white French population in 1804 - hardly a justifiable act of hate). Hate drove all sides of the conflict in Haiti, and resulted in so much cruelty and violence. — Possibility

And again, sure hatred can lead to serious problems. So can 'good intentions'.

Frustration is sufficient to motivate positive, courageous, intelligent and realistic action towards a better outcome — Possibility

AGain, how do you measure this? determine it? If we talk about Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights movement, we are not talking about being motivated by frustration. Of course there was frustration in there. And of course there was yearning for something better and other motivations. But there was a lot of hate in there also. It is perfectly natural when one is treated as a rule in a hateful manner, over long periods of time, and this includes treatment of your children in this way, to hate back. The problem is not in that responding hate. Yes, sometimes this hate can lead to actions that are not ok. But the problem is not the hate, it is the cognitive elements - that revenge is good or even will help you, for exampe, is one cognitive element that can lead to acting out in certain ways. To tell those blacks that if they hate it is unhealthy and wrong, is just adding more oppression on them. And MLK himself was extremely pissed off towards the end of his life. Listen to his last speech in that church where he keeps saying 'If I should die...' There's rage in there. He got frustrated with the government and whites and since he was not just anti-racist but socialist he has a lot of issues that had gone from frustration to at least very strong anger.

The situation is a problem, yes - but more so is hatred when it arises. The situation one is in may be extremely unhealthy and seem impossible to avoid. That the situation occurs is a reality, whether or not we want it to occur or think it should occur at all. We have to accept that reality first - whether we like it or not - before we can begin to address it. Hatred arises from a refusal to accept the reality as it stands. There are no healthy patterns of hatred. — Possibility

It's a reality that we respond to certain kinds of treatment with strong anger. That is a reality. We are social mammals with limbic systems tightly involved in our reactions to treatmetn by others. THAT IS REALITY. Many people tell us that we must accept the reality of what is outside us, but the inside we must suppress, detach from, radically control, judge. But the inside is real also. I can't see how I can come to love others if I hate parts of myself as my starting point, especially in the face of mistreatment.

How could you tell I was bragging?

I’m not denying that slaves may have hated their mistreatment, or even hated the slave owners. I’m denying hate as the reason for the change, and I’m denying ‘acting on hate’ as the cause of change. To credit hate with the abolition of slavery or civil rights is a ridiculous notion - likely driven by fears over the rise of the conservative right. — Possibility

I agree that hate is likely not the only factor, but it would be one. I don't think frustration would be the main reason either. I was contrasting hate with frustration in relation to slavery.

Hatred may appear to be a ‘natural’ response, but it isn’t a healthy one, and it isn’t justifiable in my book. — Possibility

If you stick with any emotional reaction it isn't healthy, even the so called positive ones.

If you have to hate your dead end job or your boss before you will act, then you’re doing yourself a disservice. — Possibility

depends on what it takes to get a better one. Hatred comes up, when it is not pathological, in situations where one is extremely threated, judged (say, as not really human), mistreated in some extreme (for the standards you are used to) way, plus there are power issues or it is very hard to simply avoid to tune out whatever is doing this to you. Hatred, is a very strong version of anger and it means that the attack has been going on for a long time (or is perceived to have been) or is very intense. And we need a large mobilization of energy to do something. So, we get a huge motivation in the form of hatred. Slaves hated their masters, I would assume with great regularity and we understand that since they were insde systematic hate aimed at them, and then also direct mistreatment. They are many situations in capitalism (and communism of course) where it is not easy to just change jobs, get out from under the thumb of mistreatment. It is understandible that people will hate sometimes. It is not healthy to be mistreated with regularly, but the problem is not the hatred when it arises. The problem is that we are in that situation. Of course there are unhealthy patterns of hatred. I am not arguing that hatred is always a natural and/or healthy response to situations. And one can fixated on an emotional/attitudinal position. One can also feel comfortable hating when one actually is, deep down, confused or scared or both, and it feels easier to blame others. What I am disagreeing with is the idea that per se hatred is bad or unhealthy. This is like blaming the immune system for redness and swelling around an infection, at least, on many occasions.

I got that also. And here I thought my brilliance had won over some beautiful Muscovite.

I feel dirty and used.

How strange for anyone not to realize we are social mammals? with the complex set of motives that entails. Cuo buono: who benefits from us thinking that we are completely separate monads in a completely modular individualistic society. It sure isn't everyone. And it sure isn't the best and brightest, though some people with certain skills and intelligence will be the beneficiaries.

Everyone always forgets about the other half of Dunning-Kruger: people who truly know a significant amount about something, enough to know how much they don’t know, tend to think lowly of their knowledge, even though it’s much greater than others. — Pfhorrest

Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems to me truly intelligent people know they are smart and know they are smart than most other people, but this isn't their focus when engaged with learning, problem solving. Their focus is on what they do not know and what they need to know. When waxing comparative, it would be odd for them not to realize they are much smarter than most other people.

And let's look at the actual context of the research: they tested people new to a field. People studying psychology for the first time. The smart students were focuses forward and what they didn't know. Because that's how one learns best. One enjoys challenges and focuses on them and this was early stages in a subject area. They have reached a place, where a psychologist is, where they can now consider themselves experts, they are just getting their feet wet. The poor students are focused on what little the learned, not on challenging themselves, not on the future. Poor students do not dive toward self-challenge and do not focus on what they don't know (yet).

There has also been follow up research on this effect and it concludes....

The authors' findings refute the claim that people are generally prone to greatly inflated views of their abilities, but support two other tenets of the original Kruger and Dunning research: (1) that self-assessment skill can be learned, and (2) that experts usually self-assess more accurately than do novices. The researchers noted that metacognitive self-assessment skill is of great value, and that it can be taught together with disciplinary content in college courses.[16][17]

I agree in part. The title of the thread is Is Trainability of animals a measure of their intelligence? I would say it is 'a' measure, but not the only one. And cats train, a lot, though they tend to do with it with peers as kittens and then as loners, mainly as adults. They play fight and play hunt. They do that bite reflex thing when watching prey. It also depends, here, on what we mean by trainability: do we mean, willing to do exercises someone else gives them (for a reward or not) and here cats are pretty damn disinterested: But if if it means, repeats certain activities to gain skills, cats will do this. And intelligent humans will also, they just are often more likely to want to control that training themselves. I think it has to be a measure of intelligence because the more you can either train yourself or be trained or both, the more you can learn. And humans, who are the most trainable, since we are capable of the redoing our nerve pathways more than any other creature so far, train themselves or are trained in a wider range of activities and skills than any other species. We are vastly more trainable in terms of breadth and depth.

To strive to change the status quo in favour of something better is not hate. Frustration, sometimes - but not hate. — Possibility

Come on, one of his examples was slavery: slaves did not feel just frustrated with slavery, though I am sure there was much frustration. They hated their treatment by the slave owners, quite naturally. Perhaps not all of them, but most of them.

Oh, I got so frustrated with being a slave

sounds absurd to me.

I got frustrated with a dead end job or with a boss who didn't let me engage in more creative projects, sure.

Any laws or systems or practices that as a rule dehumanize and mistreat a group are going to lead to hatred. And that hatred would be a perfectly natural and healthy response. Of course there is likely to also be fear involved and great sorrow.

As a meta comment: sometimes it feels like I have to chase you to deal with an issue.

Other than that, sure, I might say someone is being an asshole, too, but to me, "immoral" is stronger than just "he's being an asshole." — Terrapin Station

Here, you say there is a difference in degree between asshole and immoral. A difference in degree. This is why you would not use the term 'immoral'. But you would use the term asshole. But here you argue that you want them to express themselves, so you wouldn't use immoral since this would imply that you don't prefer them to express themselves. Asshole implies this also, though according to you, to a lesser degree.

Further one could prefer that everyone expresses themselves rather than not expresses themselves. So this would include people who don't lie to hurt people and people who lie intentionally to hurt people. You could prefer that everyone does what they want with language but still judge just some of those people on occasion or in general for having been immoral.

You could prefer that people feel free to make mistakes or to reveal their true nature and personalities over a more inhibited society where people do not do this, but still judge some of them or some acts as being immoral. Or for being assholes or mean.

I like people to be honest/to honestly express themselves/to be existentially authentic. So if being an asshole or a bitch is how they authentically feel, I think they should express that. I'm just not going to be hanging out with them if it's a way they regularly are.

People might think if you think someone is an asshole or a dick you prefer that they do not express themselves. But this isn't the case. It need not be the case with immoral either, especially since the issue is one of degree.

I wouldn't say it's a "moral flaw," no, although I suppose often enough it leads to behavior that I'd classify as immoral. For example, an asshole might be more likely to hire someone to do work for them and basically wind up ripping them off a bit--maybe they'd short them a bit, or push them to do something outside of the context of what they hired them for without additional compensation or something like that, for example.

In fact here you are willing to call the latter behavior immoral. Unless you meant literally 'push', iow use physical force, this would have meant verbal manipulation and pressure. And of course would also potentially be covered by contract law.

It doesn't. What I was saying is that it's not undesirable to me for people to express themselves. It's rather desirable. — Terrapin Station

OK, so now we know that they can still express themselves, even if I or we judge them immoral. So, again, why is it harder for them to express themselves if I call them immoral rather than asshole or mean or bad or say this is someone to avoid.

You had said, "Well, sure. But I want to be able to trust people." — Terrapin Station

<yes, most people want that. Even the people, in most cases, who lie, say, to be cruel. Calling someone immoral, for me, means that I think their behavior is bad or wrong. Calling someone an asshole would mean this too, though it has slightly more, hm, personality connotations for me. Like a cruel liar might present themselves quite pleasantly. Whereas most people I would call assholes would tend to be more openly mean. But each carries a serious judgment of the person. But the word immoral seems to inhibit expression of the people labelled that way, for you, and I don't know how that happens. I say it seems to inhibit their expression, as if this is an objection to the them getting labeled immoral. How does it stop them from expressing themselves?

And, of course, there are lots of ways of expressing themselves.

And further if you pull away from or avoid people who are mean and lie, well, that might be used by some of them as a reason not to express themselves in certain ways.

It's certainly not going to be the case that everyone's trustworthy of their own accord. — Terrapin Station

Of course. But I haven't said anything about some system to make them be trustworthy. I said it was immoral behavior. You brought in the issue of enforcement. Why does judging someone immoral entail enforcement? while judging someone an asshole does not? I don't think these things should be legislated against.

Not all behavior that one makes a judgment about is a moral issue. — Terrapin Station

Of course. I am not sure how this is relevent. I wouldn't use either asshole or immoral around etiquette issues. Or mean, the adjective in question.

And in our first interaction on this, I said certain kinds of lying with the intent to make other people feel bad was immoral.

Your response was you want people to be able to express themselves.

How does my labeling such meanness immoral stop them from expressing themselves?

. Meanness is categorically different from malicious intent. — Possibility

When someone is described as being mean or as a mean person, intent to be cruel in pretty much implicit. And it is certainly in no way a contradiction.

He was mean to me, but didn't intend to be seems rather off to me.
He was blunt and it hurt my feelings, but he didn't intend to be makes sense to me.

Sure, we want to be able to trust people, but we often can not, and there's no way to enforce that everyone is going to be trustworthy. — Terrapin Station

Who said anything about enforcing?

Keep in mind, by the way, that re some stuff you're bringing up, I would still have contractual law much as it is now. People could still be liable for contractual fraud/breech of contract. — Terrapin Station

Funny because that's bringing in force. I was talking about people making a moral judgment.

Other than that, sure , I might say someone is being an asshole, too, but to me, "immoral" is stronger than just "he's being an asshole." — Terrapin Station

In what sense. That seems like a moral judgment via an expressive label. He's an asshole, he does asshole things, but he's not immoral seems odd to me. Unless you don't believe in morals. But then if one doesn't believe in morals, there is no need to distinguish between speech and other behavior.

I'm someone who wants people to express themselves as they feel like expressing themselves, and who thinks that we need to not put too much weight on things that people say/we need to be at least a bit skeptical of things that people say

I don't think that holds. 'a bit' is a vague term. One could be a bit skeptical, but also foolish not to react when lied to about a fire in a building. About a doctor saying your child is going to die. About misinformation in other areas of life. The asshole who is spreading lies to try and hurt people, means that that bit of skepticism has to be a bit more. It leads to us having to be more skeptical, and that is a cost or pain for social mammals. Your vague 'a bit' gets increased for every asshole.

But here you seem to see use of the word immoral as a problem. It doesn't enforce anything. In fact calling someone an asshole is as likely to have effects if not more so than the word immoral describing an act of that person is.

It seems like you have a judgment that 'immoral' as a speech act is more causal of problems than the word 'asshole'. But you don't think words can be causal.

It certainly can't cause any problems. We can all be skeptical about whatever nuances that word has that asshole doesn't when we hear it applied to someone.

It seems implicit in your argument that 'a bit' of skepticism prevents any harm mean, dishonest, assholes create via their use of language. But of course it wouldn't. Unless that bit was huge. And if the bit is huge, that's harm. Because if you have tremendous distrust for what everyone says to you, you lead a hampered existence. Because you must double and triple check things or always be in extra anxiety that you've been lied to, even by those you love.

I happen to have a very hard skull. You punch me in the head, the chances are, unless you are a pro fighter, your hand will get more damage than my head. That doesn't make it less immoral to throw a punch at my head without cause. Just because an act intended to harm me and one that will in some or many cases harm someone does not harm me, it's still immoral. Of if someone else is trained (analogous to 'a bit skeptical'), someone trying to assault them is still being immoral, even if they fail. No physical attack is guaranteed to cause harm. Yet we would still judge, though perhaps not you, attempts of violence as violent and immoral. Guns can jam, bullets can miss, blows can miss or not harm, some people even like to be attacked. Still we judge people as immoral for trying to do bodily harm, despite the lack of some 100 percent causal chain.

Here I am not saying anything about judging it a crime, just as immoral. Doing something intended to hurt other people out of a mean or cruel attitude towards others. Waht is the harm of calling that immoral, that calling them an asshole or mean person somehow manages to avoid? And since whatever harm it causes depends on others believing it and it is not causal in their believing it,w hat's the problem?

Yeah, not immoral to me.

I'm someone who wants people to express themselves as they feel like expressing themselves, and who thinks that we need to not put too much weight on things that people say/we need to be at least a bit skeptical of things that people say. — Terrapin Station

Well, sure. But I want to be able to trust people. If I am paying them for that communication or it if is integral to work I am doing or if I have a close relationship with them, or if it would be cruel to mislead me and you are a stranger - iow to knowingly make me waste time.

Let's take each one of those: I don't want a society where I have to ask three people for directions a lot of the time because most people like to fuck with strangers. Of course, when I ask for directions, I assume they might be wrong. But generally I assume they are doing their best. If someone chooses to mislead me, they're a dick for doing that. I won't call the police on them, but they were being an asshole.

Doctors and other professionals would be even more immoral if the intentionally mislead me. I am probably more skeptical than most people in this forum when it comes to conventional medicine, but I do expect them to deal with me responsibly. To not do it affects me emotionally, and it would mean some level of hateful, sociopathic thinkng and attitudes to do it. If one does not believe in morals, fine it isn't immoral, but if you believe in morals, well their is not reason to think speech acts cannot be immoral. They get to express themselves and deal with the consequences, which will include people thinking they are bad people. They are still free. How would my thinking they are assholes or immoral stop them?

And then family/friends. Sorry, that's a callous way to treat someone. Trust is a part of being a social mammal. Of course I have not always been trustworthy. But if I lie about something important, I understand why a friend or family member would be angry and judge it immoral. Because that is part of the reason we get close. I don't want to treat those close to me like I need to treat sales reps. That's part of intimacy, the being able to be much less skeptical.

They can continue to do this, of course. My judgments, just like their speech, do not force them to stop. So, your wanting them to express themselves is irrelevent.

Further they are not expressing themselves. They are doing something else, at least also.

Me, a guy punching me in the shoulder for thinking I cut ahead of him in line, has done something vastly less immoral than the doctor in my example.

I don't feel it's immoral for people to express whatever they want to express, even if it's dishonest, manipulative, etc.--again, be at least a bit skeptical of what people say.

I think this is odd. That guy is dishonest and manipulative - perjorative terms - but not immoral - pejorative term. Could you parse that for me`? To immoral is a larger category, in which one subset of behavior would be dishonest and manipulative behavior.
If you'd described the doctor's behavior as imaginative and thinking out of the box. Well, ok. You don't just it with pejorative terms. But you did use pejorative terms. Why is the pejorative 'immoral' wrong to use?

Wow that's even stronger than not thinking any speech should be restricted. So the doctor walks up to your kid after the tests and says 'Sorry kind, the kind of brain tumor you got, it'll kill you slowly and painfully.' And either laughs wildly (if it's true he's got a tumor) or keeps talking about the upcoming horrors until he decides to say he was just kidding. Nor immoral?

or
someone at work walks up to after you've been in a meeting and say that your wife came by and they couldn't find you and how sorry he is that your daughter was killed by a bus.'

It's kinda fun making these up, but you the idea. I presume you won't think these are immoral. I can't imagine why, though. Let me know.

although I suppose often enough it leads to behavior that I'd classify as immoral. — Terrapin Station

If one thinks in moral terms, and calls someone 'mean' I can't really imagine how that person has not acted from that meanness and thus been immoral in what ever that person's moral system is. It can't just be nasty thoughts. And even something like meanspirited...it seems to me there would be actions. I could imagine saying 'that guy feels mean or hateful or something. But to call someone mean, I think, needs to be coupled to prior acts.

A. Joe is a mean person.
B: What did he do?

That question it seems to me can always expect and answer. I suppose the mean person might have just stared at the proverbial old lady in the street moaning and pain and done nothing, but that would probably be immoral to most people, and to those who would use the word 'mean'.

Probably tangential, but for me dignity, while a factor, seems far less motivating than unedurable pain - could be in part emotional if the illness or age has reduced function to a large degree. Where there is no end in sight for the pain and the patient cannot stand living Those would be the most understandible candidates. Especially if coupled with the inability to do anything the person finds meaning in, either due to that pain or to other facets of the disease or state.

The word mean carries the judgment that there is something wrong with them. 'Mean' has in it a value judgment that whatever it describes is, to some degree, negative, bad. Perhaps someone else would call what you are callilng a mean guy, a blunt, person with high standards who tells people what he thinks of them. Those are more neutral terms. Might be an asshole, might be a great friend. Might be an ok person, who knows. But if you tell me X is mean. I know you judge hiim in a negative way or you wouldn't use that word. You pretty much have to think he is immoral, if you use the word 'mean', unless you don't believe in morals, but note that he acts in ways intended to hurt people's feelings.

It's a bit like one can't call a car crap and not think it's a bad car. That isn't a moral judgment, but mean is also pejorative and must, I think, entail a moral judgment if the speaker thinks in moral terms.

Mean is pejorative and the only way you could tell if someone is mean is through acts. So if you use the term 'mean' to describe someone, unless you do not believe in morals, you would think they are immoral. I don't think mean can just cover an attitude.

If you used a word that covers the same behavior and intentions of a mean person, but is not pejorative, then perhaps you could say it does not entail them being immoral.

I'd be interested in your take on the paragraphs in the middle of her last post to me. I have read them a few times and feel they are unclear. LOL, maybe I have been misunderstanding.

Rather than the definition "shifting" I expel it ONLY when it has exhausted it's usefulness (which yours.. I do not find adequate), in philosophical, social-political, in other contexts outside of just "just an emotion" (i.e. Psych) - or fixating on "just language" ("I hate people"), which I find simply distracting and trivial. — Swan

I would say hatred has a cognitive aspect also, so this is a good point. Rage can come cathartically, hate for me entails at least a temoporary categotization. A though that goes along with the emotion. I may have focused too much on the emotion and not this part and this could have been part of us talking past each other.

To here is where I draw a distinction between "hate" (some form of stress relief) and "hatred" (in practice), the latter that does not necessarily have to entail "rage" - or prolonged periods of "rage" but only necessarily corresponding behaviors, and the former not making any meaningful distinctions between (especially culturally) between other stress relief words and phrases, or reactions such as 'disgust', distrust, repulsion, etc. To where I personally don't find it interesting anymore. — Swan

I found this a little tricky to understand. If I missed it my apologies, but could you go into the kinds of reactions that I brought up a couple of times, where people feel hatred for employers or other people with power, where they cannot really confront the person and there is something abusive or chronically disrespectful on the employers part (or the employee thinks so). I think similar dynamics can occur related to issues of sexism, homophobia, racism, where for me it makes sense to say that these patterns elicit hate. In a sense hate in response to hate or prolonged disrespect. I would also say that longer term relationships, especially where there is an eventual split, say in a divorce can have significant periods, and repeated moods of hate. I think this is what the people say. In my own experiences - around friend's parents, relationships I have been around, and once for me - this is not just anger or rage or disgust coming in quickly and leaving.

A similar phenomena has happened for example, with the word "misogynist" - which, by the book, is just "a hatred of women" but the definition begins to become inadequate when we venture into the men that practice misogyny - rather than just say, "wow I hate women" (e.g. making misogynistic statements) after a trivial break-up as a form of a psychological catharsis (rather than a guy that genuinely just "hates" women) or people labeling all others that express controversial opinions of women misogynists, etc., but examining further, we can discern and see this is not the case, and such words have lost it's significance and must be re-defined to where they are useful once again, because obviously, the definition does not adequately explain anything - nor give a sufficient reflection of what is being said. — Swan

I wouldn't use misogynist for a person who blurts out that they hate women. I agree it would have to be part of a long term pattern. At least, I think I am agreeing with what you wrote. I am not talking about short moments of catharsis. And in fact I am glad that misogyny came up, because I do think it is fairly widespread in society, but would not consider using it for what you are saying above does not count as true misogeny. IOW I see this as rather widespread and that many of the patterns brought to light in the me too movement are signs of a hatred of women and also, given that women have often had to experience this in unequal power situations, a cause for hatred in response.

I mention these types of situations because I think they are fairily common in society, most of them relation to power imalances and oftne chronic, because I do think hate is involved, and not just the trivial cathartic version you do not count. I also think that many of the people who do feel hatred are not in need of therapy, CBT or another, but often need a different boss, to get out of a bad relationship - despite the children, for example - and also potentially to fight against systematic hatred that some groups face. And sometimes it is not easy to extricate oneself from these patterns for various reasons.

If it seems that yet again I have unfairly pulled your quotes out of context or misunderstood you, just let me know, I'll drop the discussion with you directly..

I appreciate that you took the time to respond...I just saw this...

If you read the text (which is also Cohen's problem), you could figure that out on your own. The reason I did not want to respond in the first place, because even then there was no point, as he isn't even reading - let alone understanding, because he quoted something, and responded in a fashion to where the quoted passage, DOESN'T EVEN SAY THAT. (Talking at me).

I don't think you did what I asked for above. I think we might be able to reach each other. But here you are saying I quoted you, but then responded in a way that showed I hadn't read what you wrote. What I was asking for in my previous post was an example of this kind of thing. Maybe I missed it in your latest post. But it seemed like you repeated your position again, in a new way.