Mothers with daughters have much more insight into what could cause damage to girls at that age than you or I do because of internal experience and close observation. — Tree Falls

You're assuming that these mothers have only their daughter's internal well-being as the motivation for their position. You only need to look at things like 'rape-shaming' and forced marriages to see that this is blatantly not the case.

You're talking about interfering in the autonomy of another human being (two in fact). Denying a person's autonomy is considered by many ethicists to be about the most immoral thing one can do, you need an awful lot more than just speculation before you consider it.

So you don't think that adult women who have to care for their daughters have more insight into their sexual and psychological vulnerabilities than you do? — Tree Falls

By what logic would mothers have some magical insight but the daughters themselves not know their own minds?

...? Are you suggesting that it isn't? — tim wood

I'm suggesting it can't be. It cannot be both wise to ban sex at age 13-18 and be wise to allow sex at age 13-18. The two opinions are directly opposed to each other, how can they both be 'wisdom'?

If you are claiming that the American law is collective wisdom then you must also be claiming that the laws of every country in Europe are not wise. If so, how is it that America ended up with wise laws but Europe did not?

How will you preserve that meaning in posterity, for yourself, personally, after your own death? — Noble Dust

I don't think I will, I'm not at all concerned about meaning after I die. If, after I die, it turns out that I have some kind of conscious awareness, then that will no doubt present its own set of challenges. Maybe I will still have desires, maybe there will be some form of 'action' I can take to bring about those desires, in which case there will be a whole new set of meanings and purposes after I die, but I can't possibly know any of this, so any action taken now to affect my existence in this theoretical state would be purposeless.

Preserving meaning in this world, after I've left it, is not really something that concerns me, that would be up to those still here.

And I'm suggesting that your "purpose" is meaningless because it dies once you die.

A purpose that actually is purposeful is a purpose that exists outside of time; outside of one's lifetime. — Noble Dust

Why though? Why does a purpose cease to have meaning simply because it is achieved at some point. My purpose is to live 70 happy years. At some point in time I will have achieved that objective. I'm not seeing how the fact that I will achieve it removes meaning.

It means that meaning relates to something outside of time. — Noble Dust

OK, so what is this 'something' outside of time to which it relates, and how do you know that meaning relates to something outside of time, is this a guess, intuition or rationally derived?

All the while it seems we're no closer to the idea of 'purpose' which is much more clearly defined. Purpose is the reason why we do something, the goal (either ultimate or proximate). I'm suggesting that goal is unavoidably the satisfaction of those desires which are self-evidently present. No further 'purpose' seems to be justified.

why would this lack of knowledge mean that the concept is irrelevant to your meaning or purpose in life? — Noble Dust

Because if we do not (and cannot) know anything at all about how to achieve this objective, how could it possibly be our 'purpose', the reason for our actions? We cannot act in such a way as to bring about an objective we have no knowledge of.

Even something so simple as the distinction between religion and spirituality, with all of it's stigmas, would, at the very least, clarify your confusion here. — Noble Dust

I don't see any distinction between religion and spirituality apart from how many people believe you. They are both essentially descriptions of the world, and prescriptions for behaviour based on those descriptions, neither of which can be measured in any way (otherwise they would be science). So religion/spirituality are both ways of satisfying a set of desires using guesswork rather than observed successes perceived with our senses.

Meaning and purpose only obtain teleologically; otherwise it's just a nihilistic sham. — Noble Dust

This is familiar territory. I get the feeling I'm never going to understand this. "Meaning and purpose only obtain teleologicallly" - what does that mean for what we actually think?

I have certain desires - this is something I take to be self-evident brute fact.

Those desires are not always clear and are often contradictory, but the fact that I want to understand them, and achieve fully as many of them as possible again seems to be undeniable brute fact.

My meaning and purpose in life therefore seems to be unavoidably the clarification and fulfilment of these desires.

One of those desires might well be for an eternity in bliss, but I have no idea what this might be like, nor how to go about ensuring it happens, so it is irrelevant to my meaning and purpose in life.

I've (erroneously) attributed religious claims to your argument because it seems to me that only by making religious claims can the persuit of anything outside of our sensory experience become meaningful. Unless we just guess?

But we're not talking about a 'possibility'. The 'possibility' exists that after my life persuing evolutionarily derived happiness I somehow spend an eternity in bliss. That would be lovely. I don't see what that's got to do with meaning or purpose. Both 'meaning', and particularly, 'purpose' suggest their opposites exist. If your 'purpose' is an eternity of bliss then how do you know you're not going to get that anyway? How do you know that any particular set of activities are going to bring about that objective?

So now, when we get to religion, we're no longer talking about a 'possibility' requiring 'imagination'. We're talking about an actual human being claiming to know what people 'should' do in order to achieve this bliss. Doesn't sound very imaginative to me, sounds pretty determined.

What good is an evolutionarily obtained happiness if it ends at around 70 years old? Who gives a fuck? — Noble Dust

What good is happiness if it doesn't end? It's the fact that we're going to die that makes it worth doing anything. If we were to carry on eternally, what would be the point in doing anything, you'd always be able to do everything an infinite number of times anyway, there'd be no point in 'now' at all.

So evolutionarily obtained happiness is your meaning or purpose? — Noble Dust

Yes.

I didn't say I don't have an alternative. — Noble Dust

I'd be interested to hear what it is (unless it's God, I've heard that one already).

And law, too, is a statement of collective wisdom. — tim wood

But how can it be when in Spain the age of consent is 13, in the UK its 16 (but 14 in some circumstances), in France the law is different (they don't have an age of consent) but effectively its 11? Are you saying that the entire non-American population are not wise? Or is there something special about American 16 year old that means denying them the choice about what to do with their own bodies is 'wisdom' but it is not so with European 16 year olds?

The reason why human rights legislation works so well is that it is universal, not cultural. You're trying to make your own cultural biases into a deontology.

. So you can't even make whatever argument you're trying to make here without one. Meaning or purpose is inherent, but not always acknowledged. — Noble Dust

Yes, I'm making the argument here because it makes me happy to clarify things and arguing with intelligent people is one way to do that.

I could construct an evolutionary story to explain why clarifying ideas is likely to make me happy - clearer ideas are more likely to lead to innovations which could increase the chances of my tribe surviving in a changing environment. Having an evolutionary story helps to reassure me that the happiness I could get from this objective is the best, and there isn't greater happiness to be had from a different set of objectives.

I seek this reassurance because it makes me happy to know that my objectives are likely to provide me with significant happiness in the long term. Again, the story I can use to explain this is that some objectives require periods of unhappiness to achieve them, in evolutionary terms, it makes sense to assign at least some effort to checking that there is likely to be some reward at the end of the process.

But, what might we want, other than happiness? Is there something else to desire, other than happiness? — Noble Dust

Well exactly. If you don't even have an alternative, what is it that makes you think happiness isn't it?

I hear this kind of argument so often and yet have always failed to understand it properly. I have little hope that an Internet forum is going to break decades of mystery for me, but on the off-chance - what do you mean by "meaning/purpose"?

It always seems when people use these terms against naturalism they seem to be looking for something other than happiness (on the grounds that we can just ask "well, why persue happiness?"), but when we find that something (let's call it X, but quite frankly it's almost always God) it seems inexplicably we can no longer ask "why persue X?".

Are these scenarios fundamentally different?
What causes us to see these scenarios differently? — Uneducated Pleb

Yes the scenarios are fundamentally different, because Lions live in prides with a dominant male who has mating privileges with the harem of females and relies on the genetic identity of the harem's collective offspring to ensure the survival of it's genetic material. Humans are broadly polygamous pro-social creatures where the male's relationship with a female is long-term. The survival of his genetic material is ensured by the stability of the relationship (human young are vulnerable for quite some time) and by the success of the social group to which he belongs (meaning that it is almost as valuable for him to bring up a relative's child as it is to bring up his own).
So If the male murders his partner's former child it is unlikely to be because of some instinct. Instincts such as that, if played out in our evolutionary past would be unlikely to produce successful groups as in-group cohesion was a more important survival factor than genetic purity.
That's why we don't see male-initiated infanticide in other very pro-social groups. Male ants do not try to kill the larvae of other males, male meercats do not try to kill the offspring of their brothers and cousins, etc.
The error here is a common one. evolution can produce any strategy that works in the environment it works in. Each species will have a more-or-less unique strategy, looking at any specific other species (not even vaguely related to humans) and suggesting that our behaviour should be in any way similar to theirs is to not understand the way evolution works)
This article gives a good overview of the many causes of infanticide in the animal kingdom, as well as a few examples of species in which it is entirely absent.

Yet, the same biological underpinnings that run through the other primates (and all life for that matter) run through us. — Uneducated Pleb

No, that's what makes us a different species. Similar biological underpinnings run through us, not the same ones, otherwise we would be chimpanzees and we're not. As Jared Diamond put it "Humans are unique... but there's nothing unique about being unique"

What uncomfortable biological truths become exposed human conventions in organization and relations? — Uneducated Pleb

Why do you presume they would be uncomfortable? What is it (apart from a latent anti-nature prejudice I'm sensing) that makes you think all biological instincts must be 'bad' and all human things we do to avoid them must be 'good'?

I don't see why having faith in God does not equate to having faith in your senses. — René Descartes

Because if someone shows me an optical illusion I don't try to maintain the belief that my eyes were right and come up with some increasingly convoluted story to explain it. I just accept the evidence that my eyes were in fact mistaken on that occasion. If anyone proved logic to be untrustworthy I would accept that and use the new method they suggest. Religion is not interested in the truth, its interested in making things fit the answer it already has.

Can I see this "huge elaborate proof". — René Descartes

Of course not, do you not understand how thought experiments work, or the meaning of the word 'imagine'?

I didn't say religion had nothing to say in philosophy. I said that those propositions of religious belief which are taken on faith cannot be used to argue against opposing propositions arrived at by logical inference. It makes no sense.

Imagine I came up with a huge elaborate proof in mathematics that in fact P=nP. What would be the point in someone publishing an opposition simply stating P does not equal nP... "because I believe it doesn't". How does that advance collective knowledge any?

If there are thing you simply believe to be the case on faith, that's fine, but it's pointless discussing them with other people who are trying to use logic to arrive at their beliefs.

Philosophy is really about trying to arrive at some justified beliefs based off the fewest axioms possible. Theology is about understanding and deriving implications from the axioms already given. The two are only compatible to the extent that the theologian claims to be able to derive religious beliefs from as few axioms as the philosopher.

This is a philosophy forum, not a religion forum. If you have a philosophical point to make, make it, but just saying determinist philosophies don't contradict theology because the book says so is not a philosophical argument.

If the religious wish to make a philosophical argument (and many do) they are implicitly claiming, as philosophers like Plantagina do, that their epistemological system is defensible. If its not defensible logically, but taken on faith, that's fine, but it's not philosophy, it religion.

Determinists are suggesting that they have a logical argument which denies free-will. That is relevant to those who think they have a logical argument in favour of free-will. If anyone wishes to abandon logic and simply take matters on faith, that's their choice, but they don't then get to dictate the meaning of terms, nor have they got any place in philosophical arguments. Its pointless just saying "I believe whatever the bible says" as a line of argument. What's anyone supposed to say to that?

I don't understand what you mean by "so what?". One could reply "so what?" to every proposition. Is there some reason you've singled out my propositions for such treatment?

So what? — Noble Dust

Its a logical argument disputing the idea that we've 'always' struggled against the cruelty of nature and 'always' will, there is no "so".

So what is the "natural" state? — Noble Dust

The state in which we evolved, hunter-gatherers.

Bad things happen in life because we are fragile and nature is rough. — Bitter Crank

There's a very simple empirical argument against this kind of apologism.

P1. Stress, great displeasure and depression are evolved responses.
P2. Stress, great displeasure and depression are very harmful to the survival of the individual.
P3. Humans evolved through a process of evolution through natural selection.

C1. From P1-3, if the natural state of humans was high levels of stress and depression we would either have died out, or e would have had to evolve ways in which they were not so harmful to our survival.
C2. It cannot be the case that states which cause high levels of stress and depression are the 'natural' state for humans.

Of course if you want to discard an entire planet's worth of empirical evidence in favour of some black magic mumbo-jumbo designed to subjugate the uncritical masses, then carry on, I apologise for the interruption.

Can someone define what exactly is meant by de-platforming? How exactly does it work? — Chany

De-platforming, as far as I'm aware, was coined by the National Union of Students in the UK, and refers to attempts by that union to prevent certain people from finding opportunities to speak to certain groups. They campaign to their respective university authorities to refuse to host these people. The concept within ethical debate (at least those I've been party to) has been extended to essentially saying that people have a right to try and prevent others from speaking within their communities if they feel their speech may be harmful.

What justification can be given to de-platform racists while not de-platforming other groups? — Chany

The justification arises from the harm to society. Racism harms society.

First, I'm not sure that the extremes of rationality or irrationality required for the argument to work hold true. Some people are more prone to rationality in some areas of their life than others. — Chany

This is true, but the only way this would limit the paradox would be if people were consistently irrational when it came to agreeing with those ideas which appear suppressed, but suddenly rational when it came to assessing debate. I don't deny people vary in their rationality, but I really can't see them doing so in such a way as to consistently undo the paradox in this way.

Second, I don't see how de-platforming becomes irrelevant if people are rational; "you might find an argument stating on the Dark Web" doesn't seem like that strong of a position. — Chany

Perhaps you could expand on why you think this position is weak?

Third, rational argument may be "best" for reasons other than pursuading opposition, which it seems to be operating as. I may use rational arguments in educational settings in order to shut down and redicule the absurdity of racist claims, — Chany

That sounds like 'persuading' to me. Ridicule only works with an already sympathetic audience. We ridicule Nazis now, the silly walks and Hugo Boss uniforms, how successful do you think ridicule would have been in 1940s Berlin?

"I believe that de-platforming a racist position can cause a small but sizable number of people to garner sympathy and potential support and I also believe that rational arguments against racism is a good way of stopping the spread of these beliefs." With that, I'm not sure the paradox exists. — Chany

No, that's is the paradox exactly. By what empirical justification do you believe this, how are you defining these groups? I can only see one way in which this statement could make rational sense and that it you postulate a group of people who become irrationally more sympathetic to a cause because people deny it a platform, and a separate group who are willing to be rationally persuaded by counter arguments. I concede that two such groups are possible, but you've not provided any evidence that they are probable, nor that they outweigh the third group who irrationally believe that because the ideas are given platforms, that makes it OK to believe them.

To summarise I think it is possible to identify three reactions to de-platforming;

1. Become more sympathetic to the cause because it has been denied a platform.
2. Become more sympathetic to the cause because you've heard no rational rebuttal or ridicule (because the debate didn't take place).
3. Become less sympathetic to the cause because it seem like a fringe position that most of your community are so opposed to they don't even want to hear it again.

All I'm arguing is that;
Groups 1 and 2 can't be the same people, because 1 is irrational and 2 is rational.
Group 3 ties in more closely with everything we know about human psychology, crowd following, Zeitgeist, paradigms etc. and so represents the most likely and largest group.
Group 2 is a strawman because these arguments have been heard before and there's nothing to stop people rationally rebutting and ridiculing the old version of it, we do not need to hear them again and again.
And finally, that notwithstanding the above utilitarian argument, there's a virtue ethical argument to be had which says that a community has the right to express it's virtues through define behaviour and rhetoric it considers taboo.

I think that's exactly the correct response in that case. I hope it lasts. Do you think May will give in and invite him over at some stage, despite the unpopularity of such a move with the British people? — andrewk

On this rare occasion I actually have some faith in the population (I'm generally fairly despairing of modern humanity), I think it would be political suicide for May to go against popular opinion on this. My only concern is that that political suicide seems to be something May is drawn to like a lemming.

I think people are impressed by dignified protest. — andrewk

The voter will probably never hear what the racist says, because they didn't go to the rally, and the rally won't make the TV news, because it was only the violent demonstrations that made it newsworthy. — andrewk

I think these two quotes really summarise a large part of our disagreement, and as both are essentially judgement calls, I'm not sure that I can persuade you any more than you could persuade me.

Firstly, I think people are impressed by causes, ones the support for which confer membership of a social group to which they want to belong. Non-violence is often part of that cause. I don't think there is overwhelming evidence of people like Gandhi having more success in their cause than, for example, the anti-segregation riots. I respect Gandhi's approach more, but that's because I'm a reasonable person who doesn't want anyone to suffer needlessly. That means I already agree with Gandhi's cause, his non-violence isn't something that would win me over unless I already thought that needless suffering was a bad thing, and the might of the strong oppressing the weak, was a bad thing. The ethical position must come first in order for me to find the lack of violence compelling.

This I think is at the heart of the first element of where we differ. You're seeing all political views as morally neutral, or at least seeing their potential supporters as neutral members of society, but I don't believe they are. Someone who is a potential supporter of Trump, or some other racist is not the same kind of person as someone who is a potential supporter of Gandhi, so the kinds of behaviour that will genuinely appeal to them (not the kinds of behaviour they say appeal to them) will be different. So whilst Gandhi's non-violence might have persuaded someone previously only slightly sympathetic to his cause, I don't see anything to convince me that the non-violence of antifa students is going to do anything to persuade someone previously slightly sympathetic to racists to be less so. What would the lack of one group oppressing another appeal to someone at risk of being persuaded by policies proposing exactly that?

Besides, the student's wouldn't have to protest violently if they had the right to say to their university that they did not want that speaker on campus, so focussing on the violence of the protest is missing the point. It's the right of a community to say that they do not wish to hear from people with certain opinions.

The second, unrelated issue, is that I think you're placing too much hope of some spurious presumptions like the one I quote. The voter will 'probably' never hear what the racist says. Do you think it's safe to take that chance, knowing what we know about the power of rhetoric? I certainly don't. Someone's going to hear what they say, and those people are going to feel more entitled to spread that message until you end up with a situation like we had in Nazi Germany, or with the rise of fascism in Europe. I just don't think it's worth the risk.

But it just occurred to me that maybe you're American (apparently many people on here are). If so then the biggest platform problem you've got is that your head of state is a fascist. So he can get horrifically mean and discriminatory views on the national news simply via twitter. — andrewk

For some reason revealing of my own unacceptable prejudice I'm slightly offended that you think I'm American. Anyway, I'm English, Our biggest problem is the BNP, UKIP etc., but the problem of Trump I see as an example, not an exception, and the British response has been instrumental. We've basically said that we don't want him over here to speak, that nothing he's got to say is of any interest to us. I think that's a very powerful expression of the contempt in which we hold his views, much more powerful than letting him over here and debating them, as if they had any kind of legitimate reasons that might require some thought.

It sounds a lot like Kant's views on property. Kant considered that because there was a connection between property and agency (humans being a tool-using species), there would entail a contingent right to it, but the consequence of that right would be that it imposed a concomitant duty on others. Thus, he concluded, such a right could only be asserted by negotiation with those others upon whom it placed a duty.

As only those who had an interest in the land would be obliged by any duty created out of your right to own it, only they would need to be involved in the negotiation of that right.

The problem with this approach, as people like Rawls have pointed out, is that those upon whom a concomitant duty is placed by your claim, are not necessarily the same group as those who would have to suffer the consequences of your claim, and so the excersice of such claims is not necessarily just.

Consider that, as a consequence of your agreement that you own the land in respect of those who also wish to own it, you decide to fell all the trees. Such an action allows the topsoil to wash away which cannot be replaced. A hundred years later, someone (maybe a descendant of a party who did not lay claim to the land orginally) wishes to farm there, but cannot. Your right to the land has infringed on future rights to it (by use) without negotiation.

This gets into the very difficult territory (for Kant anyway) of duties to future generations. The failure to resolve which is what puts me off Kant.

I prefer an Aristolean approach, where property is an expression of virtue. That which comes into your possession and the nature by which you possess it are only justified insofar as they are an extension of your expression of virtue. By this approach, you could justify your ownership morally by the virtue of your intension. This isn't quite so crazy as it sounds. It's the ethical justification behind confiscation, for example. So in your model, you would own something in respect, not of others claims, but of other competing uses of the property.

The argument I'm trying to make is an argument about arguments. Seems to me, people have a lot of difficulty being charitable to their opponents. It's too easy to profoundly misunderstand each other. I don't trust your hubris on this, that you would do more good than harm as Grand Curator of ideas. I have the same hubris and I don't trust it in myself either. — Roke

I'm glad that you're focussing on the 'argument about arguments' as you put it. That's exactly what I'm talking about too. Where I differ is that I don't see this meta-level as being in any way excused from ethics.

I don't trust my hubris either (though personally I wouldn't describe it as hubris if we're not trusting it, but just to keep the term, we'll go along with it for now), it doesn't mean we don't still have a choice to make.

These utilitarian calculations you're doing are impossible.Freedom to express earnestly held ideas and beliefs just seems foundational to the human condition to me. — Roke

I don't believe they are entirely utilitarian. On an individual level, I'm a virtue ethicist. I know we got a little sidetracked into government, but I did originally say that I felt 'community leaders' should be able to prevent certain people from speaking to their community. I think this is not a matter of utilitarianism, but one of virtue. As I've said earlier in this post (I think), I would not allow that kind of talk in my house as an expression of my values, such expressions are an important part of community ethics and I see it as just as much " foundational to the human condition " as you do with expression of ideas.

In Hunter-Gather societies, despite an almost total absence of coercion to do anything at all, those who do not share food are routinely ostracised. Sharing is such a fundamental part of their community virtue, that they need to express their intolerance of any transgression. I don't see how you could make an empirical argument to say that the free expression of ideas is foundational to the human condition, but then deny the fact that the ability to express virtues through taboo behaviours and attitudes is not.

I would argue that espousing the treatment of one section of our community such as to put them at a disadvantage, or maintain a disadvantage they have been put at historically, is against good human values, and any community has a right to express those values by ostracising those who transgress them. If anything has a claim to be 'foundational' it's that.

... it's not that I'm correct. It's that self-righteous meddling is an indulgence that should be held in check. — Roke

Do you see how contradictory this is, you claim humility in the face of a calculation about the position of out hypothetical speaker (you think he's wrong but are not going to be supercilious enough to say so with enough certainty to ban him), but then you make a statement that self-righteous meddling (as you put it) should definitely be held in check. Where's the humility in that decision? You seem all of a sudden to know exactly what's right and what's wrong on this meta-issue, and I just don't think it's that clear. Free-speech seems to be being given a place in the set of human virtues above all else, and I just don't see any convincing arguments to justify its commanding position.

Isn't that the point and the goal of de-platforming? Whether it works is a different thing. — BlueBanana

No, the goal of de-platforming is to prevent rhetoric that can incite people to take up ideas that are harmful to society. Absolutely nothing prevents those doing the de-platforming from rationally and publicly explaining why the ideas of the de-platformed speaker are harmful.

I entirely agree that it is difficult to define, but that doesn't mean we get to throw our hands up and say "let's not bother then". That something is difficult to get right doesn't have any unique bearing on the morality of doing it, it's still about balancing harms.

So far as a definition is concerned we might simply add that the treatment either harms the community concerned, or raises them favourably above others. Such an addition would enable certain kinds of positive discrimination, where the action raised the community concerned favourably, but only up to, not above, the level of others.

To you have concerns still about this slightly refined definition?

This a moral or perhaps aesthetic claim rather than a metaphysical one. — Justin1

OK, that's an improvement, but now we run into GE Moore's open question. How can you define Universal Perfection without using the term 'good', or 'perfect' which you haven't previously defined.
If we define this perfect universe with just a set of arbitrary conditions, then we've defined a particular universe, but not demonstrated that it is 'perfect'.
If we define it as the universe everyone would want most, then your 'should' term becomes meaningless because everyone is obviously desires this universe already.

What we need is some objective way of defining what 'good' is.

I never claimed purity, the claim was that I hardly buy any items which contribute to the Chinese economy. You're making exactly the sort of whining, weak-willed excuses that cause these problems, "we can't eliminate these things entirely so we might as well not bother", "unless you're a Saint you're not allowed to suggest how other people can improve" it's bullshit, and you know it.

I'm with you up to point 3. To get here you have to make a fundamental choice in metaphysics that you have not outlined your reason for.

To say we 'should' hope for something is to say that we are in control of what we hope for, but if we were in control of what we desire, where would the desire come from to act in the way you suggest? We would have to put it there. But why would we put it there, where would the desire to put it there come from, we'd have to put that there too... And so on.

There are only two ways out of this problem, Dualism (where there is an origin for our desires that does not behave in the cause-effect manner we observe in the physical realm), or Determinism (where our desires simply arise without our control, either as a result of some prior cause, or as a result of some randomness of quantum uncertainty, but either way, not because we put them there).

If your argument is going to hinge on what we 'should' desire, you'll have to tackle the issue of how we can decide what it is we desire.

Do you actually read my threads before posting you're pointless jibes? My entire computer is second hand (bar the hard drive which was made in Japan), my fridge is second hand, I do not own a television, nor a dvd player. None of these things have given any money to the Chinese government in any way. I do not approve of their treatment of workers so I do not buy from them, there's plenty of stuff people don't want anymore for me to not have to.

If everyone bought stuff second hand we'd very soon run out and then we'd have to make some hard choices, but already there is the Fairphone, a smartphone made entirely from conflict-free resources, there are companies like aleutian computers who source materials from countries with good records on worker's rights where they can and at least give something back to those communities in the form of education or healthcare where they can't.

This ideas that we're all helpless and might as well not bother is just an excuse.

You've raised a few separate issues;

1. De-platforming racists would be marginalising them in the same way as they wish to marginalise and so we should not do it.

2. We cannot trust our government so we should not allow them to restrict freedom of speech for any reason.

3. People are racists/sexists because of resource scarcity and if we prevent them form speaking on these grounds we're somehow ignoring the resource scarcity issue.

So

1. If a person imprisons someone should we spare them prison because we should not do back to them what they did, should we show them that imprisoning people is wrong by letting them go free? If a person takes someone's possessions, should we let them keep those possessions because we wouldn't want to just take them back, we want to show them that we do not just take stuff?
Of course not. You've completely missed the main driving force of interventionist ethics which is Justice. We imprison the imprisoner because we are justified in doing so and he was not. We take possessions from the thief because we are justified in doing so and he was not. We marginalise the person trying to marginalise people because we are justified in doing so and he is not. Rhetoric which may lead to or encourage the oppression of a particular section of society who themselves are causing no harm is something which we have good reason to believe will cause an increase in suffering. We are therefore right to try and prevent that increase, unless we have equally good reason to think that doing so will cause more suffering somewhere else.

2. I am not speaking to government, I'm speaking to people, who are in a democratic country (mostly). When we say "government should...", we obviously do not mean that government should do this without the mandate of it's population. What we mean is that "people (the people to whom we are speaking) should ask their government to...". This idea that we can't trust the government is trotted out repeatedly in arguments about enforcing what is morally right, but it's a non-sequitur. We cannot trust the government because we have voted in a government which is patently untrustworthy. To say we cannot trust the government is synonymous with saying we cannot trust the population, a sentiment with which I would entirely agree. So where do we go from there? Does that automatically lead to the fact that we should not give these powers to government? Well we've just concluded that we can't trust individuals with them to any greater extent. If individuals could be persuaded by rational argument then they would have voted in a more trustworthy government wouldn't they? Government, no matter what scale, is simply a reflection of the will of the people There should be no problem with government power acting to prevent societal harm if the people who put them there voted rationally/morally. The reason why there is a huge problem with the exercise of government power is that the people who put them there did not vote rationally/morally. I don't see how removing power from government does anything to impact on that problem. People are no more free to do as they think best because they are still restricted from doing so by the same irrational population that voted in the government we can't trust with the job.
When I say that these matters 'should' be decided by government, I mean we (the individuals) 'should' vote in a government whom we trust to make these decisions on our behalf and then that government 'should' make them.

3. I don't understand what the root cause of racism/sexism has to do with preventing potentially harmful rhetoric. I expect resource scarcity has quite a lot to do with gun crime too, but we don't allow the crime to take place so that we can better focus on the poverty at the heart of the problem. We ban gun crime to protect people and then with any spare resources we focus on the poverty at the root (or at least that's what we 'should' do). I see no difference here. Rhetoric encouraging oppression will cause harm, we act to prevent that harm and then with any spare resources we focus on the root cause.

We've never trusted politicians with the censorship of speech and I think for good reason. — Roke

Of course we trust government with the censorship of free-speech. Who is it do you think prevents hate-speech, incitement to violence, defamation, bad language in from of children, threats, verbal harassment ..?

We prevent a person's free-speech for the well-being of wider society all the time, and it's government which gets to decide what might be against the well-being of society because someone has to, and there is no better authority to do the job.

Are you opposed to government protecting society from the harms caused by the list of restrictions on free-speech above? If not then you need to put forward an argument for why your line-in-the-sand is where it is, rather than just bemoan the fact that we have to draw one at all.

Affirmative action always entails treating people differently based on their birth parents, which is the definition of racism you proposed. — Roke

Then my definition of racism is wrong. This isn't a game where we try to catch each other out with grammar, we're talking about ethics which affect people's lives.

But with regards to affirmative action itself, if for 200 years, some sub-section of the population have been forced to live in a hole and we decide that everyone should live at the same height, in order to rectify that we must lift up those people currently in holes, it's pointless saying "that's discrimination, we should lift everyone up", not everyone is in a hole.

Did you even read the article you cite? Here's a few quotes.

"... casts doubt on the supposed connection."

"... the correlation between implicit bias and discriminatory behavior appears weaker than previously thought."

"... there’s not necessarily strong evidence for the conclusions people have drawn,"

Note 'doubt', 'appears' and 'not necessarily'. Hardly 'debunked'.

In addition to the excessive certainty you've given this study, it is only about the relationship between visual bias stimuli and behaviour. It doesn't have any bearing on the issue of whether prejudiced behaviour actually exists.

Oh, good, you mean politicians. That's reassuring because I can't imagine them silencing oppositional political views by disingenuously painting them as racist. — Roke

Are politicians a different species then? We leave all these decisions in the hands of ordinary individuals and they somehow miraculously work out fine, but ask someone who should have been chosen by those same individuals to represent them and the objectives become underhand?

I think politics is far from perfect (for a start I'd require politicians to at least be qualified in their area of expertise) but it's the best system we've got for ensuring that might doesn't always make right.

Let me ask you an honest, non-rhetorical, question. Is affirmative action racist? — Roke

It depends on the nature of the action. If one has good reason to believe that the distribution of those wishing to join an institution is different from the population that actually make it to membership by some discriminating factor, then affirmative action is taken to rectify an error. If all one has is evidence that the distribution of some discriminating factor in an institution is different to that of the population as a whole, I don't see that would be anything short of social engineering. In the latter case, a charge of racism would depend entirely on the objective of the engineering in question.

Who exactly is this rational 'we' that get to de-platform the less enlightened 'them'? — Roke

I would have thought the same rational 'we' responsible for absolutely every single other restriction on autonomy or balancing of competing interests - the democratically elected representatives of whatever community is involved.

The less enlightened 'them' would be people who preach the different treatment of others on the basis of skin colour, gender or any other accident of birth. Any policy in fact which demonstrably increases the suffering of sentient creatures. To suggest such opinions have a place in policy discussions is akin to suggesting that astrologers have something useful to say at a physics conference.

Amazingly, the university I go to some times for classes refuses to go near this subject not will they touch the financing of racism pretending instead that it is sort of genetic aberration in some people. — Rich

Then I would go to another university, the one you've chosen is clearly rubbish. I can't think of a single professor within the entire humanities or philosophy departments at my university, nor even colleagues at any other that I know, who would consider that poverty does not play a part in the adoption of racist views. But then I take it you're American, and they consider Stephen Pinker an academic over there so maybe I'm not that surprised afterall.

Sorry, but racism isn't anywhere near the most significant factor in why police shoot some black people. It's noteworthy, however, that you attribute the mere fact of a black man being shot by a police officer to racism. Do you realize how insane that is? — Thorongil

Let's make this simple. In police fatal shootings, civilians from “other” minority groups were significantly more likely than Whites to have not been attacking the officer(s) or other civilians and that Black civilians were more than twice as likely as White civilians to have been unarmed.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1745-9133.12269/abstract;jsessionid=8BFE5F45677070AA9A729F26B245D853.f02t03

Are you suggesting that despite a 99% confidence in the statistical significance, the fact that they're black is just a coincidence?

My fear is that others wouldn't be nearly so charitable and would try to forge necessary connections between racism and the holding of certain positions that are not overtly racist. By doing so they'd endeavor to eliminate more than just obvious forms of racist speech.

But perhaps I'm overly paranoid. — Erik

I don't think you are, I share your concerns. The issue I'm raising here is that we do not respond to those concerns with a blanket support for free speech (so long as it is not breaking any law). Nothing so simple will do the job.

To me the issue is simply about the most effective way to oppose ideas which are rhetorically persuasive, but ultimately harmful in the social environment we have.

I do not find arguments that rational debate is the best way to do this at all persuasive as they massively overestimate the motivation and ability of the majority of the population to make choices rationally rather than get swept along by the rhetoric.

Nor do I find arguments which raise concerns about the Ideology of free-speech particularly persuasive as it is clear we already limit free-speech for all sorts of compelling reasons of societal well-being.

So the only arguments I do find persuasive are the ones you outline here, the 'slippery slope' problem of creating an environment where suppression of free-speech is so commonplace that all sorts of legitimate views are suppressed by groups who simply have sufficient numbers to do so.

The reason why I'm not too concerned though, are twofold.

Firstly, I really don't see it working this way round, I think we have cause and effect mixed up with this concern. I can't imagine a society, or community sufficiently numerous and united to mount a serious attempt to restrict the free-speech of a moderate speaker, but on which simple constitutional rights and social convention actually have an impact.
It is remarkable to me that people are still citing the US constitution as if that made any difference whatsoever. The genocide of the Native Americans was continued, and later black segregation initiated, under the US constitution supposedly guaranteeing Equal Protection. The 18th Amendment was abolished barely a decade after everyone realised it was ridiculous. The 5th amendment has been casually set aside in the so called 'War on Terror'... Americans routinely ignore, abolish and recreate the constitution as they see fit, so it's rules are nothing but a reflection of the society they arise from. Should a community arise that is so opposed to, say, unionisation, that it wishes to suppress the free-speech of union leaders, then I really don't see something as routinely ignored as the constitution preventing them from doing so.

Secondly, invoking the idea of a 'slippery slope' is problematic in itself as we are forced by circumstance to be somewhere on that slope, we cannot be off it, so the mere fact that it is slippery and can, if unrestrained, lead to bad consequences does not really stack up. Any position we take on that slope is going to need to be protected against being taken to a harmful extreme. I don't see any reason why that can't be done, nor any reason why we have to stand further up that slope than we'd otherwise like, just as a preventative measure.

If known racists, by a simple definition, are prevented from speaking by a particular community, that's fine, no harm done. If another community uses that as justification for suppressing the free-speech of a union leader complaining about working conditions, then we can use whatever force we'd apply in the first place to simply prevent that in the second, and we'd be entirely justified in doing so because racism is wrong, whereas asking for better working conditions is not.

I hardly buy anything made in China, it's simple, buy everything you can second hand and then check the small number of items remaining. I presume you've got ebay in New Zealand? All my clothes and electrical items are bought second-hand (or occasionally clearance stock), neither of which generate any revenue for the manufacturers. Furniture, pottery etc. can all be bought from local artisans (I presume you have those), and food can be sourced locally (again, I presume you have farmers). There's still quite a bit left over (hard-drives, personal items, non-reusable items), but not much, and it's not too hard to make sure they don't come from China with Japan and South Korea being such big players in electrical items and so many companies now offering fair-trade.