Awareness and intent: Discrimination
How much discrimination is done with awareness and intent?
If society conditions us to treat some individuals as second class due to disability and this is done on a subconscious level, how do we reconcile that?
Should discrimination due to something like autism, be met with the same justifiable intolerance of racism when it is such a subtle disposition towards a genetic fallacy?
If an autistic person engages in a debate with an allegedly "normal" person, whom has never sat in front of a psychiatrist, and the audience members also believe themselves to be normal. Who will the audience perceive has made themselves more understandable? If it escalated into an argument being won by the autistic individual by way of having the more logical argument, will it even be recognised as this by the audience?
If society conditions us to treat some individuals as second class due to disability and this is done on a subconscious level, how do we reconcile that?
Should discrimination due to something like autism, be met with the same justifiable intolerance of racism when it is such a subtle disposition towards a genetic fallacy?
If an autistic person engages in a debate with an allegedly "normal" person, whom has never sat in front of a psychiatrist, and the audience members also believe themselves to be normal. Who will the audience perceive has made themselves more understandable? If it escalated into an argument being won by the autistic individual by way of having the more logical argument, will it even be recognised as this by the audience?
Comments (61)
I'm not sure I can comment on our autistic/normal debate example. I would hope my own respect for the inherent value of truth would protect me from any normative prejudices in this case.
Somebody's been reading thephilosophyforum.com
I'd agree to this. Does this mean that amongst people who have the opportunity to simply know better, even the pre-conscious discrimination should be treated with the same intolerance as racism?
In principle, I'd agree that our prejudices, both conscious and pre-conscious, should be rooted out, but many cognitive biases are very deep-seated indeed. I do think that the first step towards managing such biases is understanding them.
I think Terrapin was making a joke to the effect that a lot of dialog on this forum seems like it is between an autistic person and a normal one. I'm new to the forum too, so I'm not sure where (s)he fits in that humorous equation.... :)
I think our prejudices form a central part of who and what we are. To blithely state that they should be rooted out shows a belief that this is even possible, never mind desirable. Our prejudices, beliefs, biases and opinions are the things that distinguish us, one from another. What remains is mostly what we all have in common.
Thoughts? :chin:
Yes, we are all unique, but we also must acquiesce to agree upon what we have in common, and sometimes that entails "correcting" our own opinions, no?
Which moral precept is vaginized by discrimination? By racism?
I think discrimination a racism are both despicable and avoidable, attitudes, which must be forsaken, but they have nothing to do with ethics.
Justice, right and wrong, value, all are parts of ethics and I should know, I specialised in Ethics and I work in ethics!
Also "Vaginized?" I've never heard this term before and can't find how it relates to philosophy or ethics, just an entry in the urban dictionary. "A male that is just a pussy, and his little bitty balls are found in his wife's purse"
If I ask the simple question, Is it good to be prejudiced? Then I have just entered into the realm of ethics. Whenever we are studying our values, we are studying our ethics as Ethics is largely the study of value theory.
Don't even get me started on Metaethics!
Intolerance is precisely what opens the door to discrimination. Having the opportunity to know better and making use of that opportunity do not necessarily go hand in hand, unfortunately. You can lead a horse to water, and all that. To discriminate against ignorance is the same as discriminating against autism, in my opinion.
I think any form of intolerance is destructive - including ‘justifiable intolerance’. Meeting pre-conscious discrimination with justifiable intolerance doesn’t fix the problem - all it does is promote intolerance in general. The solution to intolerance/discrimination is compassion and connection, collaborative achievement and increased awareness - all of which require tolerance in the face of intolerance.
Not everyone sees the world the same way as I do. That doesn’t make them wrong, although it does render at least one of us unaware of information - usually both. Intolerance is a refusal to be open to new information from a particular source.
The way I see it, I can’t change their mind if I don’t know how their mind works.
I agree with @Pattern-chaser that a large part of who I am, or who you are, consists of a long list of attitudes, prejudices, biases, preferences, likes, dislikes, antipathies, and so forth. Purging every bias would be impossible and would, as the man said, make me like Lieutenant Commander Data.
I'm old and tame now, but I remember being a fire-breathing SJW decades ago and making the demand that attitudes, prejudices, biases, etc. that I didn't like should be rooted out. I was, back in my days of confident righteousness, quite willing to expect compliance with my definition of what was just and good.
I was a pain in the ass--because I felt entitled to tell other people how their personhood should be remodeled to suit my standards. This imperious attitude is often a characteristic of people when they are young and burning with righteousness.
So, age has snowed white hair on my head and taught me that I was just as prejudiced, biased, discriminating, and hateful back then as anybody else--maybe more than many. Now I am suspicious of the people who are quite confident in their entitlement to tell me how I should think, feel, and act. I understand where you are coming from -- I've been there. \\
See below.
Take racial prejudice. Racial prejudice applied to housing policy in real estate, mortgage banking, and government policy was a juggernaut, a giant steam roller, compared to the petty prejudices of ordinary folk. The FHA (a federal program) instituted a scheme of deliberate exclusion of blacks, hispanics, jews, and asians from the program's inception in the 1930s into the 1980s. By the time the official policy of suburban housing with low interest mortgages for whites and rented housing projects in the city for blacks (if anything) was abandoned, the damage was done. White suburbanites had been granted the opportunity for significant wealth accumulation and blacks had been denied it.
Housing policy segregated blacks in slums, contract-for-deed buying plans, or rental housing (where equity could not be reliably accumulated). Job discrimination--not by individual workers, but by Fortune 500 corporations--further sidelined the advancement of blacks and other minorities. School districts -- tied to local housing patterns -- again limited black opportunities. Concentrating poor disadvantaged children in 1 school pretty much guarantees poor results.
Whites should not be blamed for taking advantage of the good deal in housing offered them between the mid 1930s on into the present. Blacks should not be blamed for being the recipients of the extremely inferior deal which they received from the 1930s forward. The advantages of whites and the disadvantages of blacks are quite explainable as the result of official policies carried out with the support of governments, financial institutions, and major corporations--much, much more so than individual prejudices.
As a gay man, I can say that if you [hypothetically] hate fags and beat me up, that's a result of your bias. But if because I am gay I can not serve in the military, rent or buy decent housing for myself and my partner, get a decent job commensurate with my education and skills, and so on, that isn't your fault. That's the fault of large scale institutions who have set discriminatory policies. I want those policies to be changed. You can continue to hate fags [hypothetically], if you want. If you beat me up, I will definitely report the crime against my person.
How would you respond to the justifiable intolerance of dangerous criminals, murderers, rapists, child molesters and the like? Or my biological intolerance of things that may make me ill?
For me, being open to communication with racists just provides a platform for their ideology to reach others and it is a risky thing to engage in.
I do however agree with the notion that institutions are largely to blame. However doesn’t that mean our intolerance should be directed towards those institutions?
As you say, intolerance of criminal behavior and disease is justifiable. The community and individuals can and should protect themselves from these potential harms, which may be preventable through good policy.
Our concern is when intolerance or discriminatory policy/behavior is not justifiable, by current standards. Standards change over time, but we have to deal with what we have today.
I understand there is risk. It’s risky to engage in anything. It’s risky to value freedom of speech. If your aim is to avoid racism, then your intolerance for racists may achieve this in your limited perspective, but it achieves little in reducing hatred and intolerance, in eradicating racism. It only helps you to feel more in control of your ‘safe’ little world. Combating intolerance with intolerance is small thinking.
Quoting Bitter Crank
There is a difference between intolerance of criminal behaviour and disease, and intolerance of criminals, murderers, rapists, etc. One involves calling out the behaviour and insisting on alternatives - the other involves labelling a person and vilifying or discriminating against them based on this label. This second behaviour is not justifiable, and understanding the difference is important in relation to policies.
As for institutions being to blame - it’s a convenient barrier we hide behind so discriminatory behaviour can’t be attributed to us as individuals - “I’m just following policy/doing my job”. You can direct intolerance towards institutions as a scattered effect or as an organised resistance, but you can also get informed and connected, and effect change from the inside.
Fear of being enticed to the ‘dark side’ by engaging with those with whom we disagree highlights the weakness of our convictions. Understanding where someone is coming from in their discrimination is not siding with them - it’s recognising that the issue is not as ‘black and white’ as we like to think it is.
Attributing blame to institutions may be a dodge to avoid personal blame, true enough. Nonetheless, the many individuals in concert who operate institutions are much more powerful than scattered, disconnected individuals. This is true across the board. Individuals working closely together for some purpose (good or bad) are vastly more powerful than 10 times, or 100 times as many scattered uncoordinated individuals.
In addition, "the institution" may behave like a large solid entity, rather than just an agglomeration of individuals. That's why armies are much more powerful than civilians, or the government is more powerful than citizens, or the church hierarchy is more powerful than believers who vastly outnumber them.
"Change from within" is sometimes possible, but I would say less often than would-be internal change agents would like to think. For one thing, it is quite easy for institutions to identify and shaft internal change agents who have the potential to be dangerous. There is also the matter of size: An institution composed of 100 people is more easily subverted (or reformed) than an institution of 10,000. It's the difference between a high school with 100 employees and a university with 10,000 employees. Large institutions are generally fairly successful In maintaining their raison d'être and modus operandi. Change happens when the cost of maintaining the status quo is greater than the cost of change, and it takes 'tectonic shifts' for that to happen.
A good example of the tectonic trouble needed for change would be the Catholic Church. Dioceses and archdioceses have been bankrupted because they had refused to change the status quo of protecting priestly misbehavior. Being busted by court settlements is the sort of tectonic event it has taken. (Time will tell how much change has or will take place.)
Another example is Deutsche Bank; it was fined many billions of dollars by several different national regulatory systems because they flouted national laws. They were finally compelled by tectonic failures to close their speculative investment division and lay off 18,000 people -- all at great cost--but less cost than continuing on the way they had been.
Deutsche Bank wasn't alone, of course. Banks like Wells Fargo were also playing loose with regulations and were fined substantial penalties.
In my view it isn’t power or influence that topples institutions or changes the status quo: it’s awareness, connection and collaboration - capable of transcending borders and infiltrating the hierarchies that work to protect those in power.
What's the precept of ethics? What is it, in its most basic?
Thanks for the answer, Pantagruel.
Your answer hinges, it seems to me, what's "good" or "right" and what's "wrong".
What's good in and by itself? Love of your country? Love of your mother? Love of your spouse? Then you get into immediate contention of what's good if someone has a different coutry of his or her own, or differnt mother, or different spouse, and you at the same time have to share resources that are not enough in quantity for all involved.
I contest therefore, based on the above, that there can be a uniform deontological agreement, This renders deontology useless.
Outcomes? I save my country, my mother, my spouse. Even at the detriment of your country, your mother, your spouse.
Again, teleology can't have a uniform agreement. This renders teleology useless.
I deny the valildy therefore, on philosophical grounds, of any ethical finding, as they are all useless..
I therefore have the ideological right to deny any value in the work of people who work in ethics because their findings can't be anything but useless.
I especially detest those who boast of their ethical know-how gained through education or practice.
Ethics is nothing but a highfolutin ideology for hiding the self behind a complex set of ideas for the sole purpose of being completely selfish.
Well, you are essentially espousing psychological egoism, which is the belief that human beings are so constructed as to always act in a way which is self-referential, that is, to always maximize personal benefit.
All I can answer to that is that it seems not to be so to me. I routinely put the needs of others ahead of my own. I have seen examples in the world of others who do so. And perceived the lasting value of actions that enact such values. Arguably, they form part of the core and essence of what we call culture.
People do unselfish, so-called good things for others. I do too, make no mistake. You, I and most of humanity put the needs of others ahead of our and their own, in many-many expressions and acts in their lives.
These acts are still self-referential. I can't say any more than that NOW, because I worked it out in a paper which no sensible academic publisher wants to publish. That's so, I beleive, because 1. I don't have qualifications, which ab ovo stops them form publishing my writing, and 2. my idea is an original, creative idea, not based on the classics (modern or ancient) and therefore they get panacy, like every time they don't want to see and understand that it's a brand new idea.
How can a layman have a workable original idea? They ask themselves, incredulously of my theory.
But I will keep on trying to pubish the paper somewhere. Until then I'd rather keep my ideas to myself. Thanks.
“I therefore have the ideological right to deny any value in the work of people who work in ethics because their findings can't be anything but useless.
I especially detest those who boast of their ethical know-how gained through education or practice.
Ethics is nothing but a highfolutin ideology for hiding the self behind a complex set of ideas for the sole purpose of being completely selfish.”
Hahaha! Without ethics none of us would be safe enough to even talk about these things. Also, Saul Kripke was self educated when he published his earliest works.
“There is nothing so profound and original that it hasn’t been said by a philosopher before.” - Descartes
That humans use ethics is a fact about our society, that you benefit from this use is also a fact. So complain all you want but even your approximation that ethics isn’t valuable is an ethical statement in and of itself as you’re talking about value.
If you really think ethics is so useless then you won’t be able to complain if you feel someone has wronged you.
Did it ever occur to you that you aren’t getting published because your methodology is full of bias and assumptions and that your idea isn’t workable? But sure, let’s all just blindly believe your idea you’re too frightened to share. It’s from you, so it must be right!
I don't accept deontology or teleology. I don't think that either are required to be ethical of course.
It would be so easy for us all to just say “that which we do not understand has no value.” But it doesn’t make it true. I don’t understand how Medical Drs do everything that they do but that doesn’t mean I’m going to say “I therefore have the ideological right to deny any value in the work of people who work in medicine because their findings can't be anything but useless”.
Well, valuing is something that individuals do. Things don't have value "on their own." They're valued by individuals, as much as the individual in question values whatever it is.
This seems like a ridiculous argument. A lack of uniformity doesn’t render either useless - anymore than the fact that there is no uniform time rendering time useless.
I think what you're ambling toward is the recognition that "good" is relative. What's good for me might not be good for you. Killing the bacteria that cause TB is good if you're a human, but not so much if you're a TB bacterium. So "good" and "evil" are relative, and we plough into nonsense when we try to characterise anything as good or bad, because that judgement is different for everyone, and for every creature.
Isn't that the difficulty you're complaining about?
However within a human universe of discourse there are some things which are objectively valuable to all of us and when you are serving the collective you are serving yourself too.
I wonder how this guy responds to martyrdom? “Oh so self serving!”
Apologies for not replying to this sooner. I think you are absolutely right, I was being narrow minded. Was taking a few days to think about it fully. However knowing how to effectively combat the issue is something I am still unsure of. On an individual level. When asking the deeply personal question "Where will I contribute the most?" I can honestly say I do not think I'm suited toward direct debate with the intolerant and while I can make a point of understand and empathising from afar, I do not have the temperance required (Yet) to do that in a direct way, it would just become a circular shouting match at some point I'm sure.
"In my view it isn’t power or influence that topples institutions or changes the status quo: it’s awareness, connection and collaboration - capable of transcending borders and infiltrating the hierarchies that work to protect those in power."
I agree wholeheartedly with this. Awareness, Connection and Collaboration. As for internal change agents: I feel the one ring allegory is pertinent. I personally have experienced a sense of perhaps arrogant duty toward attempting to gain political office. Yet some of the very institutions one would have to enter have been made inherently corrupting. Now, you might say this shows lack of strength of conviction but in reality it's a desire to toe the line between being just, righteous and being self righteous. Since you mentioned collaboration I feel the point can be made that no one is an Island and where one person may not have the strength to stick to their convictions alone many can support and hold each other up. I observe that the most monumental beneficial changes in society come from the alignment of goals of social, political and economic interests. I think that it can be said that within capitalism our social and political interests supervene our economic interests. So in order to motivate change in a collectively beneficial way, we will have to re-evaluate our economic model and change that. Business ethics or how businesses go about ethics needs to change in so many ways.
Then again, Political principles also need some major adjustments. I am unsure of how these things can be changed. I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on this and am very open to suggestions of analytic prescriptive ideas. What do you think I or others here should do other than have these collaborative discussions with each other?
The other part of it is that many ethicists, as I have seen it in my readings, don't bother with separating ethical deeds from good deeds. What I mean is this: say, something has been established as good. For the time being, and relatively so, but there is a consensus that something is good. Ethicists will jump on this, and declare that doing that good thing is ehtical. The only reason they state it's ethical is because it's good. They don't separate the good in general from the good in ethical. It washes down the already weakly established concept of ethics, and it becomes nothing more than good.
Why ethics then? Just do good. But that's not ethics. At least not in my definition. My definition is unique, and obviously not accepted (yet?) into the consensus.
The other proof applies to selfless acts of the religious.
To religious thinkers, particularly to those whose behaviour is a ticket to heaven, the non-self-serving behaviour is part of the ticket to ride, so obviously there is no selfless act rising out of religious good-doing.
I indeed said "no uniform treatment" because they told me sometime in school that one has to make the reader work-- one has to make the reader also think of what one wrote, and not spoon-feed every notion of an idea to him or to her.
But obviously my educators were wrong. They hadn't thought that fifty years after their efforts people will not think but quibble about little details precisely because they don't think.
A lack of uniformity INDEED LIKE YOU SAID does not render either somethings useless. But there was more than what I said, and what I had hoped would be worked out easily by my readers. There was an apparent and undeniable CONTRADICTION between the two somethings.
"Love of your country is good." So far so good.
But what if your country is different from my country, and both countries need the same resource for survival?
The getting that something for MY country is good for ME, but it's devastatingly BAD for YOU and YOUR country. This is a contradiction, not just a lack of uniformity.
----------------------
It is about the third of fourth such argument I have made on this forum that people challenged me on; and they only challenge me because they can't see farther than their noses.
I hate this. I thought that on a philosophy forum people would be thinkers, who carry on the thought, and not sheepishly look at the normative meaning of every word, and draw childish conclusions on how I am wrong, but would THINK and carry on what was missing or apparently misleading in my writings.
I draw the consequence: I MUST CHANGE MY STYLE AND CONTENT, HONE IT TO EXTREME PRECISION, AND NOT ALLOW ANY LOOSE ENDS TO BE WRITTEN.
It will be more tedious for me, and it will be less enjoyable, but the community here obviously demands that. I must therefore comply, no question. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
I think there are very few who don’t struggle with patience in direct debate with intolerance. But in the same way as you accept diversity in other areas, it’s not a matter of empathising, but of recognising that what leads them to intolerance is what leads us to be intolerant of their intolerance...and so we are struggling with the same issues. We are not so different.
I think having the courage to step into a world in which we have no sense of control, in which we must rely on our relationships with others to achieve anything, is one of the hardest things we do as human beings. Power, influence and control are illusions - everything that happens requires awareness, connection and collaboration, and literally nothing else. But every political system is built on these illusions, as are all of our social and economic systems.
Quoting Mark Dennis
I think people seek political office, economic or social standing because they have ideas of how to ‘fix’ their world. But the more our awareness broadens, the more we realise that it’s not that simple - anything we do is going to impact negatively on someone or something, somewhere in the world. What most of these systems and institutions manage to do is help to narrow the view so that the more we achieve, the less we are aware of the negative impact. Rights are separated from responsibilities, and you’re soon shielded from the full impact of ‘your’ decisions by those who either believe in what you’re working to achieve, or who benefit from it - and it gets harder to tell which is which.
Quoting Mark Dennis
Yeah, I’m not sure I can help with analytic prescriptive ideas. Awareness, connection and collaboration is a bottom-up approach. It starts with a brutally honest look at how we interact with the universe, and challenges any and all suggestions of power, influence and control - even over our own bodies. We cannot be tempted to attribute them either to ourselves or to others - they don’t exist, period. This is supported by current science, but it can be difficult to accept, because it exposes us entirely - both in terms of our dependence and fragility, but also our capacity as humans and its accompanying responsibilities.
Quoting Mark Dennis
How do you justify ‘objectively valuable’ while restricting discussion to a ‘human universe of discourse’? Does this mean that ethics is not relevant to our interactions with anything that operates outside of this ‘human universe of discourse’? How does this impact on environmental ethics and the value of certain ecosystems?
While I’m not impressed with the attitude of @god must be atheist in this discussion, I can perhaps see what he’s trying to get across in relation to ethics. In my view ethics IS relative. There is no ‘objective’ value, no uniform treatment of what is considered eternally valuable in the world. This doesn’t render ethics useless as such, but it does require us to look at structuring ethics in a similar way to how physics is working to structure time: as an additional dimension to reality that is relative to one’s experiential position in the universe.
In my view the application of ‘good’ or ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ should be recognised as terms relative to a particular cultural, historical, national and/or ideological viewpoint. While it may appear as if there are some things/events that are viewed as ‘good’ from all possible human viewpoints right now does not make it objectively or universally good. Time is relative to one’s position in space, but ethics is relative to one’s journey through spacetime, so it’s a whole lot more complicated.
Sorry for the long post.
In fact, in "Yes, Mr. Minister" or "Yes, Mir. Prime Minister", a character described the power of point of view in this sense:
"Ah! it's an irregular adjective. "HE is strange, YOU are idiosyncratic, and I AM an individual."
In my first language there is a proverb: "The hand of every saint points at himself." Go to a Catholic church, look at the statues of saints.
And a saying taken from the three volume set, "Murphy's Law": "Where you stand depends on where you sit."
I am not an exception to this. In fact, I'm guilty of this more than most contributors on these boards. What I try to achieve, however, is that people realize they are like this, too, like the saints, like the tribal members: the most important agent in shaping one's opinion is one's own interest.
And by interest I don't mean only tangible gains, such as money, or possessions. One of the biggest interest to philosophers is to be right and to have their opinion prevail. This is not new; not unique to philosophers; but this is all that is at stake for philosophers. A mana ger in a company, or a sports team's owner, or an army general, may have other factors to consider; the environment that influences their success. But here on the philosophy forums the only measure of success is winning arguments.
So being right gains many times the importance to us on this forum, than being right in our everyday lives. Here, being right is to be being right. So to speak. (Please figure it out.)
Little wonder people act intolerant. Finding disagreement eggs one on to push his point harder. But we don't ever convince anyone else of anything. We may influence the undecided, but those who had committed to a philosophy will never waver even in the face of extreme criticism.
This is what gives the effect of intolerance. One will feel unjustly rejected, because he can't see that his theory is a threat to the theory of others; and other's wont try to shut down his theory just because they don't like his, (frankly, most of the time they are don't care about what others say, because each individual is only only in love with his own postings and opinion), but they will try to shoot him down, because they feel it would exert a threat to their own philosophy.
No, there is no contradiction. Any apparent problems are resolved when we explicitly acknowledge that "good" is a relative term. So the situation you describe is good for you, but NOT(good) for your neighbour.
There is one situation. It is both good and not good at the same time, but not at the same respect.
Does this constitute a contradiction? I am now not sure. The situation does not establish impossibility by the law of excluded middle, but it is a contradiction, because good cannot be not good. Good is relative, but not to the detriment of its own quality.
I maintain there is a contradiction, at the same time that I agree with you that "good" is a relative term. I say this because "good" even as a relative term can't be taken as "not good". Something that is itself and not itself at the same time IS a contradiction.
How would you define contradiction, Pattern-chaser? "Paul is tall. Paul is not tall." Wouldn't you say that's a contradiction? If something is and is not, albeit from different perspectives, would you not say the that the perspectives render that something relatively contradictory? I would.
Yes, the two statements contradict one another. Is it relevant to note here that contradiction is relative (each statement contradicts the other)?
Quoting god must be atheist
You're neglecting context, I think. If X is good for me, but NOT(good) for you, there is no contradiction. There is no simultaneous (good) and NOT(good), there is simultaneous good-for-me and NOT(good-for-you). Good-for-me is an entirely different thing than good-for-you. If we had good-for-me and NOT(good-for-me) simultaneously applying in the same context, then we would have a contradiction. I wish I could word this better. Do you see what I'm getting at?
There is contradiction when you consider relevance. If you discount relevance, there is no contradiction.
The relevance exists because the two countries (as depicted in the example) do want the one and same resource, which both need but can't both have.
You refer to (good) and NOT(good). But "good" is a relative term, so your references are incomplete, and in this case, the incompleteness makes them incorrect. In your example, you should be referring to the simultaneous existence of (good-for-country-A) and NOT(good-for-country-B). Now we can see that there is no contradiction. OK?
A Great question! No, for the universe itself is inside the human universe of discourse and our planet is the part of the universe within our immediate interests. Let me explain how Adaptive Pragmatism comes at the grounding problem in ethics. "There is no ‘objective’ value, no uniform treatment of what is considered eternally valuable in the world. This doesn’t render ethics useless as such, but it does require us to look at structuring ethics in a similar way to how physics is working to structure time: as an additional dimension to reality that is relative to one’s experiential position in the universe." Firstly, it accepts this statement you have made to be the one that is really objectively true.
When I say "within a certain universe of discourse" I am employing one of the tools we use to talk about fiction. "Harry Potter is a wizard" and "Harry Potter is a cat" in reality are both equally untrue. However within it's universe of discourse wherein we temporarily acknowledge JKs imagined reality as a subsisting one we can discuss, the former statement is true, "Harry Potter is a wizard".
Back to your statement about Relativism; Before us, there was no ethics, good, evil, grey, value and meaning. We created those concepts. Now, in order for us to structure ethics we first need to think about it's modality. What is its function, how functional is it currently, how functional it can be and how functional it cannot be? If we say "it's function is to collectively keep humanity safe for as long as possible" then we have to reject any utility in relativism. (I know, crazy right? To reject Relativism because it is true. It isn't pragmatic though.) Now, in pragmatic ethics it's not really individuals who are to be considered moral or immoral it is the society they create that is being judged. The application of Normative ethical relativism to the lay person tends to go something like this. "You can't say x about culture y, that is just how they do things, you can't tell them they are wrong." So; A) there are no universal norms and B) ideas of moral right or wrong are relative to the society in which people are raised and in which they live. Doesn't B sound a lot like a universal norm? Descriptive ethical relativism is fair game as it's utility lies in describing the ethics of ours and others cultures in a more wholesome manner. There is really no compelling argument to make use of relativism as a prescriptive ethical methodology because it sheds no light on what we as individuals should be doing with ourselves.
So the ethics of adaptive pragmatism are grounded in a function of ethics. I define the function is to collectively keep humanity safe for as long as possible, so I start to look toward science. Does Science say not to fuck up the ecosystem if you want to live? Then don't do that or try to unfuck it. Does science say inflicting abusive traumas on people may make them crazy, unpredictable and dangerous potentially to you or people you care about? Then don't do that. Does Science say we need to properly manage our environmental, economic and moral ecosystems in order to thrive and survive? Then manage that shit! Can pragmatic ethics be defined by theory alone? No, but plenty of moral agents out there are acting out experiments in morality unknowingly and knowingly and they can be observed in order to learn more.
Then we have the "What it could be?" question. Imagine if you will that dogs and cats are starting to evolve similar cognitive abilities to us and starting to engage in meaningful language, maybe they even develop functioning thumbs. It is my personal belief that I cannot know everything there is to know and some things I am predisposed to never know because of who I am, so a bigger and more diverse collective can know more and our science benefits from having more knowledge. So because it is Adaptive pragmatism in this imagined scenario the focus would shift from the human perspective toward an earthling perspective (That is sentient being from earth) and how it would adapt at meeting an alien race would be dependent upon their temperament and reaction toward us.
So to summarise my answer to your question; Objectively valuable is whatever has the best means for carrying out the objective of moralities function.
This doesn't mean we throw out anything that isn't currently useful to us either, as philosophy is useful to us even when it moves outside of the human universe of discourse and starts to look at pure truth again, not human truth. We are human though so we have to acknowledge there is a complex difference between Pure Truth and Human Truth.
The methodology behind AP is what initially led me to believe that my intolerance of the ableists who discriminate against myself or others, as an emotional tool which would make them understand the folly of their ways. It also enabled me to listen to you when you supplied a better perspective which enabled me to see more value in temperance again.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/3564/why-support-only-one-school-of-philosophy
In regards to your discussion here and what you have described: You May find this helpful as AP is similar to what you describe. An all encompassing view of philosophy with the perspective that it is a toolbox.
Ultimately this is a question of a fundamental belief. Either you think people can only act in a self-serving manner, or you believe that people have the capacity for true altruism. It's like when Dan Dennett argued there were no good reasons to believe in god...because he couldn't come up with any.
There a plenty of examples of people exhibiting self-sacrificial behaviour and, as I suggested, this class of behaviour even forms an important part of our culture. Prima facie, therefore, it is entirely reasonable to suppose that people ARE capable of altruistic behaviour, and I do believe it to be so. My privileged access to my own inner mental states further confirms this for me.
If you personally are incapable of believing this, well, that's you.
The way you proposed this point, everything is a question of fundamental belief. Other than a priori truths.
I think we have to step beyond just belief. If we get stuck at the belief stage, our human race is nothing but a bunch of superstitious monkeys running around. Reason gives us a way to handle belief as knowledge -- I would rather go with that.
Well it is a disagreement about what evidence means, which I would say is the same thing. Clearly, there is lots of evidence for altruism. It seems that you don't accept it.
I accept altruism, But I maintain that altruism is never selfless. This seems to be a contradiction in terms, as altruism means doing good deed selflessly. But when you do good deeds selflessly, you satisfy some of your own needs. You do selfless acts because it gives you satisfaction. Because it appeases your guilt. Because it gives you a feeling of committed fair trade. There is never a pleasureless act of altruism.
And like I said, to religious people in some relgions altruism is a must-do to reward greater benefits later, according to their dogma.
So maybe your wording is right. I don't accept that there is truly and purely altruistic behaviour out there.
And my point is that you just simply don't notice, because perhaps you don't want to, or don't know how, the selfish motivation in "altruism" when you say Quoting Pantagruel This is not a perception problem; it is a problem of not thinking the process entirely through.
Yes, you're right. I do deny that there is pure, unadulterated altruism out there happening. By that I mean that there is no altruism happening in which the giver does not enjoy benefits of his or her own altruism. This I maintain.
If you can give me just one example of altruist behaviour that does not benefit the giver in any way, please do.
True. There are lots of reasons to believe in god. But they are not good reasons. Not even one of them.
“Yes, you're right. I do deny that there is pure, unadulterated altruism out there happening. By that I mean that there is no altruism happening in which the giver does not enjoy benefits of his or her own altruism. This I maintain.” How does one benefit from Martyrdom?
I think I get what you’re saying. We can talk about ethics as relative, but if we’re planning to make use of the study of ethics, we need to discuss ethics in relation to a particular value position. So we tend to define the function of ethics in relation to our current definition of ‘the greatest good’ - which is still subjective, but in the broadest way we can cope with and still sleep at night.
Ok. What if we define the function of ethics as to increase awareness, connection and collaboration? How does this shed light on what we as individuals should be doing with ourselves?
Ok, so lets look at it like this. Normative ethics is what people ought to do, which implies and entails that people have a choice in that action. Now I don't dispute that teleology is a valid strategy. I just think that it misses some of the picture, which is where deontology has the advantage, and that altruistic behaviour is sometimes dictated as a duty by this kind of ethic.
You, on the other hand, want to remove the capacity to make an altruistic choice altogether, saying that people are incapable of making an altruistic choice. In essence, you set a hard limit on human freedom. Now freedom doesn't hold in degrees. Either you are free, or you are not. So if I am free, I am free to make an altruistic choice.
But isn't belief itself the ultimate imbuer of value? If a person chooses to believe in something, presumably they commit to the enaction of that belief. So if you are willing to act 'as if' your belief is true, then you have demonstrated an ontological commitment. What is more fundamental than that?
Now if someone is epistemically irresponsible, and allows him or herself to believe whatever without good reasons, then presumably they have some level of awareness of the flimsiness of that belief.
Yes, exactly. That's a really concise way of putting it. You can observe that whether you like it or not, by the very nature of our own subjective interpretations of reality a form of relativism will always be the dominating form ethics takes. However, the composition of that relativism has a transient nature as it supervenes on individuals and the societies they form. So, through awareness, connection and collaboration it can be stabilized if it is treated as an ecosystem itself. What were WWI and II about if not weeding out maladaptive ideologies out of our ethical ecosystem? What do weeds inevitably tend to do? Grow back.
"Ok. What if we define the function of ethics as to increase awareness, connection and collaboration? How does this shed light on what we as individuals should be doing with ourselves?"
Your questions have raised an especially intriguing point! So there is a difference between yours and my choice in function. My "Collectively keep Humanity Safe for as Long as possible" and your "Awareness, Connection and Collaboration." Have a raised the question: Which is more valuable? The Ideas or the people who create those ideas? When I was first reading this, my immediate thoughts were that both functions are symbiotic. If the function is to increase awareness, connection and collaboration then that would keep humanity safe for as long as possible. If the function is to keep humanity safe for as long as possible, then we NEED to be aware, connect and collaborate. However, I know from experience that when perceiving the function to be my option, you can make yourself an island and not see that you need to share awareness, connect and collaborate.
But then, if nothing is true and everything is permitted then I'd say that means there is no rule anywhere stating "Ethics may only have one function" nay? If it is a case of primary focus on 1 function over others then I'd say yours is the better option. I genuinely love the principles of ACC in AP. We need to message each other at some point when I'm near publishing (won't be for awhile, big project) so we can determine the most appropriate way to cite yourself.
Now that I think on it though, an intriguing idea springs to mind. I'll message you the details for your thoughts.
I suggest that our opinions are so very irreconcilable with each other, that it is futile to go on with this conversation.
You maintain that altruism is possible, there is freedom of will, and god is good. I maintain that there is no true unadulterated altruism; I deny the freedom of will or of any other choice bearers on the premise that evething causes something, and every effect has a cause, which natually leads to determinism, which rigorously excludes the possibility of anything free; I believe there is no god(s).
I hope you can agree that our debate will lead to no convergent conclusion. So I suggest we abandon it now. Thanks.
Sure. And if I may be allowed my final say. The definition of altruism is
"the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others."
So essentially what you are doing is changing the definition altruism.
You don’t like me fine, but sometimes we have to debate the people we don’t like and everyone can see that you don’t answer certain questions which means you aren’t prepared to acknowledge flaws in your own logic. You don’t understand ethics. Seems pretty obvious.