Should hate speech be allowed ?
Should all forms of hate speech be allowed, including the racist ones. Should hate speech which instigates violence be allowed ? If we ban a certain type of offensive speeches and usually the arguments are oriented around feelings being hurt. We may also argue against criticizing a religion or an ideology. I know one of the group isn't a choice and the other is but does it matter.
Comments (2424)
We covered this already. I'm repeating myself again. I didn't say that it's impossible for speech to be a cause of violent action. I said that we can't show that it is.
Uhhhhh. Aren't you literally proposing the mystical third way of causation that we both said doesn't exist, this "free". Something is either ontologically determined or it is random. There is no room for "free" unless free means "not determined" in which case it means random. You said this yourself...
Quoting Terrapin Station
You do though... Sure it may not be equal chances for every thought but each thought has its chance and that's it.
So first, you understand that at the point you make a decision, you've biased the possibilities so it's 100% in favor of one of them, right?
Sure, so that's not random. There's not even any other possibility at that point.
Okay. So once again--for the umpteenth time now, biasing the possibilities is something that you do. You control this.
Yes. But isn't it also true that "you" is physical? According to you. Consciousness is just a subset of brain functions wasn't it?
Yes. And again--this is something else that I've had to repeat many times (which is incredibly annoying) when we're just talking about electrons and rocks and stuff, (a) I'm not a strong determinist, and (b) I'm not a realist on physical laws. So it doesn't work to appeal to strong determinism a la real physical laws.
All of this was unnecessary. You can't complain about writing more while taking the time to express your frustration from answering questions that haven't been asked.
Quoting Terrapin Station
And aren't all physical processes either deterministic or random?
Yes, a la random equalling "not deterministic."
Random doesn't imply anything like "not controllable." Again, you bias the possibilities. You control this.
Say there was a neuron that has a 50% chance of firing at a particular instance. Explain to me how this chance is "controlled" just because the neuron happens to be in your brain.
I accept it is true that we feel like we have control. I don't understand what "control" could possibly mean ontologically. How can it happen?
Which is why I wrote yet again; when we're just talking about electrons and rocks and stuff, (a) I'm not a strong determinist, and (b) I'm not a realist on physical laws.
So it doesn't work to appeal to strong determinism a la real physical laws.
If it's just like "every other physical interaction" but those are not deterministic, they often involve biased probabilities, etc., then there's no distinction to be made
Agreed
Quoting Terrapin Station
Biased probabilities are still randomness no? As I said in the other thread, when I say random I don't mean equal chances of all options
Quoting Terrapin Station
I agree. There is no distinction between free will and any other combination of physical interaction. Which are either random (biased or not) or deterministic
Yes, a la random equalling "not deterministic."
Random doesn't imply anything like "not controllable." Again, you bias the possibilities. You control this.
Yeehaw it's a square dance.
The point is that I'm not necessarily going to parse it semantically.
Something my wife can well confirm. ;-)
Oh my God.
Ok. What is "you" here? A subset of brain functions correct? This subset of brain functions is ultimately just a collection of neurons and other brain matter correct? How can you say that the emergent property "you" CONTROLS the lower level mechanisms?
That's like saying the water being hot causes the particles to have more kinetic energy. No, the particles having more kinetic energy causes the experience of heat. The experience of heat itself doesn't cause anything.
In the same way, the randomness (here defined as uncontrolled random interactions) result in conscious "you" but conscious "you" in turn doesn't cause anything to change about the neurons that make it up.
Another example is: putting bricks on top of each other in a specific way results in the creation of a house. However the creation of a house doesn't do anything to the bricks.
Where are "emergent" and "lower level" coming from?
At any rate, you're supposing that no physical stuff can control probability biases with respect to other physical stuff because?
I didn't say that. Just to confirm, if the bunch of neurons called "you" decides something, even though each neuron has its own life and is just interacting with the others. Did the "you" control the neurons?
I think we're in agreement but I don't like the way you use "control"
Imagine "you" as a house and individual neurons the bricks. Did the house "control" where the bricks were laid or what their colors were? Is it really fair to say that? I'd say the bricks controlled what the house looks like and the house in turn didn't do shit to the bricks.
It sounds to me you're saying the house changed the bricks somehow
I can't really make sense of the way you're asking this. The "bunch of neurons" called "you" deciding something IS controlling something--namely, the probability biases of the options available to you.
"Do 'you' control the neurons" sounds like you're contradicting "The 'bunch of neurons' called 'you'"--in other words, as if you're something other than the "bunch of neurons," which isn't the case. The bunch of neurons control lots of things, including the bunch of neurons--unless you believe that it's not possible to control your thoughts to any extent, but I certainly don't think that.
Something like an electron interacting with another electron may very well control the probabilities that the second electron is in one state versus another (when its state is indeterminate).
Ok phew. We're in agreement. But the language you use for it just seemed weird to me. Does the hot pan speed up the particles in it? No, the pan is hot because the particles are sped up. Do "you" control your choices, no, the randomness of your choices results in the feeling of control.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's what it sounded like to me
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes but it sounded to me like you said that "AND the system of 2 electrons may very well control the probabilities that the electrons are in one state rather than another in another effect exclusive to the first because voodoo magic"
Now. Where were we?
Ah yes. "With free will it's not something random". I'll just say this "With free will, one can control their choices."
Can you explain why you believe this?
How are you getting from "You are a 'bunch of neurons'" to "You don't control your choices"?
Because I didn't want to say neurons control what neurons do. Because I defined control differently, as that mysterious "third way" of causation that we agree doesn't exist called "free". Control to me meant "free". You only would have "control" if the decision was not random or deterministic
PS: I don't actually believe some of this because I'm still not sold on the idea that "you are a bunch of neurons" totally but that's a topic for another day
Right. So, for example, you don't believe that you can control your thoughts at all?
Notice the past tense.
Ah, so you're not saying now that neurons can't control neurons. So I'm back to asking why you're NOW saying that you don't control your choices?
Again. Notice the past tense. Also this
Quoting khaled
In short: we control our choices. Now moving on.
Okay (although I don't get where the past tense was in "Do 'you' control your choices, no, the randomness of your choices results in the feeling of control." That's not something I agree with.)
Now, you were saying Quoting khaled
Sure it's controlled then turns determined at the moment the decision is being made. Now what.
The whole point of that is that it's not at all like the gun example.
But there is someone who chose to put the gun there should they be punished? But we can't say putting the gun there was causal to someone getting shot can we?
You realize that the two examples are not at all alike first, right?
Right, so my comments in this thread have been in context. We're talking about person's actions, and whether hate speech can be (known to be) causal to someone else's actions.
Of course we can 'show' that it is. There's a correlation between hate speech and violence which just about every psychologist in the world thinks is causal (as in one of a number of causes, all of which are necessary). They think this off the back of decades of research. I've presented some of that research in a summary paper saying exactly that.
That is what 'showing' it is. What more could it possibly constitute that isn't already way above the standard of evidence you accept for the vast majority of your other beliefs. Do you demand an explanation of the entire history of physiological research before allowing the hospital to put your broken leg in a cast? Do you require the stress measurements and a brief outline of materials science before crossing a bridge? No.
Notwithstanding the above, another matter you've refused to engage on. It has certainly been suggested by experts, which means it must at least be a small possibility. A small possibility of mass harm usually outweighs a strong possibility of trivial harm - and not being allowed to speak hateful things is a trivial harm.
I'm not querying whether particular other people have concluded something. But what are you referring to there anyway? You presented two papers. One which didn't even give any correlation data, and another which talked about a correlation between Facebook posts and attacks on refugees, and that stressed that correlation does not imply causation in its introductory remarks. Which of those two are you referring to?
Both. The one which summarises the conclusions of numerous psychologists and cites their decades of research (which you are perfectly free to follow up if you doubt them), and the other which demonstrates a correlation. A perfectly normal and standard indicator that there is a reasonable probability of causal relationships.
Remind me again which papers you're citing to support your theory that decisions are not caused by external factors.
No wait, I forgot, you just get to make your woo up, its only us lower intellects who have to provide evidence.
It seems obvious that someone with anti-immigrant Facebook posts is more likely to be violent towards immigrants. Sure they are correlated. But it cannot be said his own posts caused him to commit violence or harmed anyone else.
The claim isn't that. The claim being made is that the Facebook posts cause other people, people who didn't make the posts, to be violent.
Sorry, I accidentally replied to you while quoting someone else.
I'm trying to find the links to the papers again. This stupid thread is so long it's a pain finding them.
Okay, the first paper you cited says, for example, "Similarly, demonstrating the causal effects of media or political rhetoric on people’s prejudiced attitudes or conduct is fraught with methodological difficulties and few convincing studies exist. "
Is that the sort of thing you have in mind?
I don’t know if you’ve read this article, When is Speech Violence, but it seems a stronger case for their position than anything linked here. It caused a bit of an uproar at the time, garnering some high profile responses.
The idea is that abusive speech causes stress, stress causes physical damage, therefor speech is violence.
One of the many problems with that, by the way, is that any combination of words could be abusive (or not) in a given context. It just depends on the people involved. And for one, a lot of it depends on the relationship between the people involved. A lot of it can be based on implicature, etc. (Implicature just in case anyone is not familiar with it: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/implicature/)
And again, the cause of the stress and the process of stress is the individual’s biology, not the words.
Yeah, and how they think about what they're hearing, the semantics they apply to it, etc. Where they wouldn't at all have to think about it the way they are.
Well no, obviously I'm referring to the entire rest of the document which details what can be gleaned from those few convincing studies, plus what can be raised as a serious concern from the even greater number of less convincing studies. I've been perfectly upfront from the start that social sciences can only ever be suggestive.
Still waiting for that large number of convincing studies to support your contention that beliefs/actions cannot have external causes.
I don't even think we can show a correlation.
I don't mean that we can't show this in principle necessarily. But certainly there's nothing showing a correlation yet, forget trying to show causality.
For causality, because (a) we can't even give an account of mentality being identical to brain states yet in a manner that can convince people on the fence about mind/brain ontology--we have a ton of work to do there, if it will ever be possible to give an account of it that's plausible to fence-sitters (forget about those firmly in the "not physical" camp), and (b) we'd have to be able to show that free will doesn't obtain. (Which might turn out to be impossible to do in principle . . . well, and especially because I believe it's incorrect; I believe we have free will.)
So that statement contradicts what other text in the document that you believe forwards a claim that hate speech is causal to violent actions in others?
No. That statement says that there are few convincing studies. It is not a contradiction to then go on to explore what that small number of convincing studies can tell us, and what we might need to be cautious about as a consequence of other, less convincing studies. Where's the contradiction?
Still waiting for the equivalent document with the large number of convincing studies showing that beliefs/actions cannot have external causes. You keep forgetting to attach them, having a senior moment?
It says it's fraught with methodological difficulties, and "few convincing studies" doesn't necessarily imply there are any convincing studies, unless you're an Aspie who is insisting that we read everything strictly "literally."
So again, what text in the paper do you believe supports a claim that hate speech is causal to any violence?
Table 1.3 in the paper doesn't list "hate speech" as a cause anywhere, for another example.
What in the paper do you believe claims that hate speech is causal, or even correlated to violence?
You are clearly exercising bias here. That document does not support your argument, except if you have heavy confirmation bias like when religious folks read the bible. You are completely ignoring the papers own caveats to its data. Then, you try and shift the burden of proof...also like a religious person.
Conclusion: you aren’t arguing in good faith, but showing your dogmatic thinking on this issue.
I'm not going to run an entire introduction to psychology course. The paper is aimed at those who do not hold irrational views on psychology. They are talking about the primary causes (the ones we need to identify) one of which is familial and education influences (weak evidence), others are personality and structurally based. But no one feels the need to prove that, for example, those with a personality which predisposes them to prejudice, still have to arrive at that prejudice by some means. I presented the first paper as evidence (which you asked for) of the widespread opinion. The second paper is what I submitted as research evidence of a correlation. However, if you read Judith Harris's work on peer group influence you will more details on the weak evidence supporting the speech-based causes of prejudice. I'm trying to find an online version or summary.
Still waiting on the equivalent evidence for your position, fourth time asking now.
You mean my argument that there is a possibility hate speech might lead to increased violence? How does it not support that?
Quoting DingoJones
You mean like my directly saying that social sciences cannot provide strong evidence for their theories because of methodological problems and can only ever be suggestive? How is that ignoring those caveats?
Quoting DingoJones
Shifting the burden of proof implies that the burden lay rightly in one place prior to my actions. So why is the burden of proof correctly on me such that my requesting evidence from the other side is a disingenuous 'shift'?
Thats not really what your claiming, well not all you're claiming. You are saying hate speech should be banned, aren't you?
Yes, but I'm arguing that that does not require absolutely convincing evidence of harm. It is sufficient, where the potential harm is great and the loss of liberty from legislation small, to legislate on the basis of weak evidence as a precaution.
I wonder if there's some kind of psychological reason why you want to claim full ownership of your response to things...
I don’t think that’s what he’s doing, I think it’s more that he thinks that as long as the information processing and deciding happened within one’s own body that it’s his responsibility, automatic or not
Okay, but clearly that's not free will. It's not will, and it's not free. It's an unconscious automatic response.
Why would we ban something based on unconvincing evidence? Thats a low standard. To give up any ANY liberty the standard needs to be higher than that. Id go further than that, I dont think its a good idea to ever base anything at all on unconvincing evidence.
I have to say, it seems a bit disingenuous to try and dodge the clear relation to your stance on hate speech and this paper.
But that's off topic. It doesn't matter whether or not he thinks that that's his responsibility. It matters whether or not it is his free will or whether it's something else. The automatic part can't be his free will, regardless of whether or not he wants to be irrational and claim responsibility for it.
But free will doesn't exist. I haven't seen a single good reason from you or anyone else in this discussion to believe in such a thing as free will. Every mental act is determined. Why would I believe otherwise, when that makes perfect sense?
Yeah, I also had the impression that he's arguing in the vein of a fundie.
Dude, just quote something in the paper that you believe amounts to a claim that hate speech is causal to violence.
What he means by you not arguing in good faith is that you're now trying to ignore that you had just written:
" There's a correlation between hate speech and violence which just about every psychologist in the world thinks is causal (as in one of a number of causes, all of which are necessary). They think this off the back of decades of research. I've presented some of that research in a summary paper saying exactly that."
You're an extremely dishonest poster. You approach this stuff just like a fundie.
That bit didn't have anything to do with free will. It had to do with how meaning works.
Well, the funny thing is that I was more on the fence when I entered this discussion, but now I find the notion of free will much less convincing than the alternatives.
Letting posts on this board sway you on something is a scary idea.
Simply because they are my responses and no one else’s.
Do you also think that video games, movies, etc. can cause violence? Would you say that just about every psychologist in the world thinks those things are causal to violence? And if you don't think they're causal to violence, why not, when you think that hate speech is?
Why do you care so much about "showing"? It's the most plausible explanation.
Nothing plausible about it in my view if we don't have empirical evidence to support it.
So that's why I care. I guess I'm more skeptical than you.
Same question for you, by the way--do you also think that video games, movies, etc. cause violence?
It's not a matter of "letting". Either I'm swayed or I'm not. That's out of my hands. It's not like I can decide what I do or don't find convincing.
Were you being serious?
Your withdrawal reflex is just a response of your body. It's entirely out of your control.
Yeah, you are more skeptical than me on this one. If you remove the cause and effect relationship from the explanation, then it makes less sense, and you're left with a problematic gap. I am more convinced by explanations that make sense.
I am my body. My body controls and regulates my responses. So it appears, yes, it is entirely within my control and no one else’s.
I wouldn't make a blanket statement like that.
Thats a pretty pertinent question, you seriously going to dodge it like that?
Yes.
Why are you comfortable making a blanket statement like "Hate speech causes violence?"
Yikes. Okay.
You aren’t in control of your body, not all of it. Are you unfamiliar with the basic biology of autonomous bodily functions?
I don't agree with that at all. That sounds absurd to me. You're not your body, you're yourself. You have a body.
Same sociopathic tendency as Terrapin. Why would you consider the benefit to society of being able to publicly say "Gas the Jews" is so great that it requires an overwhelming evidence of harm to remove it. What's so great for you about being able to say "Gas the Jews"?
Quoting DingoJones
We have a quote function here. Please don't insinuate what I'm arguing. If you think that I've claimed the paper supports something which it does not, then quote me and we can discuss the quote.
No, the topic is pertinent, but the question was stupid. It could be put more intelligently.
I wasnt talking about speech, I was talking about liberties. What I said about them pre-empts the argument you are trying to make in the above quote. This is a subtle strawman, but also a perfect example of not arguing honestly.
I am my body, I can prove this by pointing to myself. You cannot point to yourself, or whatever it is you identity yourself as.
Lol, ok.
Are you not also your autonomous bodily functions?
What is any evidence at all of a correlation between anyone saying "Gas the Jews" and an increase in violence?
I'm not, but the qualified version is more of a mouthful.
What is the qualified version?
I understand what you are getting at, and if you want to encompass someones body as part of their identity then fine, even if you want to say that the conscious mind isnt actually controlling anything I wont argue but that still wouldnt mean you were in control of everything in your body. There is no control over at least some things that are happening in the body, no process over which to exert control, they are automatic and only stop happening due to damage or trauma (or gentic defect I suppose). There are biological functions that do not have a biological basis to change the automatic function, therefore no control exists.
No I don’t believe I can consciously control all the processes of my body, but I do control them in the sense that all “automatic responses” are governed and regulated by me, my biology. Then again, perhaps we’re more conscious than we like to admit?
That's not proof at all. That's open to interpretation. I certainly do not mean that I am my body when I point to myself.
Quoting NOS4A2
I can point at myself. In common parlance, pointing at my body counts as pointing at myself.
When I say that I want to go to the cinema, I'm not saying that my body wants to go to the cinema.
Sigh. Something like: hate speech can be a causal factor leading to acts of violence.
Sure, you’re not saying it and do not mean it, but no less you want to go the the cinema, you are your body, therefor your body wants to go to the cinema.
Anything else presupposes a sort of dualism, a homunculus, a Cartesian theater.
C'mon, man--just how many Aspies are on this board anyway?
"Hate speech causes violence" isn't saying anything different. No one would think that we're saying that it always causes violence or that it's the only cause or anything like that.
Obviously I reject the false premise of yours that I am my body, so any conclusions you draw from it are completely irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.
Quoting NOS4A2
No, it doesn't, it just means that I think that I'm more than my body, which is a very widespread view which makes a lot of sense. My personality is not my body, for example.
I said I understand that. There are autonomous functions over and above what you are talking about there, that are not governed or regulated. So even if you are right about subconscious and body regulated bodily functions, there are still functions which cannot be stopped except from damage or trauma.
Says the guy who never seems to get that not everyone uses "proof" in the most strict of senses.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I wouldn't put it past you. Anyway, whatever. I don't know why you're complaining. We ended up here because you apparently thought that it would be clever to change the context to something that everyone knows is a giant can of worms. I think that you deliberately phrased your question in that overly simplistic way, and now you're annoyed because I didn't play along as expected.
In philosophy we use "proof" in the stricter sense standardly (because we're often concerned with proof in that sense a la logic, the issue of certainty in epistemology, the methodological foundations of science re philosophy of science, etc.). This is supposed to be a philosophy board.
Anyway, if you think that hate speech is sometimes a causal factor for violence, and it should be regulated because of that, why don't you think that video games, movies, etc. are sometimes are causal factor for violence that should be regulated because of that?
In the world outside of autism and pedantry, it is standard to try to understand one and other, rather than to talk over the top of people.
Quoting Terrapin Station
They are, and I agree with that.
That’s fair.
If it is not your body, and not itself a body, where is this personality? It sounds like there is some reification going on here, giving solidity to pure wind.
Yikes. Okay, at least that's consistent. Ridiculous, but consistent.
Well yes, I cannot consciously stop my heart beat while at the same time unconsciously keep it going.
You don't want to regulate just anything that's correlated with an increase of violence, though, do you?
For example, there's an increase in violence in Chicago that's correlated with the Chicago Bears being 3rd or 4th (out of 4) in their division. I'm sure you don't want to regulate Chicago Bears seasons because of this, even though the Bears losing might be a causal factor in some of the violence in Chicago, right?
What makes the difference in what you want to regulate?
That makes no sense. It's like asking, if October is not your foot, and is not itself a foot, then what does it taste like?
Do you have a question which makes sense?
You said you were more than your body, and as an example you said your personality. I just want to know where this personality exists in space and time, where it begins and ends, what it is and what it looks like. I suspect these are questions you will not answer.
Oh sure, sure. It's the status quo that's ridiculous, and not your fringe view.
I will answer once you've answered the question of what October tastes like.
Maybe that's the status quo in Australia, where people seem to be much more amenable to censorship, speech control, etc. In the U.S., the status quo is to think that it's ridiculous that people suggest that video games, films, etc. cause violence, and it's the fringe moral majority-type wackos who want to ban stuff.
I think I get it. Like the month October, “personality” is an abstract noun. So not only are you a body, but more, you are an abstract noun, or at least fit the definition of the abstract noun “personality”.
We were talking about the regulation of video games and films. They're regulated in the U.S., as they are in the U.K., and as they are in Australia and elsewhere. And it's clear that that's supported by the majority of citizens in these nations, because that has been the case for a number of years, and there's no large enough movement or campaign against it for anyone in a position of power to give a flying fuck about your fringe opinion. It hasn't got the support, because no one finds it convincing, because it's unreasonable.
So your personality is not a part of you, then? You're just a body with no personality? Lol.
Ah that makes sense. I wasn't reading it as one's hair really being on fire.
Hey, I'm back. I have to admire your consistency but l think you have used a disanalogy here,
Video games, movies which include violence generally without an underlying racial theme or fascist political agendas do not provoke violence. On the other hand, you have movies that are banned in various countries, like nazi era movies are banned in Germany. Games are even less likely to provoke violence and the main purpose of movies and games is entertainment while hate speech has the primary motive being to cause violence or harm.
If someone yelled in a crowded closed place with bottleneck type entrance and they cause death, it will have consequences in the court when the case is considered. It also falls under free speech.
I can't. That's the point, and I'm sure you're smart enough to know that. Imagine if I contested the idea that people dislike being shot. It's certainly true, but you'd have to be an idiot to think anyone could just "quote something" that claims it other than "the whole of human experience". Its not so simple a relationship that it can be condensed into a Tweet.
The whole of social psychology is predicated on the idea that external social forces are causal to our beliefs and resulting behaviour. There's no 'quote' to express that claim, it's what the whole field of science is based on, we don't go around claiming it at the beginning of every document, just in case there are any idiots reading, any more than you'd expect to see "Atom exist" at the beginning of a paper about beta decay.
So when the paper says "Perpetrators of hate crimes are not always motivated by a single type of prejudice or hatred but can be influenced by a combination of different prejudices.", no-one feels the need to then go on to explicitly claim that such prejudices are caused in part by the speech of those around them. Afterall, what's the alternative? That prejudices are caused entirely internally but just happen by coincidence to be the same prejudices the rest of your social group have? That prejudice is caused by what we see others do but by some magical force what we hear them say has no impact at all? No one is explicitly claiming this connection because the alternative is so ludicrous it is assumed to be the case.
When the paper says "some evidence within social psychology to suggest that perpetrators may be influenced by their perception that certain groups pose a threat to them.", again, no-one has felt the need to explicitly claim that these people did not work out the nature of these threats from scratch by themselves without speaking to or listening to anyone provide them any information on the matter, because the idea is utterly ridiculous. If someone has developed a sense of a perceived threat, one of the sources of that perception will be the speech of others.
People writing important policy documents tend not to waste their time trying to convince half-wits of the blindingly obvious. Any more than you would find a claim that the earth is round at the beginning of a maritime navigation treatise.
I have, earlier in this post, in reply to NOS4A2, cited three famous experiments and four further papers of recent psychology on the subject of peer influence on attitudes. If you've read them already, here's another, and another.
I can keep throwing papers at you almost infinitely, because the whole of social psychology is about the fact that our social environment affects our beliefs and behaviours. Literally every paper published in the field is one which claims that some aspect of our social environment (the beliefs/actions of others) affects our beliefs. Short of telepathy, speech is one of the main ways we gather what those beliefs are. That is what I meant by "just about every psychologist in the world thinks is causal". Where a correlation exists, no-one is going to think that it is not possible for it to be causal. The correlation itself might turn out to be coincidence, in which case there's nothing to explain. But where there is something to explain, everyone in the field will presume that the environmental factor being correlated with behaviour is causal.
If you just don't 'buy' social psychology, in the same way you don't 'buy' a load of other conventionally held concepts, then fine, but don't then ask me to demonstrate the evidence base for an entire field of study on an internet forum post and then act as if it's some kind of victory when I'm not willing to do it.
And your evidence for your perfectly rational and not at all fundamental belief that our beliefs are generated somehow without causal antecedents from our environment is...? For the fifth time now.
Yes, there is a degree of evidence to show that video games and movies can cause violence. No I wouldn't say that every psychologist in the world thinks these things are causal to violence and I didn't say that about hate speech either. I said that where a correlation is demonstrated, every psychologist in the world would think it was causal, not every psychologist in the world thinks a correlation has been demonstrated.
See my now total of eleven linked psychology papers. My tutoring fees are quite reasonable, I'll forward you my bill.
Why would you be talking about liberties when absolutely no-one is suggesting the banning of 'liberties' as a whole? We're talking about banning hate speech and the strength of evidence that should be required to justify doing so, not banning all liberties. So I'll ask you again, what is so great about being able to say "Gas the Jews" that you need an overwhelming strength of evidence before contemplating losing that particular liberty?
No, this is straw-manning again. I was making a point about losing specific liberties of speech, not all liberties or people saying “gas the jews”. Again, very subtle dishonesty here. “Gas the jews” just happens to be something assholes can say when liberty of speech is granted. Free speech is about no one being able to control what other people are allowed to express. Its about ideas, and not suppressing them.
Exactly. The point no-one on the other side seems to want to answer. Normal cost-benefit analysis takes into account the uncertainty of a suggested risk, that's the whole point of risk assessment. We don't need to demonstrate a thing to be unequivocally the case, all that is normally required for us to conduct a risk assessment is a small group of scientists (even a single scientist on some occasions has been enough) suggesting some harm might come from some factor.
That is enough to cause us to look at the probabilities, the degree of harm and weigh that against the harm from the loss of that factor (at presumably 100% probability).
So a very small risk of a great harm often outweighs a much greater risk (even 100%) of a very small harm.
I'm trying to get a sensible answer out of anyone as to what they think is so amazing about being able to publicly say "Gas the Jews" that causes them to demand a higher level of certainty of the harm than even a single research paper.
Yes, but absolutely no-one is suggesting we ban all speech, so why the hell would you be arguing against it? The argument (check the title) is about banning hate speech. I'm no expert on other countries, but the ECtHR definition is "forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including: intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism,discrimination and hostility against minorities, migrants and people of immigrant origin"
The courts specifically state " authorities should, in particular, give careful consideration to the suspect's right to freedom of expression given that the imposition of criminal sanctions generally constitutes a serious interference with that freedom. The competent courts should, when imposing criminal sanctions on persons convicted of hate speech offences, ensure strict respect for the principle of proportionality" and, "the standards applied by national authorities for assessing the necessity of restricting freedom of expression must be in conformity with the principles embodied in Article 10". Article 10 is the right to freedom of expression.
So where, in all that, do you see anything about people not being free to express ideas, other than that we should hate certain classes of other people? I think after the holocaust, that idea has pretty much run it's course.
He's got nothing.
There are books on that sort of thing, you know. I own one. Part 1 of 3 is about the rise of antisemitism in Germany as a background to events leading up to the holocaust. And no, I'm not sifting through it just for you. But if you really are as ignorant as you're coming across, then I really think that you should educate yourself.
No one talks like that. You are not your immune system, for example. Doctors do not inform patients with an autoimmune disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis, that they are attacking the cells that line their joints, they inform them that their immune system is doing so. You've gone to the ridiculous extent of inventing your own peculiar semantics, just so that you don't have to concede to any counterpoints. You are not an intellectually honest interlocutor.
You're right, and I feel really bad about my rather flippant response to this comment of Terrapin's originally. I didn't follow through the full implication as you have.
"... evidence at all of a correlation between anyone saying "Gas the Jews" and an increase in violence"? I'm sure Terrapin didn't mean it as such (although less so now than I was when this discussion started) but this is a denial of the holocaust. "Anyone" includes Hitler and all of his propoganda machine and officers. The proposition that of any one of them saying "Gas the Jews" didn't lead to any violence... what the fuck do we call the holocaust then? A completely coincidental act of mass psychopathy?
There hasn't been any real argument against this line of reasoning, just around forty pages of persistent and unreasonable doubt. Their stance on cause and effect in relation to speech generally, and hate speech in particular, lacks any explanatory power, and should be rejected on that basis. And the stance that hate speech shouldn't be banned should be rejected based on a reasonable assessment of history and a sensible cost-benefit analysis. Turning up with a die-hard commitment to free speech fanaticism in spite of all reason is not a credible stance, so Terrapin, along with his vampiric compadre, is just wasting his time and effort here.
So first, what Isaac and S keep harping on is correlation. There's just as strong of a correlation between video games like GTA, horror films, etc. and violence. (That's not to say that I'm arguing that there's a strong correlation there--there's not a strong correlation between hate speech and violence, either, and of course I don't agree that correlation implies causation, etc.) But if they're to be consistent, they'd have to acknowledge the correlation.
Quoting Wittgenstein
Sure. I'm simply asking them about their views. (And mostly because I consider the folks who want to ban or regulate video games or movies because they believe that they are causal factors for violent behavior to be morons of the highest degree. I'm trying to get more insight into just how troglodytish these folks are. It's easier to quickly glean that in person, but we don't have that advantage here.)
Quoting Wittgenstein
They've said nothing about "the main purpose" being a criterion for their stance on hate speech.
Of course, if they'd said that, just how we know "the main purpose" and just why it should matter when there's a correlation between x and violence regardless of "the main purpose" would have been other big tangents I would have introduced.
It took me about two seconds to find this:
https://thoughtcatalog.com/holly-riordan/2017/02/26-gunshot-survivors-explain-exactly-what-the-bullet-felt-like/
You're claiming that the paper you cited claims that hate speech is causal to violence. Does it? Where does it claim that? It doesn't explicitly claim it? You mean that you're just reading it into the paper?
I'm not about to read you blah blah blahing on when you don't even answer simple questions and you argue so dishonestly.
Our beliefs are generated . . . ? You're not even reading what I'm writing apparently.
What you said, and what I wrote just the same, was the "just about every psychologist" thinks this.
Again, very dishonest back and forth with you.
Which paper talked about the phrase "Gas the Jews"?
So he was referring to Germany 80-90 years ago? Seriously? It wasn't a reference to Mark Meechan or anything more recent? With Meechan, by the way, it was a humorous context.
Do any of those books actually have anyone uttering the phrase "Gas the Jews" (in German or translated) even?
By the way, why are you linking to papers such as "Attitudes in the Social Context: The Impact of Social Network Composition on Individual-Level Attitude Strength"?
You're trying to pass that off as making a claim about hate speech causing violence? Or pass it off like it's going to talk about a correlation between the phrase "Gas the Jews" and violence?
What kind of friggin moron do you need to be to believe that he's thinking that anyone is suggesting to ban all speech? lol
At any rate, coming across like a dishonest idiot is definitely going to be persuasive. Do continue.
That's a subjective account. How long do you think it would take me to find a subjective account of hate speech leading to violence?
Find a quote from a psychologist proposing the theory that people dislike being shot.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Quote me saying that then.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Quoting Terrapin Station
WTF? So now we've got to provide evidence on a phrase by phrase basis?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Oh now we've got to treat people with a presumption of intelligence and a charitable interpretation of what they're saying? You first.
Jesus Christ are you stupid. Whether someone likes something is necessarily subjective.
Whether that is the case generally or not is not subjective.
All I asked you was where in that paper anyone was claiming that hate speech causes violence.
I don't care what the background of it is. Can you find any psychologist writing anything more or less equivalent to "hate speech causes violence"? Let's see if we can find even one.
We've already explained why hate speech should be banned, but video games like GTA and horror films shouldn't be. It's not our fault if you ignore the explanation that we've given. Hate speech fails the cost-benefit analysis, whereas video games like GTA and horror films don't. Although of course some that go too far do fail the cost-benefit analysis, and we have laws and regulations in place for that very reason. There's a reason why you can't walk into your local video game store and purchase a copy of Jew Killer, because such a game doesn't exist for obvious reasons.
I'm not asking you anything about "generally the case"--again, you're either being stupid or dishonest here.
I'm asking you to just show me one instance in the paper at hand of something akin to "hate speech causes violence."
If it's not in that paper, find me one instance of any psychologist saying anything akin to that.
How is the "cost-benefit" analysis not simply something that you're making up?
You're not claiming that there are objective benefits, are you?
I was asking about that specific phrase. So if there's nothing about that specific phrase, how about picking any specific utterances that there's a correlation study for? Or are you claiming that there are no correlation studies for any specific utterances, and we're supposed to just assume a correlation between hate speech not-defined-very-well and violence?
No. No psychologist worthy of the title would claim such a thing as I have already made abundantly clear several times. Psychologists are almost united on the concept that the social environment has a causal influence on behaviour, you won't find a single quote on that because it is just a foundational position of social psychology. Try a textbook. I have, however, linked several papers in which the language makes it abundantly clear that this is the case. If you disagree, you'll have to explain how you disagree before I can help you with that.
The consequence of this position is that where a correlation is suggestive of some link, the link it is suggestive of is a causal one.
If it's in a textbook, there would be an instance of a psychologist saying it.
I'm not asking you, by the way, for a comment in the vein of "the social environment has a causal influence on beahavior." I'm asking you for a comment that's specifically about hate speech That's what we're discussing here.
It's curious that "just about every psychologist" agrees that hate speech is causal to violent behavior, yet we can't find a single one saying anything amounting to this.
Which you should read as, "You lie amusingly."
Give an example. Quote something that you think amounts to it.
Because we live in a fucking democracy, for God's sake. S isn't personally responsible for making the law.
So if a lot of people agree to how it's being made up, then it's good to go?
Quote me claiming that then. Don't piece together bits of my writing for your own convenience. Provide me with the actual quote where I say "just about every psychologist" agrees that hate speech is causal to violent behavior,"
Yes, have you a better plan with subjective harms and benefits? Ignore them all to serve some religious ideology? Come and ask you? Why on earth shouldn't a community get together and decide that the risk of allowing people to say "Gas the Jews" isn't worth the benefit?
I've already quoted it a couple times. In this post: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/320905 you wrote, "There's a correlation between hate speech and violence which just about every psychologist in the world thinks is causal (as in one of a number of causes, all of which are necessary)."
I'm starting to think that you're an alternate personality of khaled. Seriously, you're either extremely dishonest, extremely moronic, or there's something seriously wrong with you re a mental illness.
All it amounts to is, "I like this enough that I'm not going to bother trying to ban/regulate it, but I don't like this, so I will try to ban/regulate it."
Isaac claimed there was a correlation between saying that phrase and violence, and worse, he did it in the context of someone saying that phrase satirically, which is what we had been talking about.
Yes, and I've already made clear that saying every psychologist thinks the correlation is causal is not the same as saying every psychologist thinks the correlation exists at all. My subsequent comments about the nature of psychological evidence would have made that abundantly clear to anyone actually reading them.
lol now 'yes"
I'm just going back to laughing at you. Try being honest/not crazy and maybe I'll give you more than that.
Yes. Again, have you a better plan to deal with subjective benefits and harms across a heterogeneous society?
lol
He doesn't really have any answers, and what he has revealed about his vision of how society should be is ludicrously impractical, chaotic, and dystopian. He is just an opinionated and outspoken ideologue.
If by “having a personality” you mean I behave and act in certain ways, yes, but if you mean I am something more than my biology, no.
Funny how "body" became "biology", by the way. You do like to move the goalposts, don't you?
Are you upset I didn’t add on that my “personality”? My biology, my body, same thing.
Clearly not the same thing. In English, "I found a body in the canal" cannot be accurately translated as "I found a biology in the canal".
Only if you suspiciously leave out the possessive pronouns.
One irony is that people who are for the censorship of hate speech spend time telling each other negative things about him. IOW not just Terrapin's arguments, but him as a person. I may have missed it, but the guy who is most protective of free speech (T) has mainly or entirely avoided insulting or ad homming those on the other side of the fence.
"My leg detached from my body in the accident".
You definitely just missed it! :lol:
And that's not an irony, because nothing that we've said counts as hate speech. Not even close. My goodness! There's a world of difference between mere negative comments and hate speech.
Like Gorgias, sophists overestimate the power words, and believe they can produce magical effects on other bodies. Hence their rampant use of fallacy and rhetorical trickery.
You'd know all about that.
I do. I am confidently inoculated against it.
"Confidently inoculated". You're a walking contradiction. You just admitted in a separate discussion to hyperbole and sarcasm. You yourself are full of fallacy and rhetorical trickery, but you're in denial, whereas others are at least more self-aware.
What thread have you been reading? Presumably not the one where we've been called Aspies (in a derogatory sense), ridiculous, morons, stupid, dishonest, disingenuous...
Oh here we go. You’ve admitted you are employed to manipulate people through words as a living. It’s not working so well here, is it?
Yes, I'm self-aware that my job involves manipulation. Whereas you're in denial about your own rhetoric.
By the way, have you considered renovating your bathroom?
I can appreciate the humor. :ok:
Tough question. On the one hand truth must be preserved and on the other hand violence must be avoided.
The ignorant don't know the truth and are susceptible to violence.
May be we can teach. Education? I don't know. If you read comics supervillains tend to be geniuses but then so are the heroes.
Moral education?
Reason and feelings together firm the foundation of a moral society. Feelings consists of the happiness-sorrow couple and reason guides us towards one and away from the other.
You can not possibly be that much of a moron. Seriously.
Entirely. :up:
This coming from the guy who said the following:
Quoting Terrapin Station
...among other gems.
Every time you say this:
Quoting Terrapin Station
...you're basically saying, "I'm a massive moron".
I'm awaiting the benefits side of the cost-benefits analysis that would counter-balance allowing war crimes to go unpunished and psychopathic dictators to be allowed to order torture and murder with absolute impunity. I hope also to get an explanation of why the entire advertising industry need not exist because speech acts can't contribute causally to changes in consumer behaviour. Or why voting behaviour has all along been absolutely invulnerable to being affected by political propaganda. And of course for these extraordinary claims, at least some empirical evidence and at at least a bare-bones theoretical framework that explains the process by which decisions appear out of nowhere with no causal relationship whatsoever to what precedes them.
Of course, I'll get none of this, so maybe we can just focus on the extent to which the law should control hate speech—where to draw the line, the dangers of drawing it in the wrong place, and so on? As that actually has the potential to be a productive discussion. :pray:
(And let's call it a day on the ad homs.)
I would think that ordering torture and other war crimes are not merely speech acts, but the use of power. I can see why they might be good examples to test how pure free speech advocates think about cause, but most free speech advocates see that as criminal or potentially so. Our free speech laws or changes in them are not going to do anything about psychopathic dictators however. They would be making their own laws.
What makes you a moron here is that you think that particular ethical stances have anything to do with intelligence.
Not only are you ignoring that cost-benefits analyses are just something we're making up, where there's no correct answer, because there are no factual benefits or costs in terms of detriments, but you're simply assuming that cost-benefits analyses are how these issues should be approached.
So how do you propose we measure 'power' in order to use it to determine which speech acts should be banned? Obviously, given your example, if a leader says "kill those people" they have sufficient power to fall foul of your threshold, but what about an influential celebrity, a community leader, a parent, a school teacher? What level of power removes criminal responsibility for you?
Quoting Coben
Only once in power. The point is to minimise the risk of them getting there in the first place.
If I remember correctly, your initial argument on why all speech should be legal was about teaching people to make their own decisions and ignore the influence that the speech of others has on them.
How is that not a cost-benefit analysis on your part? What is your argument for approaching the issue the way you approach it?
Still, it seems like role modeling speech without hate might be a good start for those who want to limit speech in general. And yes, I understand the difference between the kinds of insults I saw and saying 'niggers need to be shot' or whatever.
Off-topic stuff like this is just going to be deleted in future (and Terrapin can go advertise his absolutist views on his own discussion if that's all he wants to do). And the topic here is 'Should hate speech be allowed' not whether Terrapin (or anyone else) is a moron.
Moral stances are ways that we (individually) feel about interpersonal behavior that we (again individually) consider to be more significant than etiquette.
I didn't say anything about "teaching people to make their own decisions." People do make their own decisions--even if that decision is to go along with someone else's suggestion.
Re the other part what I said was "The world we need is one in where people don't believe anything just because someone said it, don't automatically follow anyone's orders just because someone gave them, etc. "
How would that be a "cost/benefit" analysis? What am I saying about the "cost" of anything?
I am aware that this is your view
Quoting Terrapin Station
You're starting that you consider a certain state of affairs to be more desirable than another. This implies you judge the benefits of that state of affairs to be more significant than the costs. If you have another justification, you have not given it. If you don't consider a justification necessary, you cannot ask others to provide one.
I do think the specific case of people here who are advocating for limitations on free speech insulting people they disagree with makes for a nice case for the issue of Should hate speech be allowed.
We can do this without getting into the details of how appropriate the insults are, but rather see what the limits are. Why do the same people who advocate limitation use insults? What is the line they would draw and why? That seems like a great way to clarify position and actually come up with what the criteria are. Or some of the criteria.
Quoting Baden
I don't see what this has to do with my post, but it seems to me he has from the beginning of the thread responded to posts and argued a position and one that is precisely on topic. He thinks the answer to the question is no and has argued for that. I don't agree with his absolutism, but I think couching his contributions to the thread as advertising is off and an odd thing to include in your response to me, even odder if you are a moderator, which you post might indicate, and itself off topic.
Nope. Not thinking about it in that way at all. Again, I said nothing about "costs," and having a preference (which is what feeling that x is more desirable than y is) doesn't at all imply thinking about anything in terms of a cost/benefit analysis.
Quoting Echarmion
That would be a completely arbitrary credo, but I'm not asking anyone to give a justification of their stance on whether hate speech should be allowed or not at any rate. What I asked for was support for claims being made about factual matters.
And if I reply to this, it will be further off-topic, so let's just leave it.
You expressed more than just your preference for a given world though. You gave that preference as the reason why you don't want any speech acts to be illegal. If an act leads to something you prefer, then that's a benefit. And if you're basing your argument on the benefits of not legislating speech, you're doing a cost-benefit analysis, albeit a one- sided one.
Of course, this is ultimately irrelevant since there is no point in arguing over mere preferences.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It's called intellectual honesty.
Quoting Terrapin Station
So, why did you write this:
Quoting Terrapin Station?
Baden said to give it a rest with the insults, so pack it in, you moron.
A cost-benefit analysis requires that someone thinks of something in terms of comparative costs versus benefits.
Otherwise this is the game where we wonder if we can interpret everything in some particular way, regardless of how anyone else is thinking about it.
So is the 'whether Terrapin (or anyone else) is a moron' discussion on another thread then? I think Zizek has written a paper on that recently.
:lol:
The problem is that he got mucous all over it while reading it out loud, and now it's illegible.
That's what the beard's for.
Sorry, we're supposed to be giving the insults a rest aren't we. And Zizek hasn't even posted yet.
This sort of stuff is probably what puts him off.
Right. So you're saying that you only thought of benefits, and therefore it's not a cost-benefit analysis? But other people still need to justify why they are doing a cost-benefit analysis with regards to speech?
Not necessarily as benefits, but it's too much quibbling to argue about that. So yes.
There's no "cost" to consider.
Quoting Echarmion
I didn't say anything like that. I was pointing out that there's nothing factual about whether anything is a cost or benefit.
You were criticizing @Baden for simply "assuming" a cost-benefit analysis is the correct approach. While using something very similar as your own approach.
Can this topic actually be usefully discussed or is it all just a matter of individual preferences, like favourite colours?
But I'm not using a cost/benefit analysis approach.
Again, you can't read any preference as a cost/benefit approach.
Any moral stance (as well as stances about what sorts of legislation we should have, etc.) is just a matter of individual preferences. I don't agree that that implies that we can't discuss them, but there aren't correct answers.
It's not that speech can't have an effect on others. It's that it can't be shown to force them to perform particular actions.
What's the difference, other than you giving it a different name?
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, but you explicitly argued in terms of the consequences of certain legislation.
Quoting Terrapin Station
What is there to discuss if there are no correct, and therefore also no false, answers?
I could be wrong (a regular occurrence) but I think most of us here would agree that such a world would be preferable to the world we currently live in - a world in which most people do believe things just because someone said it and in which most people will automatically follow orders when given by a person or persons in authority.
Is this world even possible given human nature and the history of mankind? I'm highly doubtful, but let's assume that it's possible. Now it becomes a question of methods - how do we achieve this lofty goal that we all agree on?
What I think Echamion and others are saying is that - again given human nature and the history of mankind - allowing all hate speech will increase the odds that that authoritarian regimes will arise - exactly the opposite result that we all desire.
What did I say the difference was?
None of your previous answers indicated any relevant difference to me. But I'd rather drop this and ask you to answer my other question than go down a rabbit hole about what is and isn't a relevant difference.
You're asking me what I think the difference is. I gave info for this already. What did I say?
Sorry, not interested in teacher / student roleplaying here. If you like you can engage with the rest of my previous questions.
Sure, so I have no interest in a conversation the way you're going about it. I guess you're not that interested in what I think, in which case don't bother pretending to be in the first place.
True, I am not really interested in what you think on this topic, or rather it's sufficiently clear to me from what you wrote. I am interested in your arguments and whether they hold up.
That's you. Others treat speech as having only the effects of gibberish. Presumably of a similar volume and pitch. IOW speaking to someone does not cause any other effects than speaking gibberish. I really had that discussion - a rather interesting one - for a series of posts. Might not have been the guy I just responded to, but it wasn't you, in any case.
Would this be a general heuristic in law for you? If an action cannot be shown to force people to do something, then it should be legal?
My arguments are what I think. Whether you talk about them to me or with others or just think about them to yourself, you have to know what I'd say to know whether it holds up. But a little over a half hour ago you asked me something that you should have known the answer for, with respect to my arguments, since I already said it, in response to a question you had asked me, just 90 minutes prior to that.
It's kind of hard to examine someone's arguments and whether they hold up when you're so uninterested in them that you can't even recall what they are 90 minutes later. (Of course, assuming one knows and understands them in the first place.)
Yes. In general, my disposition is that of a minarchist libertarian. (It's just that I don't agree with other U.S. party-styled Libertarians (minarchists or not) that it's okay if some people simply can't manage via a free market to have a home, food, health care, education, employment, etc. when they want it, so I'd structure the economy very differently. I don't care about capitalism. I'd have an "official" socialist economy, though it wouldn't disallow people to do whatever they like consensually.)
In general, I want a minimum of punitive laws, and I'd prefer to err on the side of fewer laws rather than more. I also don't agree with the way we've set up the criminal justice system, prisons, etc.
At any rate, I'd basically just focus punitive laws on the typical libertarian triumvirate -- (1) nonconsensual violence/physical force, which I'd require (a) have physical evidence, (b) be causally demonstrable, and (c) be of at least a minimum severity (so that we're not prosecuting people who accidentally stepped on your foot, poked you in the arm to get your attention, etc.) (2) property crimes -- requiring evidence, etc., and again, of at least a minimum severity, and (3) contractual fraud -- requiring documentation, and again, of at least a minimum severity.
A more colloquial way of understanding my view on this is that it's basically a "hippie" idea (since I'm basically a hippie in many ways): Let your freak flag fly, chill out/be mellow(--don't overreact)/let other people do their thing, and help each other out on the commune.
Yeah, that's a can of worms we didn't get into--just what counts as hate speech?
In some posts in the thread, people have already even endorsed considering some satire hate speech.
But by limiting speech (through coercion, no less) they limit speaking, reading, conversation, which are actions which have meaningful and important effects.
Well they're a subset. But it should be clear what I mean, no?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I asked for a relevant difference. So I don't think the answers you did give amounted to more than semantics. You're not going to agree with this, I suppose. Me repeating what you said won't help though.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Of course, if you're going to interpret your fellow posters in the most condescending way possible, that is the conclusion you will reach.
Regarding what you just replied to Coben, do you think offering people money for committing crimes on your behalf should be legal?
We should always remember that censorship is itself a form of bigotry and intolerance, and “hate speech” (speech I hate) is only the newest heresy.
(1) How am I supposed to know what you consider relevant or not, since you're really asking for that--a difference that you would consider relevant (and why would I go fishing for this anyway)?, and (2) How is describing a difference not going to be semantic? We'd be talking about what terms are referring to.
No.
See, and this is why I said I'd rather drop it, because there is simply no way I can communicate to you what I mean in a manner that you will find satisfactory. Essentially, for the purposes of arguing, I consider your argument and a "cost-benefit analysis" to fall into the same category. E.g. it's an argument from consequences rather than from principles.
I don’t think it can be shown that free speech leads to authoritarian regimes, nor that such a regime can exist under conditions of free speech. Censoring free speech, on the other hand, is to emulate and engage in the behavior of authoritarian regimes.
The US, which has the greatest protections of free speech in the history of the world, has progressed beyond slavery, segregation, internment camps, not in spite of the protections but because of them. Meanwhile, in the UK, one can get investigated for tweets.
Chomsky makes a good point about this in regards to neo-fascism and Holocaust denial.
She was convicted of “involuntary manslaughter”, the crime of killing a human being, despite it being an obvious suicide.
How do we square that circle?
To which I already said, "This is the game where we wonder if we can interpret everything in some particular way, regardless of how anyone else is thinking about it." (And the answer to that wondering is almost always "Yes.")
Quoting Echarmion
I'm not actually sold on the deontology vs. consequentialism distinction holding water.
I didn't address his post yet, but I don't think that, either.
At any rate, I don't have a problem with authoritarian regimes in principle. I don't have a preference for one form of government over another. What I care about are the laws in place.
Why would I care if laws I disagree with have been decided by a lone individual, a small group of people, or a large majority?
For example, I'm against banning hate speech. If a large majority of people in a democracy are in favor of banning hate speech, and that's why it's banned, that doesn't make me feel any better about it than if a dictator had banned it.
And I'd rather live under a dictator who doesn't ban hate speech than live in a democracy that does.
I don't care about how many people are deciding laws. I care about the laws they're making. Maybe if my views were very mainstream, so that I usually felt the way about things that most people feel, then I'd have a preference for democracies, but this is not the case.
I think that in an authoritarian regime those laws you disagree with would be difficult to challenge and change given that strict obedience to them would be presupposed.
My views are often way, way, out in left field compared to most folks' views. It's no easier to change anything I disagree with in a democracy. There are many issues where I'm not aware of anyone else having the same opinion as me, and it's not as if I'm swaying anyone's opinions.
It would be easier for me to sway one person's views (like a dictator) than a million persons' views.
I’m the same way. But I think the very fact that people are able to dissent from orthodoxy is invaluable.
I'll take the orthodoxy I agree with that you can't dissent from. ;-)
That way we don't have to worry about people making hate speech laws and such.
Ha. I could only dream of a world where free speech was the rule rather than the exception. Either way if someone dissented from that I would defend their right to do so.
Your neighbor practices his electric guitar until five in the AM and your bed actually vibrates - and not in a fun way. No way to call in the law? or can one? How do you see something like this getting resolved?
If the method through which they try to limit free speech is to speak about their ideas about the problems with totally free speech and hate speech and this leads to people voting for legislation, or for legislators, against pure free speech, then either
their use of free speech led to problems and you agree with them, that free speech leads to bad things
or
it did not lead to problems.
The people here are just exercising free speech. If this should be stopped, I can't see how your position holds.
If you disagree only, well that's another thing.
That’s the line of thinking for blasphemy laws for instance, that evil words beget evil deeds and laws against it must be enforced in order to protect the greater public good. It turns out it wasn’t so sensible.
Yes. Banning blasphemy turns out not to be conducive to a healthy society. Banning homosexuality turned out not to be necessary either, so should we now repeal the law against all sexual activity including rape and child molestation? No, because guess what... It turns out the world is actually a little bit complicated.
Surprisingly it transpires that in a system involving the interacting desires and abilities of 7 billion heterogeneous individuals one blanket rule doesn't quite predict the best results.
I'd rather acknowledge that sometimes words do lead to bad things than allow a situation where someone could order my family to be murdered and receive no punishment because some had an ideological attachment to free speech laws even more irrational than religious fundamentals' attachment to blasphemy laws.
In terms of hate speech, it's very difficult to write into law something that is highly contextual in practice, and there's always a risk of it going wrong, but on balance I'd prefer a society where extreme cases of hate speech, for example, surrounding a black person, shouting the N word at them and threatening to lynch them was not tolerated. I wouldn't make something like Holocaust denial illegal though as it is in some countries. What for me is objectionable is the immediate threat of violence and the intimidation that follows rather than the spreading of false or disgusting ideas.
I haven't read much of this discussion, but...
Do any serious commentators argue that ordering murder etc. ought to be defended on the basis of the principle of freedom of speech, or on the basis of its constitutional safeguards? I don't think even (reasonable) free speech absolutists would advance that position. Now, this may cast doubt on the purported absolutism of free speech absolutism--in that even it admits exceptions to the freedom of speech acts in general--but I don't think it's what is at issue in the wider debate.
Quoting Baden
What you're referring to here as hate speech would surely be covered by things like criminal threat, intimidation, or incitement to violence. Isn't the introduction of hate speech legislation precisely to cover other cases, namely of harm interpreted more widely, or offence--cases that don't fall under the other laws?
I'm no expert on the rest of the world, but, as I've quoted before in this discussion, the ECtHR definition is "forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including: intolerance expressed by aggressive nationalism and ethnocentrism,discrimination and hostility against minorities, migrants and people of immigrant origin"
So yes, it does extend beyond direct incitement to violence, into incitement to hatred. It does this, of course, on the very sensible precautionary principle that hatred probably leads to violence (and other forms of discriminating and degrading treatment), and that if we're wrong about that we have lost very little.
It is this cost-benefit analysis that the discussion has really been about, though many refuse to see it that way.
No they don't, but it was a response to this unreasonable position and follow ups to it.
Quoting Terrapin Station
But yes, we should move away from this to a more sensible level of debate.
Yes, it's unfortunate that Terrapin, whose views are essentially a parody of free speech advocates' positions, has taken up so much oxygen in the discussion. There are dangers to having hate speech laws (I know of some cases in the UK where they've been used over-zealously), but there are potentially more dangers to not having them. It's a debate worth having.
That would be a really interesting start. Do you have the case details to hand that you could give examples?
I have one in particular I'd like to mention but don't have the time at the minute to present it. I'll be back.
But that is a criterion that can be adapted to many purposes. No doubt the Chinese Communist Party could claim that the Hong Kong protestors are encouraging ‘hatred against the Motherland’. And in China, you can be jailed indefinitely on that basis.
Yes, it wasn't a great example because it partly related to other stuff that had come up and there's a danger of conflating the two issues.
Yes, absolutely. But the ability of a government to misuse legislative power is not alone a justification for not giving it to them. A government could determine that taking water from a stream constituted 'theft' and thereby crimilaise camping, but that doesn't advise abandoning laws against theft, only that what constitutes 'theft' needs to be carefully circumscribed to prevent abuse.
There are literally pages of limitations and caveats within both the original ECtHR article, and in the legislation of the country's adopting it designed to prevent such abuse.
The UK Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, for example, states in section 29j "Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system."
That seems quite clear to me
No.
But note that I'd not have a capitalist system in the first place. I'd have a socialist system, which also wouldn't be based on money in any traditional sense. In my system, if someone is uncomfortable with someone they're working with, it's no problem to simply work somewhere else instead, with people who you like better.
Quoting Coben
I'd have "sensory ordinances" similar to what we have now re sounds, smells, flashing lights, etc.
Which I don't agree with, obviously.
And they're not factual dangers, of course, because there is no such thing. It depends on what one considers a problem or not.
For example, with no speech restrictions, people are more likely to be offended. Is that a danger? No. The problem with offense is that some people are offendable. The problem isn't the speech that offends.
So if I don't like the sound of an electric guitar, I'd have recourse, but if I don't like the sound of "gays should be killed" I'd have nothing. Any reason why some sounds are legislated against and others aren't in your dystopia? Or is it just on a whim?
If the sensory stimuli are intense (loud, strong, etc.) and persistently permeating your abode during a time that you need to sleep, or in a manner that's going to cause physical problems otherwise (for example, sounds can make you deaf), you have recourse. You'd have that with someone saying "Gays should be killed" if it's loud enough and persistent, too. But it has nothing to do with semantics--this would be the case just as well if someone was saying, "I love Isaac; everyone should give him money," It has to do with a loud, persistent sound at a particular time of day or that would cause a physical problem otherwise.
Again, by the way, this isn't something unusual. It's the case in countries like the U.S. now, that there are noise ordinances, etc., but there are not prohibitions against someone saying something you don't like.
Yes, but not of the sort you're describing in your dystopia, that's what I was asking for clarification about. The modal ordinance from the EPA, for example describes violations as noises which are "unwanted" and "disturbing". Not just those that physically damage your ears. You, unsurprisingly, have limited the state's role to just about keeping everyone alive, and the rest of their welfare can go hang. Don't try and pretend that's a normal position.
I keep getting the impression that people here have basically zero interaction with the real, practical world. Why would you think that I'm talking about the EPA??
Municipalities have noise, lighting, etc. ordinances. They're instituted in the manner that I'm describing.
This bears no resemblance to what I'd do, and I've described what I'd do many times, including on this site.
The 1972 noise act allows for ordinances to be created municipally, it advises they are based on the 'modal' ordinance which is published by the EPA, failing that to default to the IFA definition which is much the same. If you have to hand any municipal ordinance which sets acceptable noise levels only at those which physically damage he ear, I'd like to see them.
Why can't you read? I didn't write what you're strawmanning there.
No, I know you didn't. You very much implied that noises which people found disturbing would also be covered, as they are in reality by the actual ordinances whose 'usualness' you cited in support of your position.
Then you back-tracked when I pointed out that verbal expressions people find disturbing would have the same status.
You too often presume that people re-phrasing your position in unsympathetic terms have misunderstood it, when rather, they are parodying what they see as its logical consequences.
No, I didn't.
It's so frustrating that I can't meet you in person or at least talk to you on the phone, say, as that would give me a better insight into what's wrong with you, why you can't read, or why you're so dishonest, or whatever the problem is.
When someone misinterprets what you have said, what are you gaining by repeatedly posting "wrong!" in various forms, as if we're sitting a 'what Terrapin reckons' exam?
What would be the purpose of initially writing the post if its a one-off attempt to communicate which you refuse to build on, or state more clearly (to the reader) and yet, it seems, consistently fails to actually communicate?
I honestly don't understand what you are posting for.
You don't post as if you're interested in my views per se. If you were interested in my views per se, you'd post as Coben does--in a friendly manner, where there's a clear, good-faith curiosity.
You, like many others here, want to argue. But you want to argue where it's clear that either you didn't really (closely) read, or didn't understand what I wrote, or you simply would rather be dishonest as a tactic. (Again, it's much easier to figure out these sorts of options with in-person cues.) That's clear because either points are made in the context of a strawman or questions are asked where I already addressed whatever it is. Yet one proceeds to aggressively argue anyway.
If something I said isn't clear to you, ask about it as if you're interested, and I'll explain another way.
If you think you understand what I said but I repeatedly point out that you don't, then maybe take a step back and wonder if maybe you're not really gleaning what I have in mind, and then ask clarifying questions as if you're interested, and I'll explain.
Most people here are simply interested in arguing, though. They're not really interested in others' views solely because others have different views and they're curious about others.
Yes there is. Your opinion doesn't matter in the bigger picture.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, you've already been told that that's a straw man.
If enough people have a different opinion, then in terms of what's practically the case re laws, etc., they can institute something I don't agree with. Sure. That's the case.
Quoting S
It's not a straw man because I'm not presenting it as someone else's argument. I'm explaining that what matters to me in this context is force. If speech isn't forcing others to be violent, then I'd not ban speech. It would have to be forcing the situation I want to avoid.
You have access to the internet. Look it up.
Oh, that was easy. That solves the issue. I should have thought of that.
Okay, then it's just irrelevant.
Although I'm doubtful how many regulars here have kids. Having kids is usually more of a trigger there.
Sure. Everything is relevant to some things to some people, and irrelevant to some things to some people.
Yes, you should have. The legal definition and examples are available to you through the internet.
I wonder if there's anything we can't look up on the Internet now. We probably don't need to do philosophy any longer. We can just look up anything we're wondering about.
Yes, like I said, it's irrelevant. Like if I said that I'm in favour of maintaining the ban on hate speech because ham sandwiches don't play chess.
It would solve a lot of problems, yes. Philosophy forums seem to attract people who lack common sense.
Yeah, I'm aware that in your view it's irrelevant.
It's my view that it's irrelevant because it's irrelevant.
You're not suggesting that whether something is relevant is a fact, are you?
Of course it is.
Where on the Internet do we look up information about relevance as a fact?
You use your brain. Do you have one?
So this is something we can't look up then.
My brain is telling me that relevance/irrelevance is not a(n objective) fact.
Then there's something wrong with your brain.
How do we figure out whether it's my brain or yours that has something wrong with it?
My brain leads me to the right answer. Yours does not. Therefore you have a faulty brain.
In other words, how do we know you have the right answer?
That's why you're often wrong.
So what's right is what's statistically normal?
Who is "we"? Those of us with working brains can know that I have the right answer through reason. Those of us who don't can't.
Working brain isn't defined by reasoning that you have the right answer, is it?
That doesn't follow from what I said.
It was a question. So then if no, you'd say "No." What's right is what then, where you'd say that has something to do with "My views are often way, way, out in left field compared to most folks' views"?
Yes, and it was worded like a conclusion, given that it begin with "So".
Here's another "So:"
So what's right is what then, where you'd say that has something to do with "My views are often way, way, out in left field compared to most folks' views"?
And the question is how we know this. Just asserting it doesn't tell us how we know it.
You don't know how you know that the world isn't flat?
As far as I can tell recruiting a murderer involves a great deal more than just speech, and involves active participation. At any rate, I’d have to see a specific case.
That’s the problem with hate speech: What is it, and who decides what is and isn’t hate speech? It just becomes the latest form of heresy. The UK, for example, once included “insulting words” in their hate speech provisions. This lead to all sorts of strange cases, such as the guy who was arrested because he called a police horse “gay”. Luckily that clause was removed almost 30 years later (thanks in part to Mr Bean actually). But the problem remains.
That's because I'm not interested in your views per se, why on earth would I be interested in the views of a random Internet poster, it doesn't make any sense to me out of the 7 billion people in the world, why would I pick you to ask? Are you interested in my views per se? I certainly don't get that impression.
I'm interested in your views to the extent to which they represent insurmountable flaws in mine. I don't want to have flawed views (where 'flawed' here means something like logically leading to a conclusion I don't like, or away from one I do) so I have an interest in checking.
I'm not, however, going to give up my preferred views immediately on being presented with a contrary position, so I want the opportunity to test any opposing position, to see how well its opposition holds up.
I act on the assumption that everyone else benefits from this process too (my views acting here as the opposition to theirs) and therefore this is a mutually beneficial process.
I'm also interested in how people go about supporting their views, but that's a personal interest I don't expect any reciprocation from.
What I'm definitely not interested in is simply what other people's views are.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Do you not see the assumptions in this? You're talking about interpretation of what another person has written. Often only a few dozen words. How come all our misunderstandings are our failure to read carefully, but for you "it's clear" what our posts 'really' mean, and not just you succumbing to a similar comprehension error?
I'm going to leave the Terrapin stuff now because it's so out of bounds it's not really helpful to waste energy on it. Re hate speech, I agree it's potentially problematic, mostly for practical reasons, such as how laws are written and interpreted, and I hope we'll get into the specifics of all that in the context of some kind of wider cost-benefit analysis. I'll get involved in more detail when I have time.
But that’s another point, these laws infantilize people and treat them like children. The Jewish people have lived through the holocaust, but according the the UK they Are sure to be oppressed by a joke including a pug giving Hitler salutes.
Sure I do. Surprisingly it has nothing to do with popular opinion or your brain. So how do we know that people are often right, then? That's what I had asked you.
Owned. :lol:
Maybe you wouldn't be, but it would seem odd to me to post on a board like this in that case. That's what you're going to get here. The views of a relatively small collection of random folks on the internet.
I'm interested in other people in the world in general. I like people. I think it's interesting to learn about their views, especially when they're interested in the same things that I am.
For things like "should hate speech be banned," it's not even as if there's a correct answer in the first place.
It definitely does have something to do with your brain. And I'm not sure you should be saying "we", if you mean to include yourself in that. I'm fine speaking for myself or people in general, but it's possible that you're an exception, in that you seem to be convinced of some things which are quite obviously totally wrong.
And now you appear to expect me to believe that you hadn't noticed that people are often right about basic and obvious things, or that this is some big mystery to you. :brow:
But there is for me. That's the point. It's about making sure I've got a view I'm happy with. I'm not happy with inconsistencies. I'm not happy with empirical type views which are overwhelmingly contradicted by the evidence. I'm not happy with more assumptions than I need have to make all the decisions I have to make. I simply presume others are here for the same reason and so try to reciprocate the favour.
An Internet forum full of random, but hopefully intelligent people (this isn't Reddit afterall) is a good place to check those things. I used to have the luxury of a few colleagues interested in the same things, which is even better, but have since moved to a different part of the country and you can't keep this up so easily on the phone.
For actual views, fully formed and delivered in a one way 'lecture with questions' format, I'd prefer a published book.
Actually they banned homosexuality for the same reasons they ban hate speech: indecency, a sort of moral panic, and not as a crime against another person.
You said
Quoting Terrapin Station
In the exchange that followed I pointed out that that sensory ordinances like the ones we have now include noises which are merely "disturbing" and wondered why, if you would have laws like that, you would not include the "disturbance" people feel when subjected to hate speech.
You replied that that's not what you wrote.
So if I could trouble you to set aside a little of your valuable time to indulge a lowly serf such as myself I'd be forever in your debt if you could possibly explain what you mean. Pretty please.
What?
Not even following that one I'm afraid. I'd love to disagree but I haven't the faintest idea what point you're making.
It just doesn’t follow that to oppose the underlying premise of hate speech laws, blasphemy and gross indecency, is to oppose laws against rape and child molestation.
I remember now where we got to last time I engaged with you. Not worth it I'm afraid.
Well, you responded to me so I was replying in kind. I guess it’s not worth it as soon as you get a little push back.
But China's a different kettle of fish.
The ordinances we have in the U.S. don't enable simply saying that something is disturbing you (in either common sense of that term), so that the police will do something about it. It has to be a lot more specific than that. Either it has to be at a particular time of day--during the time when most people are sleeping, or otherwise there would have to be something unusual about it--basically something that could pose a physical threat to you.
In other words, you can't just say, "Hey I don't like this sound"/"Hey I don't like this smell" and have the police do something about it.
But that's just not true as far as I can tell. I'd really need to see some evidence if you want me to believe that. I've read the EPA model ordinance on which municipal ordinances are supposed to be based according to the 1972 noise act, and it does not limit disturbances to sleep depravation or physical harm. Yes, you can't just tell the police that some noise is annoying you personally and expect to have it stopped, but neither do you have to demonstrate physical harm to have your case considered. The municipalities make a considered decision about the sorts of noises that are likely to cause them disturbance.
You still can't claim that it is 'usual' to only legislate against actual physical harm. Most normal laws include the concept of mental harm.
I just wrote the same thing. The mere fact that you don't like a sound isn't sufficient.
Yes, as with hate speech laws. The mere fact of some individual finding something offensive is not sufficient.
The point is that you are advocating that hate speech laws to go back even further - to say that actual physical harm must be proven in order to constitute an offence, whilst at the same time endorsing noise ordinances which do not go back that far. Noise ordinances do not allow just anyone to claim offense (just like hate speech laws don't) but they do take a reasonable view of the sorts of noises the majority of people are likely to find disturbing - loud or high pitched repetitive noises particularly at a time when most people prefer quiet (just like speech laws take a reasonable view of the sorts of speech most people are likely to find disturbing). So I'm confused as to why you'd advocate the former, but not the latter.
If the speech is loud and persistent enough at night that you can't sleep, I have no problem with enforcing that it stop. Whatever the content of the speech.
Why? It's causing no physical damage. Some people really like loud repetitive noises late at night, so what is it that makes playing the drums for sixteen hours a day something that its reasonable to legislate against? I can only think of the fact that any reasonable person would consider it disturbing, an entirely mental consequence of an entirely external sound. I just can't see why that's not the case for hateful speech.
Cue the line: Everything is physical.
It can cause you to not be able to sleep. That's not very controversial.
I ask this last because it seems to me the idea with absolute freedom of speech and cause has as the implication that I choose to have problems when exposed to speech harrassment. Given that I am a social mammal with all that entails, what if I don't want to change my personality to where I don't get annoyed, if that is possible? Why shouldn't the disturbed by sound person be expected to make changes to not be bothered, rather than suppressing the expressiveness of the artist?
I won't sleep well.
Worrying is different than a stimulus like sound keeping you awake.
His right to free speech does not entail he has a right to an audience. But one thing is certain, she should leave immediately.
Okay . . .?
Yes of course, censorship exists. If the boss believed in free speech, on the other hand, she might not be fired.
Absolutely agree. The idea that free speech only applies to governments is a massive misunderstanding.
The problem is the conflicting interests such as private property. For instance I defend Facebook’s right to ban anyone they want—it’s their property, their business and so on. That doesn’t mean that they should censor people.
You worrying is not some outside, persistent physical stimulus, is it?
So we have a society where some people get to censor but not others.
Should I change my personality to suit my neighbor`?
Why can't the person who is sensitive to noise change his attitude or buy some soundproofing. I need to change, why can't he`?
Some people can sleep through loud music. Some people need it to sleep.
So would you make legislation based on any arbitrary thing bothering some individual?
Your free speech is essentially my duty not to censor you, and defend you when you’re censored. But yes, I don’t think individuals often see take that position. If everyone did, we’d finally have free speech.
I obviously wouldn't make legislation based on any arbitrary thing bothering any arbitrary individual. That's what you seem to be arguing for.
I already explained the situation I'd legislate. Persistent sensory stimuli either of a certain intensity and/or at certain times of day. The examples you're bringing up have nothing to do with that.
It's fine if you'd do something different, but that doesn't make your examples have anything to do with what I already outlined.
I fear we cannot legislate free speech. The best we can do is argue in its favor and, over time, hope that others adopt it as an important principle.
One thing that makes me optimistic is that the free speech advocates throughout history were honorable and good, while the censors have all been relegated to the proverbial dustbin. Free speech is always on the right side of history.
In your system verbal expression must be protected in all cases.
Other types of expression can be shut down.
I am not sure why.
Further me slapping a man who says he is going to rape my child would seem to also be considered an expression that can be legally punished and stopped. (see in the other thread where I suggest that physical violence can be fine in relation to some speech acts)
It's a one shot stimulus. Not an ongoing one. The other man might even get a good night's sleep, since the slap, unlike the threat, does not entail concerns that most humans will ruminate over since it is about the future, whereas the slap is over and did not turn into a beating. More would likely have come then and not the next day.
I'd prefer a slap in the face to many consversations, some even polite and without threats. Boredom can be more painful for me, since I have a large neocortex like some other social mammals. I am not sure why physical violence is súch a no no, if I interpreted your posts int he other thread correctly it seemed like it had to be off limits.
Must I change to fit into your society but not the light sleepers who won't buy ear plugs?
That echoes Orwell’s concerns:
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-freedom-of-the-press/
Surprisingly, many governments have committed to free speech, whereas the vast majority of the public have yet to do so. Education will be key, but if the rampant campus censorship is any indication, that proves to be a difficult task.
But what does that have to do with the fact that I'd legislate persistent sensory stimuli of a certain intensity etc.?
Are you just telling me what you'd do in counterdistinction?
It doesn't have anything to do with expression. It has to do with sensory stimuli. As I noted, this would work for speech too--if someone is speaking persistently through a sufficiently loud PA system, for example. It's not anything about the speech per se, certainly nothing about the semantic content of anything. It's purely about the sensory stimuli.
Because we're not billiard balls or panes of glass.
And the neighbor in your socialist utopia who didn't like loud music at night, he or she could just move to a quiter area of the city, as the person with the foul mouthed using sexual langauage as aggression can be dealt with by changing jobs.
But here also, create unpleasance, even if not everyone would experience it that way, you get some unpleasance. Here I think fines related to income or wealth would be good.
It does for the guitar player. We got people in these scenarios.
A boss sexually harasses my wife. She can move.
A neighbor plays guitar loud at night. You can move.
A neighbor issues a threat to rape my child. I can move.
I don't see why different stimuli need to be treated differently. But ok, then the neighbors disturbed by loud noise can move or take measures to reduce their reduce the noise reaching them or their attitudes and emotional reactions to the unpleasance..
Me, I notice that humans respond to a wide range of stimuli with pain. This can be compicated. Measuring decibels by comparison is simpler. Well, there we are, complicated creatures sensitive the a wide range of stimuli. I'd like a society that reflects our wide range of senstivities. We're not salamanders, though I would protect salamanders also from noise if possible. I would not put anyone in prison or even slap them for telling the salamaders they are going to rape them. Because unlike us that stimulus does not lead to pain.
Which legislative support?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_censorship
https://electricliterature.com/corporate-censorship-is-a-serious-and-mostly-invisible-threat-to-publishing/
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/08/19/can-free-speech-and-internet-filters-co-exist/corporate-censorsip-is-untouched-by-the-first-amendment
https://fightthefuture.org/article/the-new-era-of-corporate-censorship/
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/while-everyone-frets-about-state-censorship-corporate-censorship-tightens-the-noose-c357e3bdd95d
In the past there was a commons, areas of life and land commonly held by the people. We have been privitizing the commons, Reagan and Thatcher made some jumps there, so what can be owned has extended. This means corporate censorship has extended. They are right now keeping news stories out of circulation. But also within organizations, people are being punishment for being honest or having opinions. No one who works for McDonalds has freedom of speech. But probably they can say what they like at parties, because no one cares. But in other corporations or higher up in McDs, you can get punished for whatever you say, anywhere.
I see @Coben is already banging his head against this particular brick wall of yours, but if you read properly (as you're so keen in emphasising to everyone else) you'll see I said "loud or high pitched repetitive noises particularly at a time when most people prefer quiet", not necessarily at night time.
The modal ordinance does not specify that the disturbing noise needs to be at night when people are sleeping. If you want to hide behind the 'usualness' and 'uncontroversial' nature of noise ordinances, you're going to have to provide some evidence that they align with your view.
Notwithstanding that, what evidence have you got that people don't simply choose to get so frustrated at repetitive noises that they can't sleep? As Coben has already indicated, there is ample relationship between anxiety from verbal bullying and loss of sleep, but you'd say they chose to react that way but needn't. Why the different approach to annoying noises?
But the weird thing for me is he rules out physical violence. But we have limbic reactions to physical pain.
You may have read how I tried above to show that physical pain and emotional pain (fear caused by threats) both in the end have to do with the limbic system. It's unpleasant, we don't like it. And most of us would easily choose one slap in the face over all sorts of verbal threats or harrassment. We can compare these things because they come down to unpleasant for us experiences.
But I think the approach to TS has to shift from trying to convince him to not being convinced. More of a there's nothing wrong with legislating X or responding to verbals stimuli with Y. I don't see how he can say more than he doesn't like that. He can then try to convince me that slapping is inherently bad. But I think that is trickier than us trying to change his mind since all he has to do and I think it ihas been much of his defense is to repeat his criteria and his preference.
Of course this approach is not dealing with the main kind of hate speech discussed earlier in the thread: speech that may or may not lead to violence.
Yes, I had read that. It's a good line of thought. Essentially we've removed any categorisation of the various human interactions. Even if I break your arm, that's only a problem if you like having a functioning arm and dislike being in pain. Well if I like breaking arms and therefore dislike having to refrain from doing so, it's just your likes against mine.
I'm just not seeing why the idea that we can resist our emotional responses to speech is any different to the idea that we can resist our emotional response to anything else.
I thought it was about the advantages of free speech (a cost-benefit analysis) but apparently it's not, so now I'm lost.
I am not sure if this is what is happening, but it seems like it. So I am trying to shift my responses to. I prefer X, what's wrong with that?
Well, he may say, that's nebulous.
But I prefer to have measures in place to take into account emotional pain caused by speech, rather than expecting I should act less like a social mammal who can also understand language. Put the onus on the other side. Perhaps that will sit fine with him. I don't know.
And we are nuanced creatures who often interact and have to deal with nebulous criteria. We do have tools for that.
This kind of onus jockeying is incredibly hard to track - this can be seen in the Khaled, you, me T Clark thingie, I decided I couldn't keep track of anymore.
I did want add, relevant to your post here, that we might have different laws than salamanders who likely are sensitive to sensory stimuli but not to words. But I fear pursuing that gets into the 'what is a cause?' morass, despite my thinking that the laws protecting salamanders and creatures who understand language will have categorical differences. And necessary ones.
Well, I'm a free musical instrument playing absolutist, so I don't believe that there should be any laws restricting the freedom to play drums really loudly all night, every night, when your neighbours are trying to sleep.
I can understand the desire to shift approach, but it becomes, for me, an uncomfortably one-sided conversation that way. If we are in a realm of joint meaning sufficient for the other person to answer the question "what's wrong with that?", presumably by some criteria of 'wrong' (either theirs or a shared one), then we should be in the position to do the same.
I think the problem here is that someone arguing fromTSs position (and I'm not saying he's doing this, I'm making a general point about the relativist libertarian position) can simply say "that's just the way I feel" to literally anything. The inherent problem with that is that one does not ever clearly know which of one's feelings are fundamental (genetic or so deeply imbedded as to immovable) and which of one's feelings are rationally derived from others. There's only any point in discussing one's feelings on any matter if one is open to the latter possibility. Other people cannot replace genetic or deeply imbedded feelings with argument. They can point out flaws in rationally derived feelings. Answering "that's just how I feel" to everything denies the second possibility and so makes discussion pointless.
Ha. I suggest you move in next door to Terrapin. You play the drums constantly and he can shout racist and homophobic obscenities at you. We'll see who cracks first.
But the boss does believe in free speech, and yet he would still fire her. That is because he doesn't believe in absolute free speech, which is not the same as free speech. All across the world, free speech is understood in non-absolute terms, and it has numerous supporters, myself included. You are the exception here. I am a supporter of free speech, whereas you are a supporter of taking free speech to absurd and objectionable lengths.
Okay, whereas I wouldn't hinge anything merely on whether someone is "having an unpleasant experience" because arbitrary people can have an unpleasant experience, of any degree, on any arbitrary stimulus. For example, someone could completely flip out because someone is wearing a plaid shirt, whether the plaid shirt-wearer knows the person will flip out or not. That shouldn't be a problem with the plaid shirt-wearer, even when they know the person will flip out. The person flipping out needs to get help.
In my society people have a responsibility to not be too sensitive, to not overreact, to not be offended, to not too easily worry, to not flip out, etc.* I'm not going to base laws on people being neurotic, not being able to handle simple things, etc.--because we can find people who'll flip out over any arbitrary thing, and then nothing is legal because of that and we've got a big mess where people only have to claim to be bothered by something in order to be able to control others over any and every little thing they don't like. That's completely the opposite direction of what I'm shooting for.
This is also why I don't base any ethical stances or laws merely on "harm" or "suffering" or anything like that, and it's why I have minimum requirements even for nonconsensual violence. No one is being arrested, fined, etc. for intentionally poking you in the arm or something like that. It has to be something with macro-observable effects days later--that's a requirement for a minimum intensity, otherwise the "victim" needs to just chill out and not overreact.
*(Or at least if you want to be like that, don't expect that it's going to result in us controlling others to make it less likely that you react in those ways.)
But me I don't want the verbal threatener, for example, to have free reign. So, I am will to also have complicated and nuanced processes to determine if it was serious.
Quoting Terrapin Station
If only there were ways for adults to make decisions about this kind of thing. I am not sure how they manage around physical violence and contracts since they could not around verbal threats.
Quoting Terrapin StationAnd look at that, you are capable of deciding what is 'too sensitive'. You could take part in the process. You seem to have a way to measure sensitivity. That's great. That means there is some equivalent to decibels.Quoting Terrapin StationSure, and I wouldn't want any physical contact to be considered assault (or is it battery) and it seems there are ways to determine the difference, though obviously there is a subjective element there. Likewise with contracts. I wouldn't want to get arrested for assault if I brushed past someone on the subway either. Quoting Terrapin StationWell, I wouldn't like that either. I am also shooting for a way to deter, for example, threats that most humans would find disturbing enough to cause them problems. I would prefer that that is not treated the same as other kinds of free speech use. And, yes, it might be very tricky to work out individual cases. So be it.
I would also want to be able to use physical violence in some situations where harrassment has gone on for a long time or the threat is so horrible. I'd prefer a society where we realize that as social mammals some kinds of non-physical contact acts, after a time, can and generally will cause emotional suffering in people who are not oversensitive nor neurotic. I think paparazzi often move into the area, as do stalkers, protection racket thugs and even some aggressive salespeople (though it is generally members way out on the end of the bell curve with the last, in my estimation that is).Quoting Terrapin Stationt tMy slap might or might not pass that test, thought I have to say it seems rather arbritrary. I could probably use a little shiatsu like pressure that leaves no damage or scars and gives someone agony for 15 minutes. That should be a crime unless there was some serious justification for that. Like every time you tried to let them up they went for the gun they had recently pointed at you.
As said. I see us as different from other animals, those of us who understand language. I also see us as not mere tabula rasa (whatever the plural is), but as have strong tendencies at least in relation to certain things, like threats of physical violence. We are social mammals which has given us many advantages, but also means that even words can do damage and this is used by people. I seem to be hitting a slippery slope where if any speech is stopped it means that people wearing plaid shirts will be arrested. I think we manage to differentiate between differerences in degree and kind in many parts of the law that are not related to speech and could manage there.
I also think that sensory stimuli are radically affected by personality and attitude and any law based on decibel level, duration and so on, with be culturally arbritrary. My Latino neighbors seemed to thrive with noise levels that would have put me in the hospital after a year.
I don't want to pretend that I am essentially the same as a species that has no language.
I also can't wait for a utopia where I can just quit and find a new job
Just as I wouldn't expect my neighbors to move whenever I move in with my drumset.
There could be all sorts of problems with this, just as there are in other parts of the law - lucky lawyers dealing with contract law cases. But there it is. Not everything human be broken down into numbers neatly so we can just send a person out with a measuring device. We are more complicated than that.
So I would prefer legal recourse for, amongst other things, threats.
So where, in this society, does someone fit who is too sensitive to minor speech restrictions, who overreacts to a really minor infringement on their liberty, who is worried that if the government bans hate speech they'll ban all political opposition, someone who flips out at being told they can't say certain words anymore in public. Where does such a person fit?
Or is the difference between an acceptable reaction and an over-reaction determined objectively somewhere I'm unaware of?
I don't know why your posts are getting so long.
Basically, I'd never decide this stuff on subjective reactions. No matter how much you flip out about someone wearing a plaid shirt, we're not banning plaid shirts.
In the niche where we don't ban people for endorsing minor speech restrictions, etc.
Its just like you can say whatever you like about gassing Jews or whatever. You just can't actually gas Jews (nonconsensually).
I'm a Heraclitian flux you cannot make a contract since it will not be me after signing it absolutist. I want to end all contract law. How can I bind a future self that is not me to obligations? And with companies it gets really ridiculous, Ship of Theseus and all that.
I want the court to demonstrate that I am the same self.
And this certainly would hold true for mortgages...what is it 7 years before all the matter is replaced in the body.
Dang, I am not sending in my next payment. It's been 8 years.
I would also like to bring up the idea of people being overly sensitive to a loss of freedom. That seems arbritrary and emotional to me. Neurotic even. How can we measure the results of the loss of freedom like a decibel meter one measures sound?
We're still waiting for the objective measures though. What's objective about the disturbance people feel from the types of noise prohibited by the noise ordinances that's not also there in the leve of disturbance people feel in response to hate speech laws?
Also, it would help if you stopped straw-manning the opposing position. No one is suggesting we should legislate against speech which just any individual claims is offensive. What constitutes hate speech is a carefully considered parameter based on decades of understanding about human behaviour and psychology.
I didn't see S saying this, but okay, he can be that (playing along that he'd be serious). Obviously different people would institute different laws if they were king. We're not all going to have the same preferences. That should be pretty obvious to anyone by the time they're in kindergarten at least.
Not being able to stay asleep isn't subjective, for example. It's clearly, objectively observable.
As I've said already umpteen times already, the legislation wouldn't be based on subjective "disturbance." I explicitly pointed that out already, which is why I get annoyed that you can't read or you're not reading.
Brilliant. I'm joining your cult. That'll also get me out of that murder wot I done.
Not that my law about this would even be based on not being able to sleep, however. It's would be defined purely in terms of objective properties--sounds, lights, etc. at certain times of days, at certain intensities.
What? Long?
You can't avoid arbitrary for this stuff. There are no facts re normatives.
My responses to your 'noise legislation' posts have never once referred to what you would do, so my reading ability has nothing to do with it.
My posts (if you actually read them properly!) are objecting to you claiming such an approach is normal and uncontroversial and citing municipal ordinances in evidence. Municipal ordinances definitely do not require a physical reaction such as loss of sleep. They cover noises during the day which a reasonable person would find annoying. An entirely mental reaction. It's fine if you don't agree, but you can't then use them as evidence that your position is uncontroversial.
That's fine, but you're wrong. I've been on both sides of police being called about this sort of stuff lots of times. (And in many different locales.)
Oh--I had no idea of the context for a moment. Your posts being long. Yeah, that's definitely a subjective assessment. I'm not proposing legislation about it, thankfully.
The reason I said something about arbitrariness earlier was because people were forwarding arbitrary stuff as if it was a fact, as if it could be correct/true, etc. (Usually S does this, with an implication either/or that something is correct for him thinking it, or it's correct for it being common.)
Is this the TS special treatment again? If I'm wrong, show me the evidence. I was subjected to your ridicule for not wanting to link evidence to support my position. Cite me the noise ordinance for your (or any) municipality where they specifically say that the noise must have some objective physical consequence in order to be controlled.
I'm fine with you being wrong. Obviously being on both sides of this many times is not something I can show you.
Re codes, I can search, but this, for example, gives decibel allowances:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/noise_code_guide.pdf
The way police implement laws practically is often not the same as the way that laws are written, by the way.
Again, all laws are arbitrary (that is, the basis for the laws). I just said this. There's no way to avoid that.
And again, something else I just said is that the reason I said something about arbitrariness earlier was that people were presenting arbitrary things as if they were factual, correct, etc.
I just didn't want to get into writing long posts back and forth where an increasing amount of different issues have to be addressed each round. I don't like posting like that.
So where, in that code, is it limiting what it will restrict to those which have a physical effect. I'm seeing a lot of restrictions on noises during the day time (so sleep isn't an issue) and restrictions on noises which are still well below the volume which damages the human ear. So where is the objective physical harm that comes from a dog barking for a period of ten minutes or more during the day?
What did I say I'd base mine on--time of day and intensities, right? And I wrote that at least five or six times now.
Just to clarify here, you'd made a comment about what things would be like (re this subthread about sensory stimuli) under my policies, and I said that it wouldn't be any different than it is now (in the U.S.)--and that's the case. As things are now, this simply goes by a combination of time of day and intensity of the sensory stimuli, at least re how it's enforced.
I'm glad that someone else here sees how someone wearing a plaid shirt is just like someone publicly calling for the extermination of Jews.
Fortunately absolute monarchy has all but disappeared, and these kind of views are far too unpopular to gain the required support in democracies.
More like I point out something obvious, like that people often get basic and widely known things right, like the shape of the earth, or what the word "chair" means in English, and you respond with unreasonable denials or you jump to the erroneous conclusion that I'm fallaciously appealing to the masses.
Well, and I'm glad your reading abilities are such that you saw that I was saying that they're just the same.
It was an out of place and inappropriate example, given the topic of hate speech. I'm glad that your ability to read between the lines is on top form today.
Yes, and the intensity of the sensory stimuli is not sufficient to cause physical harm. It is sufficient only to severely annoy, disturb, or otherwise mentally affect people such as a dog barking for more than 10 minutes, construction noise, loud appliances, all of which are mentioned. As is also the case with the 42 decibel limit for air conditioning systems which is way below the 85db of noise at which physical hearing damage is possible. So you can have whatever crazy ideas you want for your fantasy world, but you can't make a factual argument that they are similar to ideas in the real world and expect it to go unargued.
The noise legislation is based on a reasonable assessment of the sorts of noises which are likely to cause emotional disturbance, just like hate speech laws are.
Well, social media companies have received great pressure from governments to self-curate or suffer stiff penalties and regulation. They were once fairly free speech orientated until recently.
The UK just released some Orwellian “online harms” white paper, sold to the public as regulatory measures intended to keep citizens safe online. France has an online hate speech law that requires social media sites to remove “hate speech” or risk stiff fines. Of course, curation of social media is only possible with algorithms.
Which has what to do with what, exactly? Are you being thrown off by the fact that I said "For example, loud sounds can cause hearing damage"?
I wasn't at all talking about hate speech there. Coben asked me about something else.
No. The line of argument I'm following is that if you would accept laws preventing the emotional harm caused by loud noises that aren't related to the semantic content (ie non-physical harm) then why won't you accept laws preventing emotional harm from noises when the harm is related to the semantic content?
Non-semantic harm from noise is not more objective - it still depends on the individual subjectively not liking the noise.
Non-semantic harm from noise is not more well evidenced - there's just the same self-reported harms from dogs barking as there is from hateful language.
Non-semantic harm from noise is not more easy to specify - we still have to provide a long list of what noises under what circumstances are to be banned, just as we would with a list of words or expressions.
So I cannot see why you would accept that we need to protect people from the entirely subjective emotional (mental) harm causes by the non-semantic content of sounds, but not the semantic content.
Hence my presumption that you must have been talking about the physical harm from the non-semantic content of noises. It was the only position that was consistent.
? I'm not basing any laws on "emotional harm." I never said anything even remotely resembling that.
In fact, I said just the opposite.
So, if not physical harm, and not mental harm, then on the basis of what exactly would you have legislation against certain disturbing noises as you specified?
I said this already. For example, loud enough, persistent noises at night can prevent sleep.
Why do I have to have a discussion that's just trying to get you to read?
No. You additionally said that your ideas here were uncontroversial and like the noise ordinances that already exist. I pointed out that the noise ordinances that already exist cover much more than physical harm such as lack of sleep, and you replied that this was not the full extent of your ideas here either.
Either your ideas here are uncontroversial and like existing ordinances - in which case they definitely include mental harm, or your ideas are controversial and nowhere adopted.
I said it would WORK just as this WORKS now. And it would.
If you call the police now, and it's noon, and you say, "Hey there's this loud construction sound that's annoying me," they'll check it out, but unless it's something so loud and persistent that it could cause hearing damage, they'll say, "I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do about this."
No they won't. It's written abundantly clearly in the ordinances. Air conditioning noise above 42db is not allowed - day or night. And that is not enough to cause hearing damage.
Yeah, they will. Again, many times I've been on both sides of this. In many different locales.
Not that it's maybe not different in whatever country you're in, but have you had the police called on you about noise/have you had people you're with call the police with noise complaints against others?
Again, you're coming across like someone who has lived in basement his whole life, with no real-world experience, no social interaction, etc.
Oh, I see. So the ECtHR thinking that hate speech should be legislated against is not sufficient evidence that there might be a link to some harm, but your entirely subjective single person account is supposed to be sufficient evidence that limiting legislation against noises to actual harm is normal?
It's one rule for you and a different one for the rest of us.
Hence why I asked if you have had the police called on you re noise complaints/if you've called the police on others.
I'm a musician, and I've been a musician for over 50 years. I know lots of people who have had the police called on them about noise complaints.
Yes, I have. I co-manage a farm, we had a small festival on it, the neighbours complained about the noise and we were told we had to turn off the music by 11pm next day. The neighbours were not required to produce expert reports detailing the strong physical link between our music and their mental wellbeing,because the police, the council and the courts (should they have got involved) are all humans and don't need documentary evidence of the sorts of things that cause distress to other humans.
Right,by 11 p.m.
Why weren't you told that you had to turn it off in the afternoon or earlier in the evening?
Balance of harms. As I've been saying throughout. They didn't like the music in he day either, but the harm is not great enough to completely remove our liberty to have a festival.
If I'd have shouted abusive language at them instead, the situation would have been no different, only there's no liberty worth protecting in shouting abuse
Is that what the code says?
I don't see what that's got to do with the argument, but I will have to wait until tomorrow to find out as I have to go out now
Sure. So the reason for it, from the perspective of the code and the enforcement by police, wouldn't be anything like a "balance of harms." In your country, is the code written so that the police were exactly following it when they only said that you had to turn off the music by 11 pm?
I know, you were talking about plaid shirts... in a discussion that's supposed to be about hate speech.
Looked around a bit, but I can't find the specific example I was looking for. It had something to do with a woman who posted an anti-gay Facebook post or Tweet and ended up being interrogated for several hours by police. There are plenty of other cases around though, e.g.:
Police were reported to be looking into whether a hate crime had been committed here.
In this case:
there was a prosecution and an £800 fine (statute allows for anything between a maximum of 6 months and seven years imprisonment). I'm having trouble finding good uses of the law that would show why it's necessary to be honest.
In Ireland, we have The Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989. But the first conviction wasn't until 2000, and it was of a bus driver who told a Gambian passenger "You should go back to where you came from". (Ring any bells Trump fans?) Maybe firing him would have been enough.
So, as I said yesterday, I'm not sure what this has to do with the argument.
I don't see what the fact that the reason for the code isn't in the actual code has to do with whether it's intent was to balance harms. Very rarely is the reasoning for a law written into the actual law, they're usually sparse. Most of law here in the UK is case law, various judges interpreting the law, in case law they talk about balance of harms all the time, that and proportionality are virtually the foundation of all case law decisions.
Notwithstanding that, to answer your question, it wasn't the police, it was the council, and no the code was not written in such a way, it's not nearly as good as the NYC code you posted. I can't find an online version, but we got a leaflet which said little more than noise mustn't cause a nuisance.
The trouble is that proportionality does not always get instigated in the first instance, but it is present in the law. We have laws against littering, loud music, recording music from YouTube, cycling on the pavement, not informing the DVLA of a change of address/name, travelling at 41 mph in a 40mph zone... It is not, and never has been, a requirement of legislation that it prevent something which, if un-prevented, would spell the end of civilisation. The important point is proportionality. Teaching a puppy to raise it's paw when you say "Gas the Jews" is not about to bring back the Third Reich, it's just going to offend people whose family members perhaps died in the holocaust, and it might, if allowed to continue, create an environment where Jews feel less comfortable in public if anti-semitic jokes are considered acceptable again. In proportion to that fairly minor consequence (when considering the single part in that his video plays in that wider picture). That's OK though because he was just fined £800, no prison sentence, no community service. It's less than not paying your TV Licence. The other offence was investigated but not even charged.
So proportionate to the harms, these offences make good headlines, but are pretty minor infringements of public order. They also attract pretty minor punishment, if any at all, so that seems entirely appropriate. Are there times when the police get it wrong? yes, I sure there are, but that's the same with any law.
As mentioned earlier, the case of Anjem Choudary.
It says that he was convicted of terrorism offences, because they were obviously going to nail him for a more severe crime if they could, but it's hate speech.
[quote=The Guardian]It’s well worth reading the remarks delivered by the judge in Choudary’s sentencing. Despite only finally falling foul of the law after being found to have pledged support to Isis, Holyrode points out that Choudary used his platform to spread his messages of division and violence long before he was arrested. Choudary is said to have “taken every opportunity to address audiences by various means”. He said to Choudary: “You wanted to address a large audience because you know that you were held in high regard by your followers, and that they could therefore be expected to be influenced by what you said.”
“Those who already held views in favour of Isis would no doubt have been encouraged and strengthened in those views by what you said, and that in itself makes your offending serious; but you were also aiming at a wider audience,” the judgment continues.
[B]Choudary’s views, and more importantly his ability to communicate and share them, led to his extremism being propagated. What’s more, we know they contributed to encouraging others to engage in acts of indiscriminate, abhorrent violence. He was linked to one of the men who killed the soldier Lee Rigby, and the London Bridge attacker, Khuram Butt. His words are said to have influenced at least 100 British jihadists.[/B][/quote]
From here.
And from the same article linked above, with regard to Darren Osbourne, perpetrator of the Finsbury Park mosque terrorist attack:
[quote=The Guardian]Police say it took just three or four weeks for Osborne’s extremism to emerge – evidence from devices he used show that he accessed posts by Tommy Robinson, Britain First and others.[/quote]
And oh, look:
Tommy Robinson banned from Facebook and Instagram over hate speech
Jayda Fransen: Ex-Britain First deputy leader convicted over hate speech
I never said anything at all about "intent."
What I said was that I would do is no different than the way it works now. The way it works now is what happens when you call the police with complaints about it.
This is why I keep making comments about reading. I'm repeating stuff I've already said a few times above. You don't even know what I'm talking about, though. You think I'm saying something about intent.
Yes but you can't "do" a "way it works". A "way it works" is a state of affairs, to do is a verb, you "do" actions, or activities, not states of affairs.
I'm not going to respond anymore to these arrogant presumptions that, in cases of misunderstanding, the problem is always with the comprehension skill of the reader and not your terribly poor communication skills.
The crux of the matter is whether or not you're in favour of the major benefit of preventing terrorist attacks and other serious crimes, at the minor "cost" of not being free to spread condemnable hate speech.
The crow and the vampire are insane enough to be against, and are stubborn enough to ardently resist having the good sense to ever change their minds on the matter, whilst the rest of us do not block out what reason and common sense have to say on the matter, and are therefore in favour.
That's all there is to it. [I]Finito[/I].
It doesn't need to be foolproof. It just has to work well enough, which it has done in securing convinctions like that of Jayda Fransen and others. What's the alternative? Have nothing in place because it isn't perfect? And Isaac has cited the definition in full multiple times now.
Sure. I believe what I said was it was not so simple. You couched the issue in utterly simplistic binary terms. Quoting S
The alternative is when discussing the issue to not make it all simple and binary.
I found a definition Isaac relayed, I don't know if it the main one. It didn't seem to include discrimination around sexuality or sexism, so perhaps there is a more general one somewhere.
I would want to see what is considered inciting hatred. With a stress on that verb and also to see how the courts would or would not let the law slide or expand over time before couching the options we have in such simplistic terms you did. I have seen the way, for example, criticism of Israel gets turned into hate speech as anti-semitism and I have seen policies at universities that shut out vast swathes of potential and actual dialogue. I have seen people with economic concerns about immigration labelled racists, including immigrants who had those concerns, and seen them lose jobs. (I am in a European country right now though ex pat american.)
I worked in an organization that had a similar policy, though broader, including gender and sexuality and religion. I was appointed the person to deal with complaints. It certainly did help in some situations, but it became clear that almost everything was open season and I was pressured to censor and censure people who, I felt, were not inciting hatred against groups, but one could interpret the rule to include their speech acts.
Just to be preemtive: just because I say these things does not mean there should be no law. This is all in response to your simplistic version of the options.
"That way it works" - what actually/practically happens.
But I didn't just write that. I talked about what happens when you call the police about this stuff many times.
States of affairs are dynamic, by the way.
Quoting Isaac
It doesn't matter how simply I write something. You don't understand it.
I'd try to prevent terrorist attacks in some ways, not in other ways.
For example, if no one were able to congregate in public places, that would go a long way in preventing terrorist attacks. But I'd not prohibit congregating in public places just to avoid terrorist attacks.
I'd not prohibit any speech just to avoid terrorist attacks, either. (Assuming that there were any evidence at all that prohibiting some types of speech avoids terrorist attacks, by the way.)
You're welcome. :ok:
Quoting Coben
I put it just fine, and you responded with unconstructive worries. "Ooh, but what if the wording isn't quite right?", "Ooh, but what if someone interprets it all funny like?", "Ooooooh...". :scream:
Quoting Coben
Writing laws is best left to professionals, not members of a philosophy forum. There's hardly a better example than if it was down to someone like Terrapin Station.
Quoting Coben
Then look up the case history. I've already given examples. What more do you want? Here's an idea: why don't you do your own research?
Quoting Coben
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, if you're arrogant enough to think that you can do better, then be my guest. But there's no way that I'd trust that responsibility to you over the actual professionals whose job it is to come up with this sort of legislation.
Right, so in your world, law enforcement is out of the window with regard to terrorist inspiring hate speech produced by the likes of Anjem Choudary, Tommy Robinson, and Jayda Fransen, so you'd do what exactly? Ask them kindly to stop?
Great, when I suggest writing laws, rather than discussing issues related to law, I'll think back to how prescient you were.Quoting S
And more strawman stuff to get you to posture more. You are precisely the kind of person who probably thinks they are doing noble things, but via all the snarkiness, oversimplification, shifting of focus and irrelevant crap makes any tensions over an issue even worse.
You probably think you are making things better, but you actually just love the hate, keep it all us them and harsh. And the irony is lost on you.
I'll ignore you from here on out.
Maybe this one:
Mother arrested in front of her children for calling a trans woman a man on Twitter is charged with trolling
The UK has lost it. How the mighty have fallen.
Intelligence work seems to be doing the job fairly well.
Intelligence work failed to prevent the acts of terrorism mentioned in The Guardian article, whereas the enforcement of hate speech law at an earlier stage might have done.
The idea isn't that intelligence work would be infallible.
Again, there's zero evidence that controlling hate speech would have anything to do with controlling terrorism.
Terrorism isn't the primary problem we've had in the U.S. over the past 20-25 years anyway. It's violence related to other crimes (the illegal drug trade, gangs, etc.) and loony locals who want to shoot up folks for all sorts of reasons . . . or no reason at all in some cases.
The US has no hate speech laws and less terrorist incidents than the UK.
The UK has hate speech laws and more terrorist incidents than the US.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_terrorist_incidents_by_country
I know. The idea is to prevent terrorism, and where intelligence work can and does fail, there are other potential means.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, there's not zero evidence, there's zero evidence that you're willing to acknowledge as evidence because you're biased.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Whether that's true or false, it's irrelevant. It doesn't have to be the "primary" problem.
And that's not enough of a basis to reasonably draw any relevant conclusion. If we didn't have hate speech laws in the U.K., then we might have had even more terrorist incidents. And if the U.S. had've had hate speech laws, then they might've had even less.
So what evidence is there that having hate speech restrictions controls anything about terrorism?
You can just give me anything academic that even suggests that (as long as it's specifically suggesting that hate speech legislation would have something to do with controlling terrorism.) I won't even comment critically on it. I'm just doubtful there's anything academic that would even suggest this.
Yes, hate speech laws have little if anything to do with terrorism. But censoring someone like Choudary leaves us all ignorant of his extremism.
Do you think that you know better than the judge that presided over the court case of Anjem Choudary?
What on earth are you saying "yes" to? Are you talking to yourself? Because I said nothing of the sort.
Quoting NOS4A2
No, it wouldn't. Think it through. The media publishes news about censored content all the time. We don't need to know the full details of his hate speech to be informed that he committed that crime.
I think it’s fine if you want to remain ignorant of what he says. But I would rather know, personally, mostly so I can combat his ideas.
So the judge suggested that prohibiting some speech would help us control terrorism? Was that in his written decision?
So you'd rather have his speech published to a wide audience, which is exactly what he wants. And if, out of that audience, a number of people are converted to his ideology, and maybe even go on to commit serious crimes in the name of that ideology, then that's alright with you.
Anyone with half a brain can work out the implications of what he was saying.
So I had asked for evidence that controlling hate speech controls terrorism.
And then I said, which still stands, that I would accept anything academic that even suggests it, as long as it's explicitly and specifically suggesting that hate speech legislation would have something to do with controlling terrorism.
But the best we can do, apparently, is something that a judge said, and apparently he didn't explicitly say that controlling hate speech controls terrorism; we need to read that into what he said. And then we still didn't address where the judge said this--I'm guessing in his written decision on the case, but you didn't answer that. Is that right, we're reading this into his written decision on the case? Do we have a link to his written decision? I quickly searched for it but I was just finding articles about the case.
So you're not claiming that any academic source suggests that hate speech legislation would have something to do with controlling terrorism?
I'm claiming that anyone with half a brain can work out the implications of what the judge was saying, and that your typical response of requesting an explicit statement which you know isn't there in the quote is just a lame workaround to avoid conceding.
It just doesn’t follow that me defending his free speech means I’d rather his speech published to a wide audience.
That's fine.
Is there any academic source that suggests that hate speech legislation would have something to do with controlling terrorism?
Try not to lose track. It shouldn't be that difficult to follow the logic. We were talking about the media publishing a censored hate speech, as opposed to the full details of it. The media has a wide audience. You are totally against censorship, and you said that you would rather know, than to remain ignorant, as you would do under censorship. That implies that you'd be okay with a fully uncensored publication by the media, which would reach a wide audience, which is exactly what the perpetrators of hate speech desire. And if you're okay with that, then in order to be consistent, you should accept the potential consequences of that stance.
You can't have it both ways.
Did you not read the remarks delivered by the judge in Choudary’s sentencing? Did you not read about the cases linked to Choudary's hate speech? The judge is an authority when it comes to hate speech and crime.
Or you did, but you're just going to keep asking for something else. Fine, be unreasonable. There's obviously no convincing you, and you're just going to keep making the same stupid requests.
First, I never heard of this case until it was just brought up earlier in this thread.
I asked you twice now if we were talking about his written decision in the case. You never answered.
And then I asked if you had a link to the decision (or whatever you would have been referring to if not his decision). i said I was only finding articles about it. You never responded to that.
So obviously I never read whatever you were referring to.
You did say that the judge didn't explicitly claim that hate speech legislation has a connection to controlling terrorism. And the judge isn't an academic source for evidence of a connection, at any rate. But sure, I'd read whatever you're referring to if you could point me to it.
I deliberately ignored that because it should be blindingly obvious what I was referring to. How many times have I referred you to the remarks delivered by the judge in Choudary's sentencing, as quoted in the Guardian article?
Quoting Terrapin Station
If you mean what the outcome was, as in his sentence, that was all there for you to easily access through the link in the original post. I can't work out whether you're being really lazy or you're just staggeringly incompetent.
Quoting Terrapin Station
And I also said that your emphasis on that was a frankly ridiculous debate tactic.
. . . There's no way you're such a royal asshole in person.
Anyway, so we're talking about a newspaper article? What was the link to it again?
Your request for me to effectively spoon feed you actually offends me.
What a convoluted word salad. I wouldn’t mind if the media showed us hate speech, if that’s what you’re getting at.
It comes across to me like he's expecting you to have an intuitive reaction against the idea of some people being exposed to some speech.
Hardly. And I only felt it necessary to clarify in greater detail because you were evidently so confused over my initial more brief and straightforward wording.
Quoting NOS4A2
Clearly I was getting at more than just that. So I take it that you accept the rest of what I said also? Or did you just decide to ignore the related points I put to you, as though I never made them? Selective reading, is it?
Do you want to try again, since you've failed to properly address my point twice now? Perhaps it will be a case of third time lucky, though I don't have high expectations of you.
I don’t think hate speech should be censored. If the news shows a swastika or racial vandalism, for example, I don’t think a bunch of neo-Nazis are going to rise from the ground and start attacking people.
You're deliberately picking examples which are more likely to skew the outcome in your favour, just like Terrapin Station has done a couple of times now.
Stop wasting time attacking a straw man. This is what I actually put to you:
Quoting S
And is the supporting evidence:
Quoting S
The links didn't cross over in the quote, but you can find them in the original post by clicking the link contained in my username just under the quote above.
Straw man? I said I didn’t want hate speech censored, not that I’d “rather have his speech published to a wide audience”. I don’t know how you leaped from what I said to your interpretation.
Yes. You attacked a much simpler and weaker stance which you came up with yourself:
Quoting NOS4A2
Quoting NOS4A2
What you're quoting out of context is a logical consequence of what you said, not what you said. Which part of the logic I set out for you are you seemingly incapable of following? There was no leap. You replied to my explanation by dismissing it with the mischaracterisation that it's a word salad, which suggests that you possibly have brain damage, as it was perfectly understandable.
In what strange world does not censoring someone entail publishing their speech to a wider audience?
Do you know the primary reason why ISIS hates us and wants to fight us? They answer the question in one of their propaganda pieces.
I'm guessing that's what you were referring to re the judges remarks? The judge said that Choudary's comments "encouraged" and "influenced." Are we to take the judge to be using "influence" in the sense of "cause" (but not "force," whatever "cause but not force" is supposed to be)?
Jesus Christ. I'm talking about a world that must seem very strange to you indeed. I'm talking about the strange world of combining logic with your own comments in this discussion. Let me try one last time to break it down as clearly and simply as possible, so that even a simpleton could understand it.
You are totally against censorship, yes? Yes.
The media publish things, yes? Yes.
The media, or at least notable media outlets, have a wide audience, yes? Yes.
So, if a notable media outlet (if it hasn't already slipped your mind, you'll recall that they have a wide audience) decided to publish a hate speech in full, then you would have no objection to that (given that you're totally against censorship), yes? Otherwise you would be contradicting yourself, yes?
Are you following?
Maybe you wouldn't be so confused if you hadn't either forgotten or wilfully disregarded the context of my comment. When I said that you'd rather have his speech published to a wide audience, that was as opposed to censoring it, and it was about a publication through the media (hence a wide audience).
It really isn't that complicated.
Yes.
I’ve stated explicitly that I don’t believe it should be censored. Take that to whatever logical conclusion you wish and imagine I’m arguing for it, but I cannot make it any more explicit.
Not from the showing of a single swastika, no. But regular, supportive, coverage of (say) racist stuff does cause a surge in support for organisations like the KKK, who are more prominent today since Trump came to power, and gave them his support.
Do you accept the logical consequences of that statement, as I've set out for you? Yes or no? And if no, then why not?
Why is it so difficult to get an answer out of you? Repeating that you don't believe that it should be censored obviously isn't helpful in any way at all, because I'm asking you about the logical consequences of that.
You're right, he was attacking his own straw man there, as I pointed out. And it is bad form that NOS4A2 just moves on from this sort of criticism without any acknowledgement of error.
You didn't ask me, but of course I'd have no objection to that.
Aside from the nonsense of "Trump gave the KKK his support" (lol), what empirical studies are you using for "regular, 'supportive' coverage of racist stuff causes a surge of support for organizations like the KKK"?
Yes, but you also say that you seriously think that I could right now believe that I'm on the moon, or an ostrich, etc., etc., so now there's little reason trying to reason with you over anything at all. If you can believe that, then you can believe anything. You've lost all credibility.
Whereas I'd say that claiming that any arbitrary person couldn't believe any arbitrary thing is not at all justifiable (and suggests little experience with a wide variety of people, because folks believe all sorts of wacky crap)
Not that this should require any further explanation, but one of the weakest types of argument is an appeal to logical possibility over an issue that's about what you think is the case. That it's possible is literally all you have going for you, against all of the evidence to the contrary. So, to quantify it approximately, your case has about 0.000001% going for it, whereas the contrary case has like 9.999999% going for it. So it's a possibility far too remote to take seriously. So you are being totally unreasonable here, Terrapin. Not that you'll admit it, of course.
Again, empirically, "folks believe all sorts of wacky crap"
That's a shoddy analysis. How many people out of the total population believe that they're on the moon with Chevy Chase?
What does the number of people with a specific belief have to do with anything? Why do you keep going back to what most people do for every single thing?
I can just imagine you making sure you have 2.3 kids.
So there's this thing called probability. You may have heard of it.
This is off topic but fits into it, The same media who blamed themselves for giving Trump free exposure don’t blame themselves for the free exposure given to white nationalists. Trump has explicitly denounced racism and white nationalism.
Noam Chomsky makes this wonderful point that in Europe, where holocaust denial is illegal, holocaust denialists are given massive exposure whenever they say something. The same isn’t the case in the US. There are tenured professors in the US who write works of holocaust denial and no one cares.
I accept that someone may or may not publish hate speech to a wide audience. Do I think it’s a logical consequence that it will happen? No.
Do you know why ISIS hates us and fights us in the west? They’ve written about it in their propaganda. Should the reason they hate us and fight us be censored, or is this important information?
That's a tiny part of the reasoning I put to you. What about all the rest?
That someone may be inspired by it? Yeah sure. Or they may take the opposite stance and oppose it.
Do you know why ISIS hates us and fights us in the west? They’ve written about it in their propaganda. Should the reason they hate us and fight us be censored, or is this important information?
Okay. And if someone [I]is[/I] inspired by it, and they go on to commit a hate crime as a result, in the name of the hateful ideology, then that's something that you're willing to accept? Just to paint the picture, that could mean an explosion brutally killing and maiming innocent men, women, and children, scarring the lives of any surviving victims, as well as families and friends of the victims.
Quoting NOS4A2
It doesn't matter what I think, because that isn't down to me. It is, and should be, down to the relevant authorities.
No, I do not accept terrorism, nor the stupid reasons they give for their actions.
It does matter quite a bit. I know why ISIS hates us and why they fight us because I can go and read their arguments. Someone in the UK, on the other hand, may get serious jail time for even viewing it.
But you just said that someone may be inspired by the hate speech. It's possible that if they weren't inspired by it, then they would never have gone on to commit the act of terrorism. So by permitting hate speech, you are by implication accepting that possible consequence. So by not accepting it, you're being inconsistent.
Quoting NOS4A2
Good! We've already had terrorist attacks inspired by just that kind of hate speech. That's easily a price worth paying. I would happily forsake that privilege of access.
I never said nor implied their terrorism was a consequence of the hate speech. By “inspired by it”, I meant they were stupid enough to agree with it. The magical thinking of “consequences” is effectively crystallized in our language, that much I will admit, that it takes a sheer act of will to speak about it differently.
That’s frightening, unless you believe the very act of reading it will commit you to terrorism. I trust that isn’t the case, but ignorance of the hateful reasons why people want us dead is not a remedy for their hatred.
You think that someone with a non violent predisposition would hear hate speech and be inspired to go commit violence? Just what kind of people do you think hear hate speech and are convinced to go blow people up? (Where the hate speech was the sole or major factor, obviously) Anyone? Or do you have a specific kind of person in mind?
You also said “possibly”, what is your acceptable limit of risk, how do you calculate it?
Backtracking. You mean you accidentally slipped into being reasonable, but then I called out your inconsistency, and now you're having to explain it away. People don't just randomly agree with things, all of their own accord. They agree with things that they find agreeable, convincing. If the person in question is receptive to the content of the hate speech, then he's more likely than otherwise to act on it. Neither you nor Terrapin Station have come up with an alternative explanation with the explanatory power to account for these kinds of situation. It's really shortsighted to think that just because ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, people might not be receptive enough towards it, that therefore it has no influence (causal) over anyone. That's a hasty generalisation.
Quoting NOS4A2
That's ridiculous. There are 66 million people in the U.K., and I'm just one of them. Have you forgotten that we're talking about the law? If it was legal in the U.K. to access, then that opens it up to tens of millions of people, not just me.
Quoting NOS4A2
That's why we have authorities who have access to content which regular citizens do not have access to. There would be a greater risk of terrorism if there were no censored information relating to terrorism and hate speech. Why do you think we have intelligence agencies with exclusive access to highly censored information? Do you even think these things through? If you really cared about a remedy to terrorism, then you wouldn't be a free speech fanatic, because that's part of the problem.
You too? There are 66 million people in the U.K. You don't think that a single person would be at risk of radicalisation? You do realise that this has already happened, as in people have become radicalised, joined ISIS, and things like that?
Quoting DingoJones
Those vulnerable to radicalisation or who are already radicalised.
Quoting DingoJones
That it would be the sole factor is ridiculous. That it would be a significant factor is to be expected. And this isn't just hypothetical. There are already real life cases to support this point.
Quoting DingoJones
See above.
Quoting DingoJones
I don't need a precise calculation. Like I said earlier, if it was a chance of every one in ten million people being effected, I would still be in favour of maintaining our hate speech laws, because the prevention of terrorism is extremely important. Many people in positions of power agree that national security is a top priority, if not [I]the[/I] top priority.
No, I admit, it takes a sheer act of will to step out of the magical thinking involved in speaking about the so-called consequences of speech. But people don’t arrive at a belief just by hearing it. Our conclusions are not determined by what we read.
Then surely these authorities have told you what ISIS’s primary motivations for hating and fighting those in the West are. Why are these people trying to kill us? Care to hazard a guess?
That's a nonresponse which doesn't address what I said properly.
Quoting NOS4A2
Another illogical nonresponse. You're too much hard work, so maybe just forget it and DingoJones can takeover for you.
I’ll just assume you don’t know. I’ll assume further that you agree with these censorial measures, which a UN inspector likens to “thought crimes”, and which human rights groups say are “Orwellian”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/thought-crime-uk-un-terrorism-government-viewing-material-offence-law-a8423546.html
Not “me too”, no. I was just asking.
So someone vulnerable to radicalisation is salient here, unless you think someone who is already radicalised is significantly affected by hate speech in that way. Probably not changing their minds at that point. Depends on how one defines radicalised I suppose.
Anyway, i didnt ask for a precise calculation. To be clear, I am clarifying your position, not taking up arms beside NOS. I wouldnt be making those arguments. I just wanna know how you came to your conclusions about the risk of a “possible” act of violence caused by hate speech. Like, when you ban hate speech...what are the details of the risks you think are being thwarted?
Choudary doesn’t believe in liberal democracy, fundamental human rights and free speech either. I’d be wary of who we align our beliefs with.
What kind of details are you after from me? We can look to real life cases for examples. I gave examples earlier. I think that it just causes more problems to deny the links to hate speech discovered by the authorities in acts of serious crime and terrorism that have been committed than to acknowledge them. The methodology employed by the other side is unreasonable skepticism with a disregard for explanatory power. It is a failed methodology, because they have more things to explain than I do. It isn't plausible that it's all just a coincidence, and that every aspect of the events which unfolded are somehow independent of each other rather than of a cause and effect relationship.
Given the Manchester bombing, the murder of Jo Cox, the murder of Lee Rigby, and the London Bridge attack, to give just four examples, these are the kinds of risks we face, and they are severe.
You know that I'm not a realist on mathematics, right? (Or physical laws for that matter.)
Re probability, Bayesian probability is complete garbage in my view, and probability in general doesn't justify heuristic conclusions in contexts like this.
Riiiight...
Well, I'd love to chat some more with you, but I'm busy here on the moon right now.
So my initial post to you had a bunch of questions that you answered, but at the end I asked about whats acceptable risk. Im still not sure about that last question so wanted to know how you’ve calculated that allowing hate speech poses an unacceptable risk. Like, how many instances of terrorism do you think would be reduced if hate speech is banned compared to if it isnt? Note, Im not trying to argue against your answer so there is no need to be as accurate as you might want if you were laying down an argument. I just want a sense of what you have in mind as a reference when im reading your exchanges on this thread.
What counts as an acceptable risk would include risks that are out of our control, risks that are too impractical to act upon, risks which are considered too trivial to legislate against, and risks which lack sufficient evidence or predictive power in leading to crime. What counts as an unacceptable risk would include risks which are to the contrary of the aforementioned, risks which would pass a cost-benefit analysis to take action against, and risks which are actionable without infringing too far on our rights and liberties.
I don't know how many instances of terrorism would be reduced by hate speech being banned compared to when it isn't. Without a study to reference, I would just be speculating on that number.
Right, but Im asking you to speculate, since your sense of whether or not hate speech should be banned is based on that speculation.
I can't put a number to it, and I don't need to. I'm not going to guess. All that matters is that measures are in place to prevent potential terrorist attacks. If you're interested enough, then you're welcome to look for research on the matter.
Well that would do exactly nothing to help me understand YOUR intuitions on the matter, but ok.
There is a paradox of freedom. Basically, freedom in it's absolute sense may create environment or a society which restricts other freedoms. So to advocate for freedom of speech on all matters solely on the supremacy of the value of freedom seems contradictory.
I don’t know what you think Im supposed to do with that. Did you mean to address someone else?
[quote=A Comparative Analysis of Hate Crime Legislation: A Report To The Hate Crime Legislation Review, James Chalmers and Fiona Leverick, University of Glasgow, July 2017]As the previous sections have outlined, there are direct and indirect harms that
might result from hate speech. In terms of the former, hate speech may result in psychological harm or harm to the dignity of members of the targeted groups. In terms of the latter, hate speech may lead to violence or public disorder or to societal discrimination. None of these claims are easy to evidence empirically, but the case for all of them becomes more convincing when taking into account the cumulative effect of multiple instances of hate speech rather than examining each individual instance in isolation.[/quote]
Seems pretty vague to me. Lots of things have “direct and indirect” harms. I see “may” cause a few times, I see the claims are not “easy to evidence empirically”.
Still pretty skeptical about the reasons so far presented for your side here...though Im not really all that convinced by the arguments on the other side either. Why ive stuck around reading this long I suppose.
I was merely pointing out that your approach to linking violations of other rights such as right to life to hate speech by insisting on statistics or data is wrong and as a matter of fact, they are logically interlinked. As a result , we have the paradox of tolerance or paradox of freedom, however you phrase it.
Are referring to something I said much earlier in the thread? I wasnt making an argument when I addressed S, I was trying to get clarification...which was provided.
So Im confused at where you are coming from in your commentary.
Does anyone here deny this?
It ought go without saying that unfettered/unregulated freedom is impossible. So, there is a need to regulate freedoms, including freedom of speech.
Hate speech ought not be banned. Rather, it ought be used as an example of that which is unethical and thus ought be further shunned and frowned upon.
Well, yeah, it will say "may" because it's not a sure thing. Would you expect it to be any different? And yeah, as the analysis states, it isn't easy to evidence empirically, which is also what I would expect, and which is a point that I think Isaac has more or less made a number of times. Although the full analysis does contain a number of empirical experiments as evidence. But then, as it says, the case for all of them becomes more convincing when taking into account the cumulative effect of multiple instances of hate speech rather than examining each individual instance in isolation. All as expected.
And another for good measure.
From https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.00119
"we find that the proportion of discrimination that is targeted is associated with the number of hate crimes."
From the Warwick paper I've already cited.
"In the absence of anti-refugee posts on the AfD Facebook page 437 (13%) fewer anti-refugee incidents would have taken place.”
Now cue them saying there's a lot of "might"s, "maybe"s and methodological problems. Cue us saying it's about risk and cost-benefit analysis. Cue them saying there's no academic who even states there's a link... and we go back to the beginning again. This is a pointless discussion at this stage.
As a summary, for those still reading, to avoid the pointless circularity we've been going through, and perhaps to act as a springboard for real discussion...
1. There are definitely, without a doubt, experts in the field who think it is possible that a link exists between certain types of hate speech and serious consequences like increased violence, prejudicial treatment, fear, and even terrorism. Three of them are quoted above, others within the thread.
2. Every legislative action, at least since human rights law, but also significantly before, has been calculated by an analysis of the costs to society vs the benefits and both of these must be calculated by probability because we cannot ever have certainty about the future impacts of legislation.
3. Hate speech has virtually no benefit to society. There are a very small number of people who will have their ability to speak freely in public constrained. Absolutely no ideas are being restricted because it is possible to express every idea in non-hateful ways, unless that idea is actual hate. The ECtHR has specifically made clear, as has UK Law, that hate speech does not cover any form of criticism or ridicule, so there is no restriction on the free exchange of ideas.
4. The costs to society of hate speech which are being warned of are very large - violence and terrorism for a start, and prejudicial treatment has not gone well for societies in the past. Because they are large, we do not need a high probability of their being the case in order to take them seriously. This is absolutely standard risk assessment practice - to multiply the severity of the harm by the likelihood.
Therefore we legislate, with proportionate punishments, against certain types of hate speech.
They're not literally thought or belief. As long as we're saying that they're correlated to thought or belief, or we're just speaking very loosely/rather metaphorically, I'm fine with "speech acts are statements of thought/belief" though.
Quoting creativesoul
I'd agree that they can lead to that in the bearer of the thought/belief in question, although sometimes in rather unpredictable ways.
On my view, nothing counts as morally (or legally) unacceptable thought, belief or speech.
Oh god. Who let [I]him[/I] in?
You know that there aren't any facts as to whether something is a benefit or not, right?
Quoting Isaac
This is very odd to say because it suggests that the problem has nothing to do with semantics but rather quite literally with word choices, with the sounds or looks (if written) of certain words.
Take the example of someone who has the belief that we should "gas the Jews." There would be countless ways to express that idea. So, you'd be saying that some of those ways to express the idea are kosher (so to speak); you'd not be saying that the problem is that the idea is expressed (in whatever the kosher way to express it would be . . . and of course this is assuming that very different expressions can exist that don't make much if any semantic difference)
You know that you could interpret that statement more charitably, right? There are facts about what's generally considered a benefit. That's what he meant. In that context, there's nothing controversial in what he said. And in that context, your fringe opinion is irrelevant.
Which has what to do with whether something is a benefit?
That's no different--for rhetorical purposes--from simply saying "Joe Smith doesn't consider x to have any benefits"
Yeah, if that's what he meant. People speak that way all of the time. People call a "car" what's generally considered to be a car, as in that metal thing with four wheels. It has no bearing on anything if someone chips in by saying, "Oh, but there's no fact of the matter! I happen to think that a car is a giraffe!".
What bearing on anything does the fact that most people consider it to have no benefit have?
It just means that you'll disagree, while the rest of us agree, and your disagreement won't really matter in the bigger picture, just like car-giraffe guy. That's you. You're car-giraffe guy.
Won't matter to most people. Okay, and what about it? What would the purpose of that be rhetorically? Is it just an exercise in pointing out the obvious, with no aim to persuade, no aim to suggest facts or implications other than what most people think or do?
We don't have a burden to constantly satisfy your unreasonable doubts and denials. Why should we care what car-giraffe guy thinks?
It has to be something that you consider reasonable?
Sure. So what would the purpose be of it rhetorically? That was the question.
Yes. But first I'm clarifying the requirement. Does it have to be something that you consider reasonable?
"Reasonable" is always to someone. So I'm clarifying who needs to think the answer is reasonable.
So then, no, I'm not going to bother if you're not going to bother yourself.
That would make the word 'benefit' meaningless, and I don't, as a general rule, like defining words away. Anything which has survived thousands of years of use probably has a meaning somewhere, even if a little confused. I take the word 'benefit' to refer, in context, to the subject of the sentence it is in. So if I say, "it is of benefit to me to have a raincoat", I'm referring to my opinion of what a benefit is. If I say "of benefit to society" I'm referring to society's opinion of what a benefit is. I haven't specified in that sentence the means by which such heterogeneous opinion is summarised. Usually by democratically elected representatives, but it could be sociologists, psychologist, or any other of a number of means we have of averaging heterogeneous measures.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I'm not sure (other than for rhetorical value) why you've missed of the end of my sentence. I said " is possible to express every idea in non-hateful ways, unless that idea is actual hate". So no, it's not entirely to do with certain word choices, but it is considerably to with that.
Not unless you clarify in whose judgment we're saying whether it's reasonable. Why you won't clarify that, I don't know.
If you will not propose a reasonable benefit of hate speech - you lead me to believe you cannot.
So you don't agree with S that you were only saying what most people considered a benefit? I figured as much, but I wanted to give S the benefit of the doubt.
At any rate, no, "benefit" isn't meaningless to many people just in case there are no facts as to whether something is a benefit.
Quoting Isaac
Sure. You feel that it's a benefit to you to have a raincoat. It's not a fact that it's a benefit to you to have a raincoat.
Quoting Isaac
That's fine. Whether you've done that or not, there's no fact as to whether it's a benefit.
Quoting Isaac
That's what you go by as to whether a raincoat is a benefit to you? lol
Again, at any rate, no matter who thinks it's a benefit, it's not a fact that it's a benefit. It's just how individuals feel about whatever it is.
Quoting Isaac
So then we're not at all saying that we're allowing the expression of all ideas, and the distinction you're making is pointless.
We could try this: what would be an example of an idea that we could express by hate speech that could be expressed by speech you'd allow instead? The distinction would make sense if we have an example of that.
Right. Whose?
Quoting Shamshir
The challenge would be getting me to care what you'd believe, especially when you won't clarify the question.
The question is whether hate speech "should" be allowed, which is a normative question. It would be stupid to approach it, on a public forum, as a relativistic poll of fixed opinion, what on earth would be the point of that? So we treat it either as a forum for discussing the pros and cons with those who share at least some foundational position on what constitutes 'good' and 'bad' outcomes for society, or we might as well just walk away.
What do normatives have to do with what most people think?
No, that is almost exactly what I'm saying, with the caveat that I think there are other ways of averaging heterogeneous opinion than simply majority, but by and large, a sentence with the word 'benefit' in refers to the averaged opinion of the subject(s) of the sentence.
I really don't understand what you're getting at with talk about 'facts'. By 'fact' I mean a state of affairs in the world (all that is the case). It is a state of affairs in the world that the averaged opinion of society is that it does not consider there to be much of a benefit to hate speech.
If x is a common opinion about the benefit of anything, the significance or implication of that is?
They don't. I never suggested they did. I said there little to no point in normative discussions without at least some shared foundational views of what is 'good' and 'bad'.
Sure. So again, I asked you, and you quoted, "What bearing on anything does the fact that most people consider it to have no benefit have?"
Your response began with, "The question is whether hate speech 'should' be allowed, which is a normative question."
If the fact that most people consider it to have no benefit has no bearing on it being a normative question, then why was that your answer to the question you quoted?
What bearing does a shared view of what is good or bad have on normatives?
Again, as I mentioned above, there is little to no point in normative discussions without at least some shared foundational views about what constitutes 'good' and 'bad'. Imposing something on society which society, on average, considers to be of little benefit, despite a risk of harm is a generally agreed upon 'bad'. If you don't agree with that 'bad' there's no point in taking part in this discussion (unless you are proposing some even deeper foundation that we might share)
Imposing something on society which most people consider to be of little benefit, despite what they consider to be a risk of harm, is going to be generally agreed on by them to be bad. Sure.
The question is what the implication of that is for anything else.
It is a normative question, that's just the definition of normative. The fact that most people consider it to have no benefit impacts on the fruitfulness or otherwise of having a normative discussions, as I've specified above.
Normatives are NOT determined by "what most people think." This is a very important point.
For the fourth time, just to be sure. If you don't share any foundational views about what is good or bad with your interlocutors, there is no point in engaging in a normative discussion.
That can be your opinion, sure. It's certainly not mine.
So we apparently don't agree on foundational views about what is good or bad, yet you're continuing to post to me about this topic.
OK, we'll try it a fifth time. Normatives are determined by individuals on the basis of what they consider to be good and bad. We are having a discussion about a normative. If we do not agree on anything that is good or bad, that discussion is pointless.
Okay . . . well, at least you agree that normatives are not determined by what most people think. But sure, maybe we don't agree on what's good or bad enough that you think it's pointless to talk to me about this particular normative. In which case . . . don't stop responding to/addressing me, I guess? I don't know, I guess somehow that makes sense to you, to think that it's pointless to talk to me about it, but to incessantly direct posts to me about it.
Firstly, I work on the presumption that being a normal human you share foundational stances on basic things that most humans do. As I said earlier, you're either a sociopath or you're lying about your feelings for argument's sake.
Secondly, we are now discussing the purpose of normative argument. Again I work from the principle that you probably do share some foundations with me on each new issue.
All you need to do about anything is ask me my opinion and I'll tell you. You don't have to assume that I agree with you about anything.
But okay, so you're continuing because you're assuming that I really do agree with you, lol.
As I've said before, I'm not interested in the least bit in your opinion. I'm interested in the solidity of my opinion. I'm using you (or others in this discussion) to test it. There is no point, therefore in discussing with someone whose foundational position on good and bad are so different to mine. I cannot be wrong about those, so alternatives are of no use to me. I can be wrong about what actions will bring them about, and I can be inconsistent (which I don't like), so there is some benefit to me in having both strategies and consistency tested by others.
In my experience, most humans have a broadly similar foundational position on good and bad. Particularly if we limit it to secular humans. It's not unreasonable, therefore, for me to proceed on that assumption until proven otherwise.
With regards to less ethical arguments (like the purpose of normative discussion) the foundational beliefs I appeal to are less good/bad and more rules of rational thought, which, again, it is not unreasonable for me to presume are shared until proven otherwise.
So you're going back and forth with me, talking about our ethical stances on hate speech, talking about foundational views of good or bad, talking about "rules of rational thought," etc. while not being interested in my opinion. I guess that would explain a lot of things.
Not being interested in other persons' opinions, especially if they're different, is just the sort of respect and empathy you'd expect from someone very concerned with hate speech, by the way.
The purpose of anything isn't determined by rationality, by the way. And neither are normatives.
In that context, what is supposed to be the rhetorical point of mentioning that most people feel that hate speech has no benefit?
Presumably the person we're addressing doesn't already think that hate speech has no benefit (otherwise why present an argument simply restating the views they already have?). So what do we think it will do in this context to mention that most people feel that hate speech has no benefit?
The purpose of pointing out that your opinion won't matter? Well, why do you bother to come here? Just to do the equivalent of declaring that you think a car is a giraffe? Okay then. Are you really that confident of your own abilities? You don't ever pause for thought when everyone else disagrees with you?
One of the primary reasons I come here is to stay in practice thinking about philosophical stuff in an interactive situation and to stay in practice expressing my thoughts in the same context. It also gives me verbal expression exercise more generally. Also, because of the typical sorts of personalities that are attracted to boards like this, it also keeps me in practice re verbally sparring with that type.
So it's a type of "mental gym."
And then you'll respond that something is only unacceptable to someone. And then I'll respond, "Okay, but then talking to you is like talking to a brick wall". You should conform more, and then it wouldn't be a problem. Pride comes before a fall, as they say.
¯\_(?)_/¯ It's a fact that there are no facts re whether something is a benefit, aside from the fact that an individual assesses something to be a benefit. So that you find it unacceptable is irrelevant.
A mental gym? Well, it isn't working. If I went to a maths forum claiming that 1 + 1 = 3, and I was reasonable, then my view would change to 1 + 1 = 2. I wouldn't just keep on insisting that 1 + 1 = 3 whilst calling the other members of that forum conformists and accusing them of appealing to the masses.
Sure it is. My assessment is what I care about there. Same thing as with the other gym and exercise I do. I'm going by my own goals, my own assessments.
So, if you were the 1 + 1 = 3 guy, you wouldn't care, so long as, in your assessment, you're meeting your own goals?
Of course. I would only care about a consensus if (a) I were very or fairly unsure of my own views, and (b) I had good reason to believe that the people I was looking at for a consensus knew what they were talking about/were correct.
Neither (a) nor (b) is the case here.
We don't speak Terrapinese, only you do. In ordinary language, it is true to say that there are facts about whether something is a benefit. You're just interpreting the statement in an unusual way, which leads to a seemingly absurd conclusion. Again, that's another example of where nonconformity, in contrast to common sense, will get you. It's unwise.
No, it isn't.
If you're thinking that consensus makes it true, it does not. That's the argumentum ad populum fallacy yet again.
That's the problem, then. It's a problem to do with your poor judgement. You're like the 1 + 1 = 3 guy. Not only are you wrong, you're overconfident and ignorant of why the other members are right. And you're stuck in that situation with no one being able to get through to you.
It is if you interpret it right.
Your problem is that you don't think you're wrong just because you go along with the crowd.
There aren't right interpretations.
Yes there are. That's absurd.
No, there aren't. Knowing you, surely you mean either that there are popular interpretations, or otherwise maybe you'd be going with the author's intent, but neither makes an interpretation right.
Again, knowing you, you'd say something like, "What people mean by 'right interpretation' is the popular interpretation," and aside from the fact that that's not actually what most people have in mind by "right interpretation" (thus falsifying your own claim), we again have the problem that simply because something is popular, that does not make it correct, even if people insist that it does.
Yes, there are. Surely you're capable of figuring out the appropriate context in which it is true to say that there's a right interpretation. Try harder.
We want to fit in with the norm without rocking the boat/without any sort of philosophical questioning, etc.?
One thing I don't understand about your views, by the way, is why you wouldn't think that there are correct judgments in ethics and aesthetics. There are certainly consensus opinions.
Also why wouldn't you be religious? By far there are more religious believers among humans than agnostics or atheists.
I don't know about you, but I want to be understood, and you seem to be deliberately and childishly putting obstacles in the way just to make a point.
I'm a moral relativist in ethics. I'd say that there are correct judgements relative to whatever, whether that be a consensus, an individual, whatever.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I don't go by the reasoning you're falsely suggesting I go by.
In cases where the crowd is right, like the case under discussion regarding hate speech, why wouldn't I go along with them? I'd be a fool not to.
Your problem is your irrational opposition to crowds, even when they're right. You take it as some sort of affront to your super special uniqueness, like you'd be losing some vital part of your identity. You care far too much about that.
So the crowd doesn't determine what's right.
I have no problem going along with the crowd when I think they're right.
I don't think they're right in the case of hate speech, obviously. (Of course, assuming that most people actually agree that hate speech should be banned. I don't think that's at all clear, but I'm fine assuming it.)
When someone doesn't think the crowd is right, appealing to what the crowd thinks isn't going to work, obviously, unless the person simply categorically goes along with the crowd no matter what. If neither of us does that, then appealing to the crowd is irrelevant.
So I haven't said otherwise. At least not without qualification.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It's not irrelevant, it's just ineffectual against people who block out reason.
It's irrelevant if the crowd thinking something doesn't determine that something is right/correct.
You can't just appeal to the crowd when they happen to agree with you but say they don't matter when you don't agree.
It's irrelevant when it commits the fallacy of appealing to the masses and not otherwise. The exceptions have been explained to you. As far as I'm aware, you continue not to acknowledge them.
The only exception is when we're talking about what the crowd thinks/believes per se.
So what the crowd thinks about hate speech is obviously relevant to what the crowd thinks about hate speech.
That has no implication for anything else, though. For example, "The crowd thinks that hate speech should be banned," has no implication a la "Hate speech should be banned."
In another sleight of hand, some have applied the harm principle to speech, and based on this have evoked the paradox of tolerance in order to defend censorship.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1341168.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
I’m not sure Popper applied it to free speech, but in my reading the paradox suggest we must defend our rights even with violence if necessary.
Only insofar as making statements about how most people (in some population) use language.
What we’re denying is that those thoughts and beliefs have efficacy beyond the person thinking or speaking them. Most have argued that, yes, words fly through the air and alter the matter in someone else’s brain.
That's yet another problem with some of the papers being referenced. Hate speech is contributing to hate crimes in many cases simply because hate speech is considered a hate crime, with the idea that the speech is a harm in itself.
That's implicit in saying that this or that interpretation is right or wrong. Your earlier interpretation was wrong. It's true to say that it's a fact that something is a benefit. If you end up concluding that it's false, then you must be interpreting it wrong.
Again, people use right/wrong, correct/incorrect with a normative implication. Examples of that abound, and it's inherent in anyone correcting anyone who uses language unusually. We see it with grammar police all the time, for example.
But mere descriptive statements of how language is used among some population have no normative weight at all.
The idea that the speech is a harm is always assumed before it is ever proven. It’s weird.
Somehow we arrived at it being fairly popular beliefs that:
(a) any offense taken by someone in response to speech indicates something that needs to be corrected on offender's side, and this is believed strongly enough that the mere suggestion that the offendee rather needs to work on themselves to not be offended is itself seen as offensive, unreasonable/outrageous,
and
(b) it's obligatory to give others respect; respect no longer needs to be earned.
And both of these beliefs are strong enough that people literally want them to be legislated. Even social/peer-pressure enforcement isn't strong enough, though folks will do that, too (and that's part of what has seemed to be a movement of social persecution being preferred to deferring to the legal system, where the popular stance now seems to be "you're going to more or less be assumed to be guilty as long as someone is making accusations, unless you can make a pretty good case as to your innocence, but we'll still be leery of your motivations in trying to establish your innocence")
I don't know how any of that happened, but sadly, it did.
We have the sensitivity training to prove it. What we need is insensitivity training, and from a young age to boot. A thickened skin beets any censorship. It reminds me of what Bertrand Russell’s said when he tried to teach in New York (I think) and was essentially denied the position for corrupting the youth with his atheism and libertinism.
Exactly.
For awhile--back in the later 90s, early 2000s, I used to regularly ask, "Don't we teach 'sticks and stones' any longer?"
Apparently, we actually did stop teaching it.
It also seems to be wrapped up with the "participation award" culture. There are no more losers/failures. Everyone gets a trophy. Everyone moves on/graduates.
That’s the worst part. In protecting our children from loss or speech we only make them weaker against it.
It's not normative. It's obviously just the default. That's why it makes sense to say that a cat isn't a giraffe. If you interpret it that way, then you're wrong by default.
Re (so THATS why you use that...so handy) not teaching “sticks and stones”, Ive often said the exact same thing. I also note that there are way too many other things that are like this too, like everyone has forgotten the lessons understood by children. Lying, cheating, stealing...all things people teach children not to do yet do themselves.
Thats a bit different though I suppose.
“To succeed you have to try hard” is another, a lesson for children that that somehow turns into participation awards and no fail policies.
If they cannot master those simple childish equations how are they going to learn much more important lessons like those from Nazi Germany. To bring it back to free speech, we were supposed to have learned from that NOT to restrict free speech, but then again that was only one example recently. History shows us that the restriction of speech is just to powerful a tool/weapon to cede to the state.
Only when it is ceded in excess. I don't believe that restrictions on hate speech are an excessive restriction on the freedom of expression. It's too extreme a position to consider any restriction whatsoever as excessive. That's a position for those who have taken leave of their senses. And I doubt anyone here would support going to the other extreme and giving the state total control.
Well it depends on what qualifies as hate speech. Thats my problem with it. Im not a speech absolutist like Terra, Im more on your side in that sense.
When I refer to it as a tool/weapon, Im thinking about the abuse of that tool. As soon as someone is powered by society to apply speech control, someone else will inevitably abuse that control and horrible things will happen. History shows this rather clearly. Here in Canada its especially bad, as legislation has passed classifying the non-use of certain words as “hate speech”. You can face legal consequences, not to mention the effect on rage culture on ones life, for not using the proper gender pronouns here.
So to deny there is a problem with banning hate speech, given what ive just explained above, is without problems provokes great skepticism in me. Not that im saying you are doing that here, but as a general point.
Who said it was?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Because it is a premise in a reasoned argument. People may agree with all the foundational premises of an argument but disagree with the conclusion (through poor reasoning), showing that certain agreed upon premises lead to certain (less agreed upon) conclusions can be a way of re-inforcing certainty in those conclusions. It can also be helpful to those who dislike their arguments to lack good reasoning.
Like just about any argument, these start with one or more things that those involved agree on and attempt to show a reasoned conclusion based on those agreed premises. I can't believe I'm having to explain this.
Article 19 of the UN human rights code:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Is this an example of the UN taking leave of their senses?
Didnt a comedian go to jail for teaching his dog to do a Nazi salute? Thats the same kinda thing.
The U.K. is a member of the U.N. We're a founding member. So you must be cherry picking, instead of giving a full picture. Hate speech is obviously an exception in the U.K. We still have laws on freedom of expression.
Human Rights Act 1998, Article 10
Freedom of expression
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.
2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.
Point 2 is eminently sensible, by the way.
Okay, Canada should be more like the U.K., with the possible exception of the case of the comedian who went to jail for teaching his dog to do a Nazi salute.
So still a problem in the UK. Maybe both countries should be like something else.
Maybe. Though not the U.S., of course.
Meh, Im not a US hater. Plenty of stupid to go around, US included. Its that pesky human problem, always fucking everything up.
Too much guns, religion, celebrity, flag waving nationalism, egomaniac, warmongering, stupid constitutional rights obsession. The U.S. is like our deformed offspring.
It’s what Salman Rushdie calls the “But Brigade”. You have freedom of speech, but...
No, you don’t have freedom of expression.
Yeah, I do. I'm exercising it right now.
I meant the British in general. In one paragraph it states how a citizen has the right to free expression. But in the next paragraph it explains how in fact a citizen does not have a right to free expression.
Yeah, we do. We're exercising it right now.
I guarantee that that's not the case. You're arguing against what you hold to be unacceptable thought, belief, and statements all the time here.
:brow:
I'm inclined to think/believe that you're playing the devil's advocate here. I appreciate that. Knowing both sides of debates is pivotal for better understanding. This one(freedom of speech being used as a defense for saying anything one wants) needs to be discussed.
I'm not going to argue that words fly through the air and alter matter in another's brain. There are all sorts of problems with talking like that.
So then, do you agree that thought, belief, and speech has efficacy?
I feel ya.
However, one must consider another's opinion in order to use it as a test or in a test. There are good critics around here.
Different groups find different things acceptable/unacceptable. Hate speech finds it's home in those filled with ill will and hatred. It also gives voice to many of those who've been harmed by another through no fault of their own.
Pick an enemy.
Judging an other's value(determining their worth) based upon one's political affiliation is not always a good measure of character(assuming, of course, that the party does not consist of unsavory characters). Despising someone else on the grounds that they are Democrat, Republican, Left, Right, or whatever political party they identify with shares common unreasonable ground with racism.
Being able to voice one's utmost displeasure does not require hate speech. Being able to face ones accusers does not require hate speech. Being able to effectively express - as best they can - their own emotional state of mind sometimes does. That's all they know.
Who here is denying the efficacy of thought/belief?
I mean does anyone really think that situations like Nazi Germany somehow happened without being long since steeped in hate speech?
Is anyone denying that there are groups of people being trained at an early age to be one thing and one thing only, and that being that thing requires and/or includes causing deliberate and intentional harm to complete strangers.
If hate speech is accepted using freedom of speech, then you've licensed the groundwork(the means) for war and bloodshed.
Pick an enemy.
Yet wars don't rise from the existence of hate speech. Hate speech or it's variants can be used in propaganda, yet the idea that hate speech being a reason for wars is silly.
Just look how many places the US has bombed without any hate speech against the people of those countries.
Care to critic and/or argue against something I wrote?
Just an observation that conflicts don't emerge from the existence of hate speech.
Just like conflicts don't emerge from countries having armed forces.
Irrelevant. So what? I'm not claiming that hate speech was a causal factor in every US bombing.
There are wars which were caused by hate speech.
Dr. Seuss and the characterization of the Japanese and/or Asian people. Look it up. That's hate speech. It's used to manufacture consent.
Give an example.
Because what typically would be "hate speech" in this way would be just propaganda for the war, a tool used to sell the war.
Hate speech - all by itself - does not cause war.
It's takes more.
No argument here. Eliminating hate speech reduces the risks of war and bloodshed.
So...
Some hate speech is propaganda. Propaganda is used to manufacture consent for war. Some hate speech is used to manufacture consent for war.
Hate speech cultivates the conditions of/for war.
Do you think the following example of hate speech cultivates the conditions for war between Britain and the US?
Quoting S
If not, is there any circumstance in which you think it could? Or maybe you think it isn't hate speech at all?
It's the matter how you eliminate it. Sometimes being confrontational isn't the best way as likely the agitators look for that confrontation and need it. They need that tribalism.
The best thing might not be always direct confrontation of simply jailing the person for hate speech when a country is peaceful and isn't falling the cliff. Far better is to give a better reasonable answer that shows just how crazy in the end the person is. That typically doesn't happen just by attacking those people who might listen the person. The best way to do this is with good political leadership: to give those who could fall to the hate-speech rhetoric better things to believe in or to be critical about.
Think of it with the totally different example of people arguing that the World is flat. Should they be fined for spreading humbug? No. Should they be publicly ridiculed? Likely not either, because some people would feel bad for them. I would argue that the best way would be just to educate people in school and make children see with their own eyes that the planet is indeed round. And that's it. No need to be afraid of the people that believe the World is flat. They aren't a sign that our society is falling for stupidity and giving up on science. Some people just love whacky conspiracies. Fine, the society or the belief in science won't collapse because of them.
Quoting creativesoul
Just as well equipped, effective armed forces give the ability for politicians to go to war in distant places.
Yet to think that well equipped effective armed forces should then be banned is the wrong way to think about it. Africa has had poorly equipped small armed forces for a long time and that hasn't prevented genocidal wars of happening.
Switzerland or Sweden have had an army for quite some time and both countries have been in peace for a very long time. None of their neighbors are belligerent towards them. Yet to simply do away with armed forces wouldn't be a smart thing to do.
Reasons for conflicts are different from things that can make wars more deadly.
I'm never arguing that it's morally problematic to have any thought/belief or to make any statement. Surely you're not using "unacceptable" in this context to refer to whether we personally accept something a la believing it or considering it to be true ourselves, are you?I
I argue against claims that I think are false here all the time. I don't feel that it's morally problematic to have a belief or to express a belief that I'd say is false (or even just not a good idea in the case of something noncognitive).
The enemy I've picked is the idea that speech causes actions.
Exceptions don't demonstrate that there isn't a link between hate speech and, ultimately, in some cases even war. The history of anti-Semitism in Germany, which obviously peaked in the Nazi era, and which included what would now be classed as hate speech, undoubtedly played a part in the events which lead to the Second World War.
Yet anti-semitism has been quite universal in Europe.
Russia has had it's pogroms and various countries have gone after the Jews in some way or another in history. Even in the Soviet Union to it's end being Jewish was considered as a separate 'nationality'. The cause for anti-Semitism to have such an awful result in Germany is due to, first and foremost, the hideous ideology of national socialism. And the rise of such minor extremist movement and Hitler is of course directly related to the defeat in WW1.
I do, but only on the person thinking, believing and speaking. I don’t believe they have any efficacy beyond that.
Not according to the ECtHR...
"Freedom of expression…is applicable not only to ‘information’ or ‘ideas’ that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive or as a matter of indifference, but also to those that offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population. Such are the demands of that pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness without which there would be no democratic society. This means, amongst other things, that every ‘formality’, ‘condition’, ‘restriction’ or ‘penalty’ imposed in this sphere must be proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued"
A slap on the wrist perhaps?
They were long steeped in censorship. Weimar Germany has the most modern hate speech laws in history. Nazis were persecuted for their speech up until the Nazis seized power. Not only did they use their sense of martyrdom to propel their cause, they turned around and used that persecution as justification for their own persecutory actions.
Censorship licensed the groundwork for war, bloodshed and genocide.
Even philosophers that I'm a fan of are folks with whom I disagree at least 50% of the time.
Whatever the term is that's the starkest contrast to "fan" is how I feel about Heidegger.
You certainly base decisions to do things on speech, sure.
What matters to me when we're talking about ethics, proposing legislation, etc., is the fact that you decided to do something and were not forced to do it.
Since there is a spectrum from influence to coercion, that implies that there is a minimum threshold of control you need to have over someone else's actions in order for this control to matter, correct?
What are your principles for deciding what amount of control is sufficient for ethical or legal considerations?
I use "force" in the sense of physical causality. "Force" in your example is not actual force.
Re your example, I'd have a category of criminal threatening though. (I know I posted my definition of that recently, it may have been earlier in this thread.)
It has to be force in the sense of physical causality. Nothing less.
It's simply an intuitive stipulation based on my dispositions.
With anything less than force a la physical causality, the person could have decided to do something different.
They most certainly have.
Are you defending the Nazis and their vile and condemnable hate speech?
Right. But that leaves only physically manipulating someone's limbs. Not a very common scenario in practice.
But you did, in your previous post, state that you'd still have laws against criminal threats. How do those relate to your speech position?
Actually, he's an ardent physicalist who claims that everything is physical, including that the mental is the physical, so he'd be inconsistent in denying the physical process involving sound waves from verbal speech, all of the physical stuff that goes on in our brain in reaction to them, and all of the resulting physical actions, all of which have a cause and effect relationship. He's actually just assuming that there's a point where the person could have acted differently. Apparently that's based on nothing other than an intuition, which is weaks grounds for support. I don't recall seeing any positive case from Terrapin Station. He has just been playing sceptic when it's convenient to do so.
Why didn't you say so?
Both are common in normal day-to-day existence.
Everyone, including me, has these questions asked of them.
Maybe the answer to free speech vs hate speech lies in understanding how conversation or discourse flip-flops between the two.
That’s one of the perils of defending free speech: you have to defend it for everyone.
No you don't, and you should be deeply ashamed of yourself.
Well, you don’t believe in free speech, so I can understand your fears. But those who believe in free speech do and have defended the free speech of Nazis, the KKK, fire-breathing Islamists, etc.
A great example of this is Aryeh Neier, the head of the ACLU and holocaust survivor who defended the right of Nazis to hold a rally through a neighborhood where plenty of holocaust survivors lived. He wrote a great book about it.
I posted this earlier in the thread, but here it is again:
Threatening anyone should only be a crime when it's an immediate, "physical" threat in the sense of potential victims being within the range of the threatening instruments (whether just one's body, or weapons, or causally connected remote devices or substances, etc.), which are actual and not simply claimed, so that (a) either a verbal (or written, etc.) or body language or weaponry threat is explicitly made/performed, (b) the threat is reasonably considered either a serious premeditation to commit nonconsensual violence or something with negligent culpability should nonconsensual physical damage result, and (c) the threatened party couldn't reasonably escape or evade the threatened actions should the threatener decide or negligently carry them out at that moment.
No I’m not. You were triggered that I defended the free speech of Nazis, and said I should be ashamed. Then I showed how civil rights activists do the same. I’d love to watch you tell the head of the ACLU that he should be ashamed of himself for defending the free speech of Nazis.
Yes you are, and I would have no qualms about telling him so, except that it wouldn't count as free speech under U.K. law, so over here he wouldn't be defending free speech, he would be defending rightly prohibited hate speech.
No I’m not. Free speech is the same everywhere, it’s just that the degrees of censorship are different. So yes, he would be defending free speech, as other human rights defenders always have. You would be defending censorship.
If you're disputing what I said, then you are factually incorrect. It wouldn't count as free speech under U.K. law. I cited the law to you earlier, on a public forum, for us all to see. In the U.K., it wouldn't be defending free speech, it would be defending the crime known as hate speech. And if you reply with your usual denials, then you're just wasting your breath.
I think you are the one that should be ashamed. You have allowed your bias and dislike of NOS4A2 (cuz of the Trump thread?) to subsume your rational thinking on this issue. Acting like his points are utter nonsense and ignoring his arguments shows your ignorance, as he mentioned actual civil rights activists (prominent and intelligent ones) disagree with you. For someone as hyper critical of other peoples rationality as you are, you should be very ashamed indeed.
I’m talking of free speech, not UK law and their fevered and infantilizing censorship. It’s becoming more apparent you do not even know what free speech is.
You're talking about your own favoured conception of free speech, which to be clear you should be calling [I]absolute[/I] free speech. That's the version for fanatics. I'm talking about free speech as defined by the law in the United Kingdom, as I always have been from the very beginning. That's the version for people with a sense of perspective. I made it clear that I was going by a legal definition early on.
So, fine, you're free to spew vile and condemnable hate speech, but it will be subject to the above, and rightly so. If you end up convicted of a crime, and sentenced to, say, 180 hours of community service, like the case of Frayda Jenson, then that serves you right.
OK. But we do agree that the threat itself is still a speech act?
Yeah, I hold the conception found in Article 19 of the UN declaration of human rights. These are not fanatics.
You’re speaking of the censorship and regulation of free expression as defined by law.
I also hold the conception found in Article 19 of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. I wasn't calling myself a fanatic. Under U.K. law, that's covered by the first clause. Again, the U.K. is a founding member of the U.N., and we voted in favour of Article 19.
Is it true or false that you have the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers?
There are speech acts that are threats, but what I'm describing isn't just, or even necessarily, a speech act.
I wasnt responding to your points, your not really making any anymore. I was responding to your shameful behaviour and hypocrisy.
Also I, like you, will respond to posts as I see think proper and if you dont like it then you can just not respond to me. I assure you, I will give up responding as soon as I get the sense you are ignoring me.
Yes, Rowan Atkinson helped remove the insult clause in section 5. His defence of free speech and repudiation of censorship applies not only to the insult clause, but to hate speech.
Funny how you jump to the defence of someone who speaks up for Nazis and their anti-Semitic hate speech and decide to focus your attack on me, though. Yeah, I'm the one who should be ashamed here...
But it seems to follow that "speech acts can never be illegal" is not a tenable position then. The question that follows is what benefit does a dogmatic adherence to "free speech absolutism" have?
Indeed, it isn't tenable. It's contradictory. That's more than enough reason to reject his stance, however he answers your question.
Those are not ad homs. It is me noticing you are being hypocritical and calling you out for it.
If all you are getting from NOS is that he is “speaking up” for Nazi’s and Anti-Semetic hate speech, then this further evidences how little you are paying attention to what he is saying. It is irrational for you to be so dismissive of the points he is making. They are not nonsense. Maybe he is a neo nazi type, I dont know or care. What I care about is the arguments being made, and thats what you should be concerned with as well but you are ignoring them, and acting like there is no legitimacy to what he is saying. There are very good arguments on the opposing view to yours, of which you seem ignorant.
Defending free speech includes the unfortunate and yes hateful things people might say. Its a worthwhile trade off for some and if you disagree then disagree but this dismissive engagement is pretty clearly your bias on display. If it isnt, explain how I have that wrong instead of using the overused “ad hom” deflection.
If a person who worships lies (ie. "believes" something that is not true) hears a truth that undermines their "belief", they will hate the person speaking the truth and accuse them of hate speech because it is how they themselves feel: hatred.
The bigger problem is who is allowed to define what is "hate speech". Once people who hate facts that undermine their "beliefs" get power, you get something like Islam and/or Nazism.
It is coming back on the planet again because the problem never left. The problem is humanity failing to understanding where Nazism comes from and why.
Again, criminal threatening as I describe it isn't a speech act. It can be accompanied by a speech act--as can murdering someone, raping someone, etc. But the speech act is neither sufficient nor even necessary.
You’ve given me nothing. What is it you imagine im addressing here? Your free speech arguments? Ive been fairly specific about what Im addressing. I mean, why would I bother making points you simply ignore when others make it?
Before any headway on free speech can be had you need to stop dogmatically dismissing the opposing view. Get your head out of your ass, to put it in an S kinda way.
You're clearly describing speech acts. With specific circumstances, sure, but telling you to repudiate your views is speech, regardless of whether or not I am holding a gun while saying it. It's speech that is usually considered to fall outside of protected speech, but I was under the impression that you reject that distinction.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Unlike with rape or murder, speech is a central elements when making threats. Indeed one can understand implied threats as a form of nonverbal speech.
So this, for example:
"it's an immediate, 'physical' threat in the sense of potential victims being within the range of the threatening instruments (whether just one's body, or weapons, or causally connected remote devices or substances, etc.), which are actual and not simply claimed,"
Is explicitly describing something that's not speech.
It seems weird that a lot of arguments here are just doubling down on an objection that makes no sense in light of what someone is actually saying.
False analogy.
Well equipped armed forces are not always used in aggressive action. All hate speech is aggressive.
I agree, but then again... I'm not the one thinking about it like that.
Hate speech was not absent.
Looks like ridicule to me. It's related to hate speech in that they are both founded upon a personal value system which devalues others for irrational reasons.
Not hate speech though...
Speech shares thought/belief. Then there were two...
Then you describe it in a disingenuous way to avoid contradiction. It can be a speech act. If I said to you, "I'm going to fucking knife you to death!", then that would definitely be criminal threatening.
There are numerous problems with the above...
Weimar Germany(The Weimar Republic) no longer exists. History has continued on. Any and all hate speech laws written and/or enacted/enforced since are appropriately called more modern.
That's one issue.
Nazi's used hate speech to wage a horrible war on all sorts of others. You're supposed to be - unless I'm mistake - objecting to my position. I'm attempting to set out first that thought/belief and speech has efficacy. I'm using actual examples. What you've said here offers support. Is that what you wanted to do?
Lolwot? So, when you go to see a stand up comedian, and they ridicule this, that, and the other, that's "founded upon a personal value system which devalues others for irrational reasons"?
That's not just an idea my friend.
Look! Wait. Go!
Yep.
Many find the deliberate belittling of another to be funny. Doesn't make it hate speech. Everyone deserves a certain modicum of respect(dignity, worth, value) simply because they are human.
Don't quit your day job. The comedy needs work.
True, but then it's also not someone threatening someone else. It's a dangerous situation. Commonly also called a "threat". The two usages of the word are distinct.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It seems weird that despite the fact that your own definition references speech under section a), you're now claiming that it has nothing to do with speech.
Are you saying threatening someone doesn't require communication?
I didn't dispute that.
Quoting creativesoul
Everyone deserves to be ridiculed, simply because I find it amusing.
Quoting creativesoul
Well, it's not like I can compete with you. Your comments on "thought/belief" are some of the funniest I've ever seen.
Would you like to be bullied, puppet?
I will sing a nasty tune for you and you will trot in requiem.
I will tear you up and assemble you anew, and you shall moan in gratitude - won't you, Shelley?
naked on the beach
hate speech
for the towel reach
between the towel and naked skin
something lies unseen
it's air that fills the gap
you know that, I'll clap
No, that wouldn't be at all sufficient. I have specific conditions that need to be met that I make explicit.
?? But I'm defining what I'd name "criminal threatening." Nothing less than what I'm describing would count. That's why I'm spelling all of that stuff out. Those are the criteria. Think of it like a checklist.
Quoting Echarmion
It doesn't require speech. I make that explicit in my criteria.
If you can show it's not just an idea (per my assessment of course--I don't just mean if you believe you can show it), I'll accept that. We've kind of been talking about that for awhile in the thread.
Why would I care about that?!? Any normal human being without an ulterior motive to disagree would consider it a threat. I don't reach my conclusions from Terrapin's whacky views. That would be a terrible basis to reach a conclusion. We largely agree on ethics, but not much else. You have no standing on this one. Your views are quite simply irrelevant.
And one of these criteria is that a threat is made (by someone, towards someone else, is implied).
Quoting Terrapin Station
But the threat can be speech. You also made that explicit. And in that case, the speech is a constituent part of the criminal act. It's not just accidental circumstance.
My point being that in addition to any values you differ with your opponents around, you may be doing two quite different things when you discuss things. They change one thing or one issue and then imagining this society as it is now with this one change. You, it seems to me, are imagining a range of choices that may have effects that would ameliorate their concerns, to some degree, perhaps next to nothing, perhaps significantly.
Might it be worthwhile to present the broader context? (I know, you don't like complicated posts presenting a range of ideas, but perhaps what I am saying is a factor in the debate, even if you never want to do what I am suggesting)
His reaction to that is obviously, "Oh yeah, well I'll just define 'threat' to exclude that from being so".
That's not an intellectually honest response. But then, this is the guy who refuses to admit that he knows that I don't believe that I'm on the moon, so it has come to be expected.
I was asked about my view on it. I pasted what my policy would be. If you're not interested in that, then don't read (or bother commenting on) the post. The idea isn't to capture some common notion of the term (or rather some common notion of when it's morally or legally problematic).
Verbally or otherwise. But as you note, it's not just about (or even necessarily about verbal) threats in the conventional sense of that term. That's the whole point.
Quoting Echarmion
It can include speech, but again, the speech is not at all sufficient for it to be a problem. Hence me spelling out all of the criteria.
That's a good point, although with the speech issue, I'm not sure off-the-cuff just what the relevant other differences would be, so it would be difficult to address that . . .
Although I suppose one concern might be how one's chances of acquiring and maintaining employment, housing, etc. could be affected via speech acts, but as you know, I'd have a very different sort of social and economic system in place where there wouldn't be the same sorts of challenges for that stuff.
It's not that I'm not interested. I'm interested just like I would be if someone was saying, apparently in all seriousness, that cats are in fact just a breed of dog. But there are priorities here, like the truth, like common sense, like being reasonable, like intellectual honesty. And it was in that context that I was asking why I should care.
"Reasonable" is subjective, "common sense" is often nonsense and appeals to it are one of the lamest rhetorical tactics, and when we're talking about normatives, we're not dealing with things that are true or false.
But at any rate, sure, you're not interested. That's fine. There's probably no reason for us to go back and forth with each other about it then. Let's move on to something you're interested in.
But the point is there are circumstances (e.g. pointing a gun at someone) where speech can turn into a crime. It's not just speech, but nevertheless the speech is criminal.
No, it isn't. The whole thing is, which doesn't even require speech.
Insults also don't necessarily require speech. Yet if insulting someone was a crime, it would make certain speech acts (like calling someone an Idiot) criminal.
It would depend on what the person's "criminal insult" criteria would be. We'd have to ask them. Maybe they'd have detailed criteria, most of which don't have anything to do with speech, and where speech wouldn't even be necessary.
That's why I made all of that explicit. "Criminal threatening" is just a name. What I'm referring to is what I spelled out. What anyone else might have in mind with that term might not resemble what I have in mind by it.
Why would it depend on that? I don't see the logic here. If a speech act is, in any combination, constituent element of a crime, it means that this speech act in those circumstances is therefore a criminal act.
So would you say that walking was a criminal act, because it was a constituent element of a guy walking into a bank, robbing it, then walking away?
Because it's going to be someone's opinion of just what is problematic or not, just what should be illegal or not, etc. What one individual would call "criminal insults" might have little to do with what someone else would consider "criminal insults," and someone might have criteria for what they're naming "criminal insults" that doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with speech. Which would mean they'd be using the term very unusually, probably, but people can do that.
The whole idea is that I wouldn't have "criminal threatening" where you can just intuit what I'd consider a problem. That's the whole reason for the detailed list of criteria I gave. That whole thing is what I have in mind, which each part of it a necessary component.
No, by constituent element I mean something that is part of the actual elements of the offense. Most definitions of robbery are not concerned with your mode of locomotion.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Ok then, let's say that a criminal insult is defined as speech or another communicative act that demeans the person addressed or identified as the target of the act. Where demeans would have another definition which doesn't need to concern us.
This law would limit speech, make some speech acts criminal, correct?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I understand that all parts of the definition need to be fulfilled. But this is true for currently existing laws concerning speech as well. Very few of those will make speech acts illegal regardless of circumstances (comedic acts will almost always be excluded, for example). Yet all these laws are considered limitations on speech. So the same would be true for your proposed "criminal threatening" law.
??? No, obviously not. If the person isn't even referring to speech, how would it make any speech acts criminal?
Maybe this would be easier: what would you say is an example of a law prohibiting any speech where it's not necessary to utter (or write, etc.) any speech?
So calling someone an "asshole" would not be a criminal speech act (we'll assume it's demeaning)?
Not if someone is defining "criminal insult" so that it has nothing to do with speech.
Well you are just defining speech as a constituent element. Its no more constituent than the walking. Thats my point, the logic is the same so you aren’t being consistent when you include one and not the other.
That's, frankly, absurd. The act is a) criminal and b) a speech act. According to your logic, the vast majority of laws concerning insults and hate speech aren't actually about speech. So I guess the free speech utopia is already here.
Quoting DingoJones
It is, because it's one of the things that needs to be positively established and will show up in the indictment. Walking won't.
Quoting DingoJones
I think this perhaps seems so due to not being familiar with the technicalities of law enforcement. There are elements of a crime which need to be enumerated in the indictment. Those can still come in different forms ( an insult can be words of a gesture), but the concrete form must be listed. Whether the person was walking or in a wheelchair, and what they had for breakfast, does not need to be listed.
It seems like you're not understanding me at all.
I'm not saying anything about existent laws and "what they're actually about."
I'm saying that if someone says, "I'd consider certain things 'criminal insults,'" and they give you a specific outline, specific criteria for what they're referring to by that term, then trying to argue from a broader perspective based on other conventions isn't going to work. You'd need to just look at the criteria they spelled out, and the criteria could be anything. It's possible for their criteria to not even be about speech at all.
I'm naming something "criminal threatening." I could have named it anything. What's problematic about it, why I'd make it illegal, in my opinion, is exactly what I spelled out--a particular, limited set of physical circumstances. Speech isn't even required for it. The whole motivation for it is that I agree that there are particular physical circumstances that are problematic that aren't someone actually applying significant nonconsensual physical force to someone else. It's simply a set of situations where there's a high probability (so including a good reason to believe) that significant, immediate nonconsensual physical force would be applied, whether intentionally or accidentally/via negligence, because there are implements/instruments present, in use, that can easily produce significant nonconsensual physical force, and there's no practical means of relatively easily escaping the immediate risk of force from those implements/instruments.
It might also not be clear (although it seems to me like it should be), that the context of "I'd consider certain things 'criminal threatening'--here's how I define that/what my criteria would be" is "If I were king and creating laws from scratch, here's what I'd do."
The speech only needs to be positively established because you are defining it as part of the crime, what Im saying is you could just as easily define walking in exactly the same way. Your inclusion of one as part of the crime and not the other is arbitrary, and based on a preconceived notions about speech that you hold. Do you see? You are assuming speech as part of a crime as part of your argument that speech is a crime.
Well, and under what I'd have as "criminal threatening," speech isn't even necessarily part of it.
Yes I understand the distinction you are making. Just noticing the circular logic Echarmion is using.
If you have the “freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers”, surely you can read ISIS’s propaganda magazine Dabiq. Surely you can retweet a limerick about trans-people without getting investigated by police. But we already know this is not the case.
I was initially referring to a specific definition Terrapin provided, which explicitly listed speech, so I am not assuming that speech is relevant. As to your point, it is of course possible to write laws including an arbitrary number of elements. What we're doing here requires categories, and categories are always arbitrary. This includes talking of "speech" or "speech acts" in the first place.
It does not follow that all talk that involves categories is meaningless or circular. For example, there are reasons why certain elements are treated as constituent elements of a crime and not others. If we're concerned about not demeaning other people for example, we'd consider the communication important, but not locomotion.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I am not sure what you're saying here. That it's wrong to take the hypothetical law you provided and assign it a category, such as "laws that limit speech"?
I didnt say all talk involving categories is circular. Strawman.
I said you are being circular in your argument, and pointed out exactly why.
From your text, you only pointed out that my inclusion of speech is arbitrary, which I did respond to. If you think you have another argument I'd ask you to restate it.
Edit: it's perhaps worth pointing out that I was not arguing that certain speech acts should be criminal offenses under some optimal set of rules.
Right, just as arbitrary as the walking part of the crime. Just insert “walking” where “speech” is in your argument and the logic is exactly the same.
I'm not going to repeat what Ive just said a few posts ago no, but if you think Im missing something (context I presume?) I will go back and reread the exchange before my interjection.
But I am not making up these definitions. One was given by Terrapin, the other is - more or less - an actual law making insults a criminal offense in Germany.
There are reasons why Terrapin and the German lawmakers choose to include some form of communicative act in the definition, but not the mode of locomotion. There is also a reason why we have a category for laws that restrict speech, but not for crimes that restrict what gait you may adopt. This is obvious, right?
I think you are confused about what Terra is saying, but like I said I will go back and read and see what I missed that make your arguments less circular and confused than they seem right now.
But I [I]am[/I] interested. I'm interested why I can't get through to you, in spite of talking perfect sense. If we hadn't gotten to where we are now, with your ulterior motive of standing by your stance at all costs, then you would probably agree that if I were to say that I was going to stab you to death, then that would be a threat. But I suppose I've answered my own question there. We obviously just have different priorities. Yours is saving face, whereas mine is the obvious truth. You must think that you can save face if you refuse to concede in the false hope that you can make your system work. But all it has going for it is consistency, which means it has next to nothing going for it. It's not at all convincing, and you don't seem to care about that feedback. You never really do. You seem quite content to live in your own little isolated topsy-turvy world.
If someone says, "I'd consider certain things 'criminal assault', and I'll give you a specific outline, a specific set of criteria for what I'm referring to by that term. But, oh, by the way, it doesn't include the act of inflicting physical harm". Then anyone in their right mind would think that they were a few french fries short of a happy meal.
While we're at it, here's my criteria for 'criminial rape':
It must require two or more people.
They must come into contact with each other.
An act must take place.
And that's it.
I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking, "But what about forced nonconsensual sex?!". Well, I don't include that in my criteria.
I repeat, arguments which rely on cherry picking won't work. Cherry picking is a logical fallacy. I can keep on repeating that if you like.
Yes.
[B]Nathan Worrell, 46, was found guilty of eight offences of stirring up racial hatred at Grimsby Crown Court.[/B]
During the trial, Worrell denied the Holocaust took place and said he had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
He was jailed for seven years and three months in 2008 for possessing bomb-making materials and waging a hate campaign against a mixed-race couple.
Worrell described himself in court as an "ethno-nationalist" and said he did not believe in "diversity or multiculturalism".
A police raid on his home in Scott Close, Grimsby found clothing, photographs, fridge magnets and pin badges bearing Nazi symbolism.
He posted his home-made stickers with highly offensive comments on lamp-posts and street furniture in Grimsby and Hull.
'Abhorrent'
[B]Worrell defended his actions in court as freedom of speech.[/b]
Sentencing, Judge Paul Watson QC said Worrell was "wedded to the cause of far right nationalism and national socialism".
The judge made it clear he was not sentencing for political views "however abhorrent they may be".
[B]He told Worrell: "Your conduct went far beyond the limits of freedom of opinion and expression which the law permits."[/b]
Det Ch Supt Martin Snowden from Counter Terrorism Policing North East, said: "These offences clearly show that Worrell has not learnt or changed his behaviour despite serving a previous prison sentence.
[B]"By obtaining and distributing these hateful messages Worrell is inciting hatred, potentially threatening public safety and security as well as the stability of the local community."[/B][/quote]
:up:
That's not what I was saying, but as I asked, what would you give as an example of a law that limits speech where speech isn't even necessary for it?
Aren't you aware that different people think different things are "perfect sense"?
Quoting S
I'm not saying that's not a threat. It's not what I'd consider a criminal threat; it's not anything that should be legislated against. Merely making a verbal threat is not at all sufficient for that in my opinion.
And yeah, I'm not trying to persuade anyone to a different position. That's a whole can of worms that has to do with all sorts of psychological, social, etc. issues, and it's especially futile on the Internet in forums like this.
What I'd think is, "Okay, those are your criteria." I wouldn't argue that your criteria are something you didn't state.
I am aware of that. Aren't you aware that that doesn't matter as much as what does or doesn't make perfect sense? A crazy person might think that complete nonsense makes perfect sense, but that doesn't mean a thing.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Well, it was a poor judgement call to speak about "criminal threatening", but to exclude examples of threatening which is criminal. And philosophy is better served through good sense than through the whacky personal views of Terrapin Station. You always seem to make it about you, as if that actually matters in the bigger picture. Your views can be set aside as unimportant in the grand scheme of things, entertaining though they may be.
How can I put this delicately? You are "different" to the rest of us.
Why in the world do you think I would defer to others' opinions rather than stating my own?
And of course I'm not someone who thinks that different is a bad thing.
Because, on this one, they're right and you're wrong. I guess I just have some glimmer of a hope that you might see sense enough to at least get [I]some[/I] sense of perspective. But you almost seem entirely immune.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Thinking that a cat is just a breed of dog isn't just different, it's bad in the context of acsertaining the truth, which is what philosophy is all about. Being stubborn and self-assured can only really be a good quality if you're right. Otherwise it's a real problem.
Obviously I don't agree that I'm wrong and others are right. I don't believe this is something that it's even possible to be right or wrong about.
Oh dear. It's kind of funny that you're wrong on multiple levels. You're "right" only in your imaginary world, in which you are "king", and in which there are "criminal threats" which exclude threats which in the real world very much [I]are[/I] criminal. You are too far removed from reality.
?? If I don't think that this is something that it's possible to be right/wrong about, then obviously I don't think that I'm right.
I did... as best can be shewn given the written medium.
Neither is acceptable, for in both cases they're wrong.
The facts speak for themselves.
Some folk hereabouts offer valid arguments and counterarguments on a regular basis. You're not wunuvem.
And here yet again...
The facts speak for themselves.
Oh you do.
I gave an example of a law prohibiting insults. The text might even just refer to "insults" in general and that would include speech.
You're conflating warrant/justification for assent to 'X' with X being unacceptable.
No.
I'm using "unacceptable" to refer to thought/belief and/or behaviour that is not acceptable to one; that one does not and/or would not condone, assent to, or agree upon as something that ought be thought, believed, and/or done in whatever situation you choose and/or find yourself in.
Why one does or does not condone thought/belief and/or behaviour is one's moral foundation. That one does is one's moral judgment. The judgment is based upon the foundation.
What sparked this exchange was your claim that - purportedly - on your view there is no such thing as immoral speech. You may not admit to condemning certain thought, belief, and/or behaviour. You may not call any speech act "immoral". There are a slew of them that you would and do find completely unacceptable in certain situations.
So we agree that it's not right to allow hate speech? We agree that you're not right about that?
It's neither correct nor incorrect to allow or disallow hate speech. Correct/incorrect is a category error here.
It's not a category error. I'm arguing that it's correct to disallow it, meaning I think that it should be disallowed.
It's a category error because there is nothing to get correct or incorrect.
It's not a category error because there is something to get correct or incorrect, namely the issue under discussion. I'm correct and you're incorrect.
What would getting a moral stance correct amount to?
It would amount to some requirement being fulfilled, and the details of that will depend on the who and the what.
So if the requirement to not ban any speech is fulfilled, is that correct?
What am I cherry picking? Repeat it again and you’d be wrong again.
That’s just not the case, but very worrying that people say this. If you believe hate speech has efficacy, what are it’s effects on you? War? Hatred?
It's obvious. You're cherry picking the first clause regarding freedom of expression under U.K. law, and deliberately ignoring the second clause. The second clause answers your fallacious criticism without me having to do anything except refer you back to it. I accept the two together. Maybe you accept only the first clause, but if you act as though I accept only the first clause, and point it out to me in isolation, then that is cherry picking.
Only in a relativist sense.
You buy that there's a non-relativist sense?
No.
Haha, okay. So how would any ethical stance be incorrect. You simply set a requirement that you then fulfill with your stance.
Easy. Correct and incorrect with regards to morality are only relative, and what's incorrect works in much the same way as what's correct. Why do you think I've been saying that you're incorrect? Obviously, relative to everything I go by, you're very much incorrect. Even though in your wacky world, you're not.
I just parse it as having different preferences than you.
Not as much as you repeat your crackpot phrases in their entirety thereof.
It was a question. Is it true that you have the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers?
You said it was. I said it wasn’t, and gave the examples proving the opposite. You cannot retweet a limerick mocking a trans person without being investigated. You cannot read Dabiq without getting arrested.
No, you do not have the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
It's always easiest to make fun... especially when one does not understand what it is that they are making fun of.
You're still wrong for the same reason as before. See the first and second clause together, instead of cherry picking the first in isolation. Your examples are consistent with the first and second clause.
Landmark case: Swedish court fines man for not deleting hate speech on Facebook
That's how law enforcement works everywhere. You don't have to have committed a crime to be arrested.
What?
That's how law enforcement works everywhere. You don't have to have committed a crime to be arrested.
Say it three times for posterity.
What about in your country?
https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-of-arrest-your-rights
Which country can you be arrested for not committing a crime, then?
Expect in your country, which states the exact opposite.
Expect?
Anyway, no it doesn't. You be trollin'.
https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-of-arrest-your-rights
It occurs to me that speech acts might not always be truly distinct from acts of violence.
Speech isn't always simply a matter of passing information. It is also often gestural and emotional, and potentially injurious. Think of the difference between a person telling you when your plane will depart and someone getting in someone's face and aggressively yelling a terrible, demeaning insult. The content is qualitatively different, even though both involve speaking.
Whether the violence sometimes involved in speech is serious enough to warrant banning speech acts is another matter. And the difficulty of deciding in a court when speech acts constitute violence is another matter. And it could be argued that the benefit of allowing unfettered speech is greater than that of banning some forms of speech.
But what does violence really amount to? Must it always involve overt physical damage to a body? Even if it does, given the current tendency to reduce minds to physical processes, you could argue that verbal attacks actually cause physical brain changes that damage mental health and even physical functioning. An insult can sometimes be more damaging than a punch. Sometimes verbal harassment even drives people to suicide.
And it isn't really clear to me that actual physical attacks can be fully distinguished from speech acts. They often are a sort of communication. Sometimes, you kill people just to get obstacles out of the way or to eliminate threats, but often, punching someone is a way of expressing your feelings to them, of telling them how strongly you feel, a way of rebuking. I remember clearly as kid when I was ceaselessly pestering my nephew and he finally punched me in the eye. I got the message!
I actually think even in the case of mass shootings that it might be fruitful to see these acts as gestures by which the person is trying to communicate something. If we want to understand and deal with mass shootings, there might be value in trying to understand what these people are trying to say and why. Perhaps they are partly motivated by their intense feeling that they are not being heard.
To say that mere speech can't hurt (sticks and stones...) makes me think of my brother when we were kids. He would often sit next to me and point his finger at my eye, just and inch or two away, and keep at it, and when I'd complain, he'd say, "I'm not even touching you!" With speech acts, I'd say that you really are touching people. You are touching them often in their innermost regions, in their hearts and minds. You can get past the heaviest physical armor and go straight to heart of a person with the right hurtful remark. And you can cripple them with such a blow.
Consider that there is even such a thing militarily as psychological warfare and social engineering, which largely consist of speech acts. Consider the recent events in US politics, where it seems that Russia was using social media to drive wedges into the cracks in American culture, helping to bring us down from the inside. This could be seen as an act of war. No shots were fired. But we can all see the damage.
If some forms of speech are indeed acts of violence, how do we square freedom of speech with restrictions on violent behavior?
In my view, yes. I'd have no psychological crimes.
Ah, you ruined it. He probably already knew the answer but was just trolling, anyway. Hard to believe someone could be that stupid.
Suspected of what? Committing a crime.
Don’t let the sophist’s casuistry convince you that you can be arrested without committing a crime. That’s arbitrary arrest.
We'd have to define how you're using "arbitrary," but do you think that non-arbitrary stances are possible? If so, how?
I'm using arbitrary in the way made obvious by the example I gave. And yes, through reason.
I've never been more convinced that you're a troll until now. I think you've gone a little overboard and need to work on your subtlety.
You’re trying too hard, pal, and digging yourself into holes you can’t get out of. Try relaxing a bit and discussing the topic.
How do you reason to a moral stance?
From premises to a conclusion. You know how reason works, so why ask?
Sorry, I got distracted by your apparent stupidity relating to how law enforcement operates. (I say "apparent", because if it's not stupidity, it's trolling).
Also, most utterances about anything would usually articulate some sort of like and dislike and where do we draw the line between dislike and hatred? Maybe it’s obvious any many cases, but in many other cases it isn’t. Anyway, a law that cannot clearly define what constitutes a crime, is a poor law.
Take the recent case of someone who said online that all homosexuals belong in the gas chamber. That person was convicted of hate speech. Now as much as I disagree with everything that person expressed, there are more ways than one to interpret what was said. It probably wasn’t a direct incitement to commit any specific crime. It was probably said in a context where homosexuality was judged as sinful or against nature and even though I find such attitudes despicable I must consent that it is a legitimate opinion that should be protected by the freedom of speech.
True, we do get the sense that there’s strong hatred underlying this remark, but it may conceivably be cool-headed calculation, and that’s an argument one can always make in court. We can never know for sure that there is hate involved because we cannot determine anyone’s true feelings, at least not in the formality of a court.
It is not a very sober statement. It is reckless and rude, but that is a quite different problem. Uncivil behavior is prevalent on the internet, isn’t it, but should it be banned? That would hardly be possible. The best we can do is to create awareness of it and encourage each other to behave with consideration.
Good.
Quoting Congau
No, it isn't. That's a misleading statement, since although it accords with the law in the US, it doesn't in most other liberal democracies. It would be similarly misleading to say that the right to bear arms is legitimate. Just try that crap in Europe and see what happens.
And if you mean instead that it's justified, well, no it isn't. Like you said, it's despicable, and there should be consequences, and there are where I'm from, and there are in other European countries.
Quoting Congau
Off-topic.
Good point. Hate speech laws are so poorly defined that it isn’t so much “hate speech” as it is “speech I hate”.
Where did this occur? I’m always interested to see which coddled population requires a Nancy-state to tell them what they can and cannot say or read.
Consider that you find yourself amongst a crowd of protesters. You're not one, but are detained anyway for interrogation, simply due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time - coming home from school.
This has happened. Where is the crime?
How do you reason the (moral stance) premises? Or would you say that for some reason, you're simply not allowed to state premises? (For example, if not legislating with respect to psychological states is a premise)
A number of ways, but yours doesn't tick the right boxes. You seem to purely rely on some feeling of yours without testing it properly. I might have a feeling that there shouldn't be any crimes which begin with the letter "M", but if I just leave it at that or don't test it properly, then it's no good. You'll probably next as me about what tests should be performed, but really you can and should think about that yourself. You wouldn't endorse a methodology which would allow that sort of thing to pass, would you?
The only thing I can imagine that would work as a "test" here is thinking about whether the principle really matches one's feelings/intuitions. Is that the sort of thing you have in mind?
So then you [I]do[/I] allow for a methodology which permits all kinds of nonsense, like the example I gave? And... you don't see that as problematic?
Where has it happened? That is an arbitrary arrest with no proper due process, which flies in the face of human rights laws throughout the world. If the person wasn’t immediately released he has grounds to sue.
If me or my friend did sue it would be ruled off as frivolous.
You’d be surprised.
He clearly doesn't even understand the basics, or so he'd have us believe. Talk about black-and-white thinking. It's either arbitrary arrest or you commited a crime? Lol. The funny thing is, he actually cited the UK government website, which states: "To arrest you the police need reasonable grounds to suspect you’re involved in a crime for which your arrest is necessary", which neither implies that you've commited a crime, nor arbitrary arrest.
Why?
What has you so convinced in your theory?
Theory? Probable cause, or any derivative thereof, is a matter of law and human rights. It’s a part of due process. Please, show me the law that says one can be arrested without committing a crime.
It's logically implied in what you cited earlier.
Should be easy to find a law or something that states you don’t have to have committed a crime to be arrested. Hell, it’s how law enforcement works everywhere.
It doesn't need to be explicitly stated in those exact words when it's so obviously implied, in the logical sense, that even a halfwit could figure it out without much trouble.
Halfwits believe one can be arrested without having committed a crime. Halfwits and authoritarians believe in arbitrary arrest.
There's a 'probable' in probable cause.
"A common definition is "a reasonable amount of suspicion, supported by circumstances sufficiently strong to justify a prudent and cautious person's belief that certain facts are probably true"."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probable_cause
That means you don't have to have committed a crime to be arrested. All that is necessary is that a law enforcement official has a reasonable belief that you have.
If you don't understand this, we could be forgiven for assuming you have a serious comprehension disability or are trolling. Please help us not to think that.
Okay, but are you full yet? Or still a bit peckish?
And when are you going to create that discussion about the idea that music can invoke feelings being wizardry? I've been waiting in anticipation.
The entire point of due process is to avoid arbitrary arrest. No, you cannot arrest people if they haven’t committed a crime, and if you mistakenly and unjustly arrest an innocent person, you let them go. You guys are resorting the the strangest sophistry to defend an authoritarian point. Assume all you want.
Airport security checks function this way.
Ever been detained and searched at an airport?
Alright, I concede. The authorities can arrest innocent people, and in fact every law enforcement agency throughout the world does so.
What's the other option?
A methodology which doesn't permit all kinds of nonsense.
It happened in Germany.
In a country that punishes insult and disparagement of the president, I suppose that’s to be suspected.
I mean “legitimate” as in “according to a standard”. According to the standard of what we call an opinion the sentence “Homosexuals are inferior human beings” is an actual opinion whereas the sentence “Homosexuals are effing bastards” is not. The latter sentence is meaningless, it doesn’t express any real opinion about anything. It is empty abuse and as such there is no need to protect it as an instant of freedom of speech. The first sentence is a legitimate opinion inasmuch as it is an actual opinion. However much I disagree with it and find it disgusting I must consent that a person should have the right to voice such a view.
i don't suppose I'm going to be able to get details on that.
Well, what do [I]you[/I] think? You presumably acknowledge the problem with a methodology which allows for all kinds of nonsense, which would be a consequence of looking for the answers to these kinds of questions simply through someone appealing only inwards to their own feelings or intuitions, because that in itself wouldn't rule out all of the nonsense. So whatever it is that leads everyone to the right answers, that would be a better methodology. That way, the nonsense can be ruled out. We could just disregard any nonsense conclusions stemming from misguided feeling or intuition and focus instead on the conclusions which make sense, the ones which have actually been thought through properly.
I don't know if you misread my response above. I said that the only thing that I can imagine as a "test" is thinking about whether the principle really matches one's feelings/intuitions.
So, in other words, thinking, "Do I really feel, or are my intuitions really that we should have no crimes that are words starting with the letter 'M'." And then if the answer is "Yes," it has passed the test.
I'm not sure you realize that I really, really do not believe that there are any "correct" stances when it comes to morality.
There are stances that are nothing like my own, and of course I'd prefer that my own were common, were made law, etc., but that doesn't make mine correct or anyone else's incorrect.
Then we've easily confirmed what your problem is. You have a faulty test. It might well pass your test, but your test itself is wrong. That's obvious from the sort of content which it passes.
You're not really a subjectivist on this stuff, then. That you have the stance you do isn't the same as saying that your stance is correct and alternates are incorrect in general.
You apparently think that moral stances can be arrived at via reason and that reason somehow transcends people as individuals.
This is the point we reached when you and I spoke about this last. I think the issue is that people are having a hard time believing that your gut instinct delivers policy recommendations to you out of nowhere. Yes we all have gut feelings valuing different things and those are indeed arbitrary, but they are rarely (never in my experience) in the form of fully fledged legal policies. We feel varying degrees of compassion for others, varying degrees of value to autonomy, varying widths to our circles of concern... But I simply don't believe that we have gut feelings about some specific laws. Our conclusions about these things are an attempt to get our gut feeling values out of the society we find ourselves in. That's why it would be wrong to say "it's my gut feeling that we should arrest anyone whose names begins with M", because a) its so unlikely, given our common experience, that this is a gut feeling, and b) without some seriously convoluted thinking, such a policy is unlikely to yield anything close to the sorts of gut feelings people tend to have.
So what I'm saying here is, I simply don't believe that legal positions simply arrive in your conscious mind fully formed without having first gone through some rational process linking such a policy to the achievement of some more fundamental objective.
I'd certainly agree that it's unusual. I wouldn't say that someone can't be unusual, however. Especially because I know and have known a lot of really weird people.
In general, I'm the last person who would insist that people must be similar to me in their thinking, the way they reason, etc.
No, that's a [I]non sequitur[/I].
Quoting Terrapin Station
That I endorse a more sensible way of approaching the matter than you do isn't the same as putting forward a stance that isn't compatible with subjectivism or for which the term "correct" can't apply.
Moral stances can indeed be arrived at through reason, just not reason alone or "pure reason". And yes, I suppose you could say that reason transcends personal opinion. An individual can be unreasonable, someone's personal opinion can be completely wrongheaded.
You don't think it's just more sensible to you though. You think it's more sensible in general. Which is not a subjectivist view. As you've agreed, you think that reason transcends personal opinion, and you think that moral views can be arrived at via reason. Again, this is not a subjectivist view.
Yes, certain actions are not wrong because they are illegal, certain actions are illegal because they’re wrong. This is why we cannot appeal to law for our morality, as many have done here.
No, whether it is or isn't will depend on how you interpret that. You must be interpreting it in a way which leads you to that conclusion, so just don't do that.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I'm not a subjectivist on reason, if that's what you mean. The objectivity of reason is part of what distinguishes it from opinion. And don't deliberately phrase what I've said in a misleading way. I'm not a rationalist. Even Hume acknowledged the role of reason. Hume wasn't a rationalist. It's true that reasoned opinion, the right opinion, transcends the personal opinion of some whacko. That's consistent with subjectivism, just not subjectivism of your more radical, unrestrained, individualist brand.
Right. "More sensible" is "in accordance with reason," and you're not a subjectivist on that. Since you think that moral stances can be reasoned, you're not actually a subjectivist on moral stances.
I am a subjectivist on reason.
I'm a moral subjectivist, but reason is objective. There's no inconsistency in that. Do you need me to explain that to you? Moral stances can be reasoned whether one is a moral subjectivist or a moral objectivist and irrespective of which of those positions is true. You reason your moral stances, too.
Well that's easily refuted. If reason were subjective, then, for example, whether affirming the consequent is reasonable would be moot. But it's not.
Sure, I don't think it's inconsistent, I just don't agree with it.
Quoting S
Sure. No disagreement there, either.
Again, it's just that you're not a subjectivist on reason, and via objective reason, you believe that you can arrive at correct moral stances.
Quoting S
There could just be different opinions about it where one opinion isn't correct where that has nothing to do with how any particular individual is thinking about it.
Of course I'm not a subjectivist on reason. And yes, you can arrive at correct moral stances through reason. You think that your moral stances are correct, just like I think that my moral stances are correct. You just don't want to use those words, whereas I have no problem with doing that. And the only other alternative to arriving at the correct moral stance through reason is to do so coincidentally through guessing or something. There's no such thing as "subjective reason", and the term "objective reason" is redundant.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It's not a matter of opinion, so in that sense it doesn't matter whether there are different opinions about it. Whoever says that it's reasonable is objectively mistaken.
No, I don't at all. It's not that I don't want to use that word. What I'm saying is that my moral stances don't extend beyond me in some way where there's some sort of error that other people are committing in not feeling the same way about them.
For me, it's exactly like musical or food preferences. I wouldn't think that someone is making an error in not having the same musical or food preferences that I do.
In practice, and going by my understanding of the statement, you do think that your moral stances are correct, in spite of what you say. To deny this would be a performative contradiction.
In practice do I think that my musical preferences are correct?
I reject your suggestion that what I said of you in relation to moral stances is sufficiently similar to musical preferences to make that analogy a true analogy.
Okay, so no, I don't think my musical preferences are correct (I take it). I was asking because I sincerely had no idea what your response would be.
So I'd have to figure out why you'd think that "in practice, I think my ethical views are correct," but "in practice, I do not think that my musical preferences are correct."
On second thought, maybe you do act as though your musical preferences are correct. A lot of people do that, actually. And YouTube comments would be evidence of this.
Would there be a way to express preferences but convince you that one doesn't think they're correct at the same time?
Yes, I suppose so, in a sense, but now you're moving away from my point, which was about how we behave when we're not conscious of some philosophical position we're committed to, in contrast to consciously expressing ourselves in accordance with that philosophical position.
I'd say that if someone's philosophical position is at odds with how they behave at times, they have problems with their philosophical position.
So I don't actually ever behave as if I think my moral stances are correct rather than simply how I feel about things, what I'd prefer, etc.
Like I said before, that's probably because you interpret things differently. I think your interpretation is the more unusual.
I wouldn't ever claim to be usual, haha.
If something about me is usual, that's fine, but it's not something I'd claim.
No, I'm not valuing it at all. Again, it's fine if something is usual. I'm just not going to speak for anyone else and claim that anything I do is usual.
I just don't believe that. I think that you often fail to recognise the problems which arise as a result of your unusual premises, and you compound the matter by seeing value in their unusualness.
How you behave when you are unconscious of what you're doing reveals a lot of truth. Peoples' behavior is frequently at odds with what they espouse as a position or belief. But the proof is in the pudding.
Okay ¯\_(?)_/¯
Quoting S
I think that you think you're objectively correct just because you think something, even though intellectually you realize this is a problem. It's still something that's pretty deeply ingrained in you. "Problems which arise," for you, amounts to, "having different opinions (about what's okay, what's acceptable, what's the case, etc.) than I do." That's very transparently the case with you.
But what I'm saying doesn't have to be objectively correct for it to be right over and above the opinion of someone who says something completely barmy, and in addition to that, erroneously suggests that all opinions are equal, when they're not. I don't even need to think that, or to make that claim.
The problem clearly isn't that the opinion of someone who thinks that there shouldn't be any crimes beginning with "M" is different to mine. I don't believe for a second that you can't see what the actual problem is. Think about the consequences! That would cause a lot of problems. And that it would cause a lot of problems [I]is[/I] the problem. Wilful blindness to the problem isn't a justification.
I'm not saying anything like "all opinions are equal." I'd say that they're objectively equal, but that's a category error. Nothing objective evaluates opinions.
They're subjectively unequal. But that doesn't make one subject correct versus another subject when it comes to opinions.
Quoting S
They'd have a different opinion than you about the consequences. That's the whole point.
I have a different opinion than you do about the consequences of not having any crimes based on "psychological harms," and I have a different opinion than you do about the consequences of not banning any speech. (Not in the sense of disagreeing about consequences; in the sense of disagreeing about whether the consequences are acceptable, desirable, etc.)
You suggested that they're equal when you suggested that anything goes. And you suggested that when you said that the view that there shouldn't be any crimes beginning with "m" would pass the test, along with all kinds of nonsense.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Their opinion wouldn't matter. And that's the whole point. It would cause problems in terms of the consequences whether they recognise that or not. They'd need an argument against it, not just irrational denial.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I already know that you have a different opinion. The problem isn't that I don't understand that we have a difference of opinion.
But the problem is now apparently that you don't understand that that in itself is not the problem.
Anything goes when it comes to opinions not being correct or incorrect. That doesn't imply that I agree with them all. My disagreement, that I feel a different way, that I prefer something else, doesn't amount to me being correct.
Quoting S
It could pass the test of really being how an individual feels. That certainly wouldn't be impossible.
Quoting S
Wouldn't matter to whom/for what?
Quoting S
There's no correct claim re "This is a problem." It's a subjective opinion whether something is a problem. Different people think that different things are a problem or not. They can't get that correct or incorrect. It's not a matter of rationality. It's a matter of someone's disposition, how they feel, what they prefer.
How subjective of a problem is drowning, for instance?
There isn't anything objective about whether drowning is a problem. How would you think that whether it's a problem is somehow found in the extramental world?
"Someone valuing their health" is something that only obtains subjectively.
Thus, it's not objective that it's a problem. A person has to value particular things for it to be a problem. That makes it subjective. Drowning is an objective fact. Whether it's a problem to S depends on what S values, what S's dispositions are, what S prefers.
(Not our S -- S is a generic variable for a subject)
Quoting Shamshir
It's a problem for and of every living person.
Consequently those who want to live will stray from it, and those who do not, will not.
When I wrote, "There's no correct claim re 'This is a problem.' It's a subjective opinion whether something is a problem."
What was the definition of "problem" I was referring to?
(As an aid, maybe look up "problem" in a dictionary and see if you can figure out what definition I might have been using)
You're completely missing the point, and going back over our discussion, I think I've found where the problem originated. It should have been very obvious from the start that with my talk of tests, I wasn't merely talking about whether a statement, such as, "There shouldn't be any crimes beginning with the letter 'm'", matches someone's feeling that it's right. That's a really stupid way to interpret what I was getting at. What's wrong with you? I'm talking about a proper test, and one regarding the acceptability of the proposition. A test which passes anything at all, no matter how barmy, so long as it matches a feeling, is no test at all. It's clearly not fit for purpose.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Those are just unfounded assertions, whereas I can easily point to the overwhelming evidence of how much mayhem the implementation of legalising all crimes beginning with "m" would cause. Again, you'd need an argument against that, not just irrational denial.
That someone might be suicidal, doesn't make drowning desirable to one's health, but makes one's health undesirable.
The flaw here is that you think that people can't desire problems.
I didn't say that's what you had in mind. I said that that was the only thing that I would think would work as a "test." I was explicit about that. I figured that that was NOT what you had in mind, and that you'd detail the sort of test you'd have in mind instead, but you didn't do that, and you said that what I had in mind would work. So what the heck would a "proper test" be?
Quoting S
A person who believes there should be no crimes starting with the letter "M" wouldn't agree that the objective facts re consequences are undesirable.
That's just like I don't agree that the objective facts re consequences of not banning speech, or not having crimes based on psychological harm are undesirable.
So the world, aside from minds, has desires in your view?
But it very obviously wouldn't work as a test, because it would allow all kinds of nonsense, such as no crimes beginning with "m". And if you're taking what I said out of context and talking instead about a test of whether that matches someone's feeling, then you're committing a fallacy of relevance. That's not the purpose of the test.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Obviously something other than a "test" which passes literally anything conceivable, so long as it matches someone's feeling. That's a minimal requirement that you're failing on. I don't have to provide you with a more detailed proposal of how a test should be performed to be right about that. This is what we're arguing over for now. Are you going to concede or try to defend your absurd position? Those are your only two options. Red herrings don't count.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Irrelevant.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Also irrelevant.
Another way to look at it is that I think that the idea of a "test" for one's moral stances is incoherent if one is a metaethical subjectivist/noncognitivist. Or it's incoherent aside from "testing" that one's stances are really how one feels. I didn't expect that's what you had in mind. But who knows what you have in mind, because as I said, I think the idea is incoherent. When I suggest something that I would think would work as a "test" I'm being charitable.
Quoting S
So why should I believe that there's some sort of "test" for moral stances where the idea of that would be coherent, if you don't even know an example of one?
All this is amounting to is that some stances are really, really different than anything you'd think, and you can't accept that someone might think something, feel some way, that's really, really different than how you are.
Quoting S
??? That's the whole nut of whether they'd think it's a problem or not. This is just the same as the discussion we've been having with schopenhauer. There are plenty of people who don't see hunger as a moral problem. schopenhauer doesn't care about that. It's a moral problem simply because HE says it is. That's the same thing you're doing here. Whether something is a problem to someone depends on how they feel about it.
So desire isn't a mental phenomenon in your view, or are you asserting something like panpsychism?
I don’t think either of them are referencing an objective world with desires/subjective feeling, but rather an objective standard that makes sense from a premise or axiom.
So you are focused on how one values or feels about, say, not dying. They are talking about what makes sense (regardless of feeling) with the subjective value as the premise or axiom. Once you (subjectively) determine the value of not dying, certain things either make sense to that end or do not, and can be correct or incorrect on whether it leads to dying.
In moral terms, replace “not dying” with something like “flourishing well being of mankind” or “maximum happiness”. Even if you think those terms are nebulous, what is meant by each can be refined case by case and what it means to achieve or service that premise either makes sense or it doesnt.
It's not. That suggests that anyone who is a metaethical subjectivist or noncognitivist must adhere to the senseless 'anything goes' version which you yourself adhere to. That suggestion is false. That is very much not the case at all, otherwise I wouldn't be a metaethical subjectivist.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That was a really unhelpful and distracting aside which you shouldn't have even brought up. There's no disagreement here that one can check how they feel about something. The next time you have one of those thoughts, maybe keep it to yourself.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I do, and that should be obvious by now. A test which fails to rule out the proposition that crimes beginning with "m" should be legalised is not a test fit for purpose.
You have a burden to either argue against that or concede, and if you only respond with red herrings seeking additional unnecessary details, then I will be justified in taking that as tantamount to you conceding.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, that's a fundamental misunderstanding on your part. I've already made it crystal clear that I understand and accept that there are different stances, including those which are really, really different.
In response to that, I repeat that that in itself is not the problem. Why are you making me repeat myself?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Something can be a problem in different respects, and all I'm saying in the case of you merely pointing out a disagreement is that the disagreement that you're pointing out is irrelevant in this case because it's a problem beyond the disagreement you're pointing to. It doesn't even have to be objective for that to be the case. Come on, surely you're capable of seeing that.
There are two problems there: one, the fact (if it is one, more on this in a moment) that one would only see drowning as a problem if one does not want to die makes "drowning is a problem" subjective.
Two, if someone says, "I value living," but also says, "I don't see drowning as a problem," this is no way implies that they're incorrect. Because there's no objective fact that says that one either has to have dispositional/feeling-oriented stances that are consistent or that at least seem consistent to other people. (A fortiori because there are no objective normatives period.)
Descriptively, at least potentially anything could go. In other words, someone could have just about any imaginable stance.
Evaluatively, no one thinks "anything goes," because people always have preferences. Our preferences can't serve as a test of correctness for other people unless we're unbelievably egotistical/self-centered.
In terms of correct/incorrect, we could say "anything goes," but the realm of "correct/incorrect" is the wrong realm for this stuff. That's the whole idea of noncognitivism.
Quoting S
Based on . . . .? Quoting S
The test you proposed above has no motivation or support behind it aside from the fact that you find the idea of that stance too different.
Quoting S
So what's the beyond? Is this just you kowtowing to the crowd again?
You're talking past me again, and that's a problem. I agree with that, but that's beside the point. I wasn't using the phrase "anything goes" in that sense. Are you even trying? It's like you're doing this on purpose.
I am of the position that what's required here is a test which doesn't pass just about any imaginable stance. I'm against 'anything goes' strictly in that sense, not some other sense you can come up with. And I know that that's possible, because my own position doesn't go by a test like that. The example I've given fails that test.
Quoting Terrapin Station
The results are all that matter, not your opinion about how egotistical it is. If the results include stuff like the example, then that reflects poorly on the test.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You would need to successfully argue the point that those terms can't apply in the way that I think they can. You haven't provided any argument at all for that in this discussion from what I recall.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Based on proper conduct relating to the burden of attempting adequate justification (more commonly known as the burden of proof, but I know how easy it for you to get distracted) or of being intellectually honest enough to admit that you can't provide a justification, and based on logic, and things like that.
Do you value intellectual honesty? Yes or no?
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's not true. Do I really need to elaborate on why a test fit for purpose would need to rule out stuff like my example?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Why would you think that it's not a problem just because a single person is wilfully blind to it? We call things problems if they're generally considered problematic based on a number of things a large enough number of people have in common. You're doing that thing again where you act as though you haven't a clue about ordinary language use. Your default assumption shouldn't be that I'm speaking Terrapinese, it should be that I'm speaking normally. The former would be idiotic and will cause a lot of problems.
You are just referencing back to the subjective premiss. Sure, if you dont want to be consistent, or be rational, or operate within reason then there is nothing that forces you to do so. These are things that are subjective, choices based on how you feel about something if that's the way you want to put it.
Im not talking about that, and I dont S is either.
Yes, that's more or the less a problem we've been having. I'm saying, sure, metaethical subjectivism, but let's be sensible. He's basically saying, no, that's not metaethical subjectivism, metaethical subjectivism must not be sensible. Some people aren't sensible, and a test fit for purpose should pass those views, not reject them as sensible people would.
So he has a misunderstanding of what metaethical subjectivism entails, and he isn't really making any sense regarding his views on a test fit for purpose.
I addressed different senses you might have had in mind, because I wasn't sure. Again, it's being charitable. If I were to just ask you what sense you have in mind, I'm guessing you'd not just straightforwardly answer, because that keeps happening. So I addressed multiple senses to avoid having to ask you.
Quoting S
I'm not sure how you think they can. The only things I can imagine are that you're either (1) egotistically asserting your view as correct and anything too different from it as incorrect, (2) appealing to common or consensus opinion and equating that with "correct," which is the argumentum ad populum fallacy, or (3) saying that it either matches or fails to match what the world is like, but factually, the extramental world (extramental because otherwise then we either have (1) or (2) above) doesn't contain moral stances--hence why objectivism is wrong (it fails to match what the extramental world is like).
Quoting S
Seriously? You think that I'm going to go, "Proper conduct? Alrighty then" ?
Quoting S
Then support it better.
Quoting S
So yeah, you are just kowtowing to the crowd again. ?_?
There's nothing else to talk about, though. Again, there are no factual normatives.
This means that it is not correct/incorrect to not have (seemingly) inconsistent dispositions, feelings, etc.
"Sensible" is simply "something not too far removed from my own or from the consensus view" --that is, something not too different. Where the only thing motivating that is whether it matches oneself or the norm (which are more or less the same thing if one tempers one's views to the norm).
There is though, and thats what other people are talking about when you think (or pretending to think) they are talking about the subjective premiss.
I mean (and this should be clear from context) there is nothing else to talk about that aren't confused fictions.
I think you are talking about two different things, and thats why it seems confused fiction to you.
Please stop doing that. Again, it's not helping. It's just an annoying distraction. I've made my meaning clear enough to you. Go with that, not something plucked from your imagination.
Quoting Terrapin Station
To get to the right conclusion, you need to work backwards. That's something that you should do more often. That's something that a lot of members of this forum should do more often.
We know that, ordinarily, we call things like this right and wrong. Then you just think of a way to fit that in with your metaethics. If your metaethics can't do that, then your metaethics is inferior.
I don't need a single, rigid way of counting something as right or wrong with regard to the kind of statements we've been talking about. With the example I gave earlier, that it's wrong could be explained in light of the consequences. If all you have in response to that is, "But someone might have a different opinion about that!", then that's no argument, or if it is, it's got to be one of the weakest arguments imaginable, so my point stands.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I know that, to your discredit, you sometimes express a disregard for proper conduct in debates. That isn't entirely contrary to my expectations. But it's something that I consider pretty awful and shocking, hence why I return to it. So I just want to be clear:
Do you accept that you have a burden of attempted justification?
Do you value intellectual honesty?
And do you value logic?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Do I really need to elaborate on why a test fit for purpose would need to rule out stuff like my example?
Answer the question.
Quoting Terrapin Station
So yeah, you're still clueless enough to keep confusing any explanation referencing what a large number of people think with "kowtowing to the crowd". For the millionth time, it doesn't matter that my views are in accordance with "the crowd" in the sense that that in no way detracts from my views. The "crowd" has got this one right (again), so I would rather my views match theirs then someone who is wrong, such as yourself. In this case, it's worse to be a crackpot who clashes with the good sense of the "crowd".
No it doesn't, it means only that you're choosing to go by an interpretation which leads to that conclusion. You're the cause of your own problem, namely the problem that you reach the wrong conclusion, because it flies in the face of what we see and hear and feel and the behaviour all around us. If you were an extraterrestrial and you observed a society of humans, you would conclude that there are rights and wrongs. You would observe that people who say outlandish things are told that they're wrong, mistaken. Your metaethical theory fails in terms of explanatory power. Your theories often do, generally speaking. You really need to work on that.
I think part of the problem is the terms being used, some baggage on a few that seems to be causing confusion.
You are essentially talking about referencing a standard, right? You accept the initial subjectivity of whether or not someone values morality or reason, but once they do there are certain standards they are agreeing to operate from that do not change based on l subjective whims?
Is that right?
Well, for example you're bringing up "objective standards." I don't agree that there are such things first off. Standards are not objective, and if we're referring to standards in the sense of those that obtain via consensus in some population, if we're suggesting that it's correct to follow them, we're asserting an argumentum ad populum.
I'm not disagreeing that there are standard that are agreed upon. But there is nothing normative about them, factually.
No, that's not what it is by definition. But yes, if something not too far removed from my own view happens to be sensible, then it's sensible. And if something not too far removed from the consensus view happens to be sensible, then it's sensible.
The view that there shouldn't be any crimes beginning with "m" isn't sensible, whether it's not too far removed from my view, or your view, or the consensus. If you were to say, "But it's not too far removed from my view, so it's sensible!", you'd just be wrong. And pretty stupid, to be honest.
That view, and all others like it, shouldn't be put to a test which would pass them. That itself is actually a test for a bad test: whether or not your test passes all kinds of nonsense.
Well, call it a standard then. Do you believe in those?
Yes. An example of this would be earlier on when Terrapin revealed that he has got the nature of reason completely wrong, in that he thinks that it's subjective, when it isn't, it's objective. His view on the matter is subjective, but reason isn't. I refuted that position earlier. He can of course stick with his subjective view on the matter, but whether affirming the consequent is unreasonable isn't a moot topic. The right answer is that it's unreasonable. That he might have a different opinion won't change that.
I'd not do it if you'd give what I consider to be straightforward answers to questions, with some detail to them, when I ask something like "anything goes in what regard?"
What you typically do is respond with something in the vein of, "You (should) know what regard."
Quoting S
The whole point is this:
Say that Joe claims, "There should be no crimes about actions normally named by words beginning with the letter 'm.'"
Someone chimes in, "But that would make murder legal!" (we can, as we often do, Ignore the conventional definition of murder being illegal killing for this.)
Joe says, "Yes, obviously. That shouldn't be a crime in my view."
So Joe knows something about the consequences. Joe is expressing his view that that situation--where murder is legal--should be the case.
So for Joe, it does no good for anyone else to simply say, "You're wrong! You're incorrect!" Joe is aware of the consequences and it's something he doesn't have a problem with. Presumably he has a problem with the alternate situation instead.
Quoting S
So are you using my (1) or my (3) for how something can be "correct"/"incorrect" in this realm, or are you appealing to something I wasn't able to imagine?
So you're arguing that argumentum ad populums are not fallacious because? (Maybe because they're commonly accepted? But that itself is an argumentum ad populum.)
Re explaining things, by the way, what I'm concerned with is ultimately explaining what's really going on, which is often different than what people believe (is going on). For example, I'm not about to explain religious activities in terms of a God really existing, even though that's what religious folks believe/how they behave in that context. I'm going to explain their behavior in the context of the fact that there are no gods.
I have no idea what that's even saying. What's the distinction you're making there?
There are personal and agreed-upon standards, sure. They just don't have any normative weight aside from an individual personally wanting to follow something because it's the norm or because they decided on some credo or whatever.
So would you posit some sort of real (extramental) abstract for it?
Maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but I thought you didn't buy the idea of nonphysical existents.
Ok, so as an example, the unit of measurement of an “inch”.
Lets agree to use that standard of measurement.
So we have a tape measure, and its marked in inches. We can take that and measure the size, in inches, of all manner of objects, right? And those things will have a certain length, in inches? Right?
Sure. Objects have whatever lengths they do in particular circumstances. This does nothing to make the standard correct/incorrect, or to make it correct to use it or anything like that.
I didn't say it did. Im just saying that here is a standard (inches), and if we both agree to use that standard then we can use it to measure things in inches and you agree, right?
I was just nipping the "correct" stuff in the bud.
But again, sure re all of that.
(I'm just about to start a session, by the way, so I'll be back in a few hours.)
Ok, so if I measure a stick and it comes to 7”, what do I say to you when you look at it by eye and say “no, its 5” long”. Are you using the standard we agreed upon? What is the length of the stick in inches?
But you should, because a) it was obvious from the context (I'm pretty sure others aren't having the problem that you're having here), and because b) I've clarified multiple times now. It's not that you really don't get it enough to respond properly. That's just a ruse, a tactic. You're just basically trying to shift the burden like you always do, and red herrings which insistently press me for unnecessary detail regarding the point I'm raising to you is one way of doing that.
I don't like repeating myself, so just refer back to my previous posts regarding what I've said about that. The clarifications I've given are sufficient for someone of average intelligence to figure out what I'm getting at, so the way you're responding is effectively just playing dumb, unless you really do have below average intelligence, which I don't believe.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Wow. How many times? That is not the whole point at all! How on earth can it be the whole point? So the whole point is an irrelevance I've already accepted multiple times? No, I don't think so. You seriously need to rethink what your whole point is. You would need to take the above and lead it somewhere logically relevant.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Neither (1) nor (3). That would-be false dichotomy made me chuckle. The "crowd" has got it right (again) because the "crowd" doesn't accept that there shouldn't be any crimes beginning with "m". That's a stupid view which should not be accepted. You don't accept it yourself, yet you totally undermine that by saying that you'd indirectly allow it to pass your test through knowingly putting it through a useless test that lets anything through so long as the persons feelings match.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No, you don't understand the fallacy of appealing to the masses enough, so you misidentify it in cases like this, as everyone hereabouts knows. And you're proving immune to correction.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I'm not engaging your nonsense about the extramental. I don't have to. I've refuted the stance that reason is subjective based solely on my earlier argument. You would need to deal with that instead of trying to distract me.
I know that this was for him, because he's the one with the problem. But I just want to jump in to say what most of us already know, which is that, in this context, the correct answer would be 7”. It's arbitrary nonsense to say that "correct" doesn't apply. That's going against the grain of ordinary language use for no sensible reason.
I think Terrapin's problem here is a more general problem he has with having a die-hard commitment to something first, and then trying to work around the problems with it. It's putting the cart before the horse.
No, it makes sense from a certain perspective. Its just that you two are talking about two different things. I dont think this is some sort of pathology on his part, he is just being informed by his view of things. I actually think its largely semantic.
But it's his perspective which is the problem. Ordinary language wins out because it causes less problems. He's having to go out of his way to make his point about "correct" and "incorrect" not applying. That's the cause of the problem here. He should just speak normally, and adapt his position accordingly.
Well ill let you two settle that point. Im making a different point.
Especially if we've agreed on using the same definition of "inch," you're simply going to think that my estimate is off.
The length of the stick in inches (your other question) is whatever the measurement turns out to be per the definition of inch (or whatever unit) used. So in the example, it's going to be 7"
So I was interested in what your reasoning would be for believing that moral stances can be correct/incorrect, that reason somehow transcends individuals, and that argumentum ad populums can be non-fallacious . . . but you're not providing much info. You're just claiming that all of that is so.
Not the case, because you wind up telling people that their moral stances are incorrect, where you're not simply saying that they're very unusual (relative to commonly-expressed moral stances).
And pointing out that they're very unusual should be met with a response of, "And?"--in other words, what would the relevance to anything be? It would be as pointless as saying that the stance was expressed in English, or consisted of 10 words or whatever.
Right, because we are referencing a standard of what an inch is, that we’ve agreed upon.
So 7” inches is what the length is in inches, and 5” is not what the length in inches. Right?
So if a person agrees to the standard of measurement of an “inch”, their feeling about 5” can be shown not to be the case as it doesnt match the standard being used. (The measuring tape will show that 7” is the length in inches).
The subjective feeling, in other words, of 5” inches is not correct according to the standard being used.
Correct.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That's a gross mischaracterisation. You aren't showing enough interest in what I've actually said about that, because you aren't going by that, you're going by your mischaracterisation and pressing for unnecessary details as a distraction technique. I've given you the answer, and I've repeated that answer to you multiple times in response to your questions, but you'll keep going with the line that you don't understand or that it's not enough, because you see that as advantageous. But you can't really win that way. At the end of the day, I have truth on my side.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It is the case, because they are incorrect, not just unusual. That's why there are two different words with two different meanings, and I'm using them differently according to which one is appropriate for what I mean. They can't mean the same thing because if it was usual to think that there shouldn't be any crimes beginning with "m", it would still be wrong.
Per the particular standard it would be 7" , sure.
That's equivocating the sense of "feeling" or disposition I was using, however. Because in this case we're rather trying to get an objective fact correct. When we're talking about moral stances, there is no objective fact to get correct.
Correct.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It's not equivocating. You seem to be forgetting once again that we don't all speak Terrapinese by default. Just because you interpret things that way, that doesn't mean that your interpretation is grounds for your generalised comments, like that it's equivocation, or that we're talking about this or that, or that something or other can't be correct (where you're going by your own interpretation of why that is, and what it means to be correct).
This is where the problems stem from. There are a lot of other people who don't interpret things your way. To them, or rather to us, it comes naturally to say that this is right and that is wrong through ordinary language use. That's the default. But then you come along and say, no, nothing is right or wrong here (because you interpret things differently!).
Ok, so we get 7” not from a reference to anything subjectively (*edited from “subjective”) but rather from referencing the agreed upon standard. Right?
Edit (again): changing the word doesnt help now that I look again. 7” inches of length doesnt change because someone feels differently about the length. Hopefully you can see past my poor wording at what I actually mean.
Also, Im not ignoring your comments, but I have a point im trying to make so Ill get to them after.
??
It's from something subjective. The standard is simply something we make up by thinking about it and making decisions about what we're going to name the measurement, what we're going to count as the measurement, etc. It's not like you discover standards under rocks.
The measurement isn't subjective, but the standard certainly is.
Yeah, it is. It's taking a term I was applying to one idea, one reference, and applying the same term to a different idea, a different reference instead.
Yes, thats how the standard is created/adopted, subjectively. Im not talking about that.
Once that is done, it isnt our feelings that we reference, its the standard. If we feel like its 5”, that feeling is incorrect. The measuring tape is what tells us the length of the stick in inches, not our feelings. We are not making a reference to how we feel (subjective).
That a standard is created doesn't make the standard correct. It's the case that 5" per one idea of an inch isn't the same as 7" per a different idea of inch, but there's not a correct idea of an inch. In order for there to be a correct idea of an inch, there has to be an objective normative, a normative fact, but there are no normative facts, and we can't create any.
I addressed this above with S on the previous page. If we're claiming that all we're saying by "incorrect" is that someone isn't using some standard, some conventional approach or stance, then it would just be met with a response of, "And?"--in other words, what would the relevance of it being unusual be? "Correct" has a normative connotation. But there's no factual normative with respect to conforming to any particular standard. It's not wrong to be unusual. It's just unusual. It's not as if there's a fact that one should be usual.
Im not talking about whether the standard itself is correct, Im talking about whats correct according to the standard.
The “inch” is not under a rock somewhere, its something we make up and agree to reference when measuring things. Right?
I'm disputing that the interpretation of "correct" with regards to morality has to mean that there's an objective fact. The correct answer is that it's 7”, regardless, because that's the standard determining the answer in this case, and you both agreed to that. The wrong answer would be that it's 5”, because you felt that way or because that's what you reckon after having judged it by eye, because that's going by the wrong standard in this case.
Quoting Terrapin Station
And here it is again. This is an arbitrary premise that I haven't accepted, whether we're talking about morality or the imperial system of measurement. It shouldn't be accepted because it leads to unacceptable consequences. [B]The conclusion that there are no right or wrong answers with regard to morality or the imperial system of measurement is a much, much bigger problem than adjusting the interpretation of "correct" and "incorrect"[/b].
I think I see where you're going with this, but if I'm right it will run into the problem I highlighted (with no success) above. You are (correct me if I'm wrong) comparing some foundational moral view to the standard inch. Once that foundational moral view is established and agreed on, it is possible to be incorrect about one's rational (or guesswork gut feeling) about moral principles aimed at upholding this foundational view. It is inconceivable to me that anyone would have a foundational moral view about something as specific free speech, I simply don't believe that such a view is not some rational (or guessed) principle aimed at upholding or achieving some more foundational position about autonomy, harm to others etc..
Terrapin is maintaining, however, that his position on free speech is nevertheless, foundational. That someone could have a foundational feeling that "all people whose names begin with 'M' should be imprisoned" or something like that. I don't see what can be further argued from that bizarre position.
If any and all views can be taken to be foundational, then there's no point in discussing anything using rational argument. Parliament need not have debates because there are no facts of the matter to be discussed, Councillors need not talk to each other about the implications of their various policy ideas because implications are irrelevant if the policy ideas are foundational.
All discussion ends up futile unless we assume some shared foundational position. such an assumption is possible if we accept that foundational positions are wide-reaching and vary little among most people. The moment we accept that foundational positions are very specific and vary widely, we can't rationally discuss anything.
The contrary opinion of a single person clearly doesn't mean that it wouldn't be absurd to legalise all crimes beginning with "m", or anything of that sort.
I said that per that standard, it's 7" , but the standard isn't correct. Per other standards, other definitions of "inch," it's a different number.
There are no moral or normative facts. But that's irrelevant to persuasion via rhetoric at any rate. There, you're appealing to what and how particular individuals think, with the aim of moving things closer to your preferences. Facts need not apply for that.
Oh my goodness, you and your problematic interpretations! Why are you causing unnecessary problems?
If that's the standard you're going by, then in that context it's the correct answer, and other standards are completely irrelevant. What you're doing is arbitrarily changing the context to absolutism, or removing the set context, or going by a different system of measurement, in order to say that it's not correct.
Don't do that, and the problem will go away. That's the simple solution.
That's fine, as the measurement is an objective fact and you can match or fail to match an objective fact. Moral stances are not objective facts.
But there are no other standards. That's the point. In the real world (the one in which laws must be made), absolutely no-one is seriously proposing a slightly different system in which an 'inch' is a bit smaller. 7 billion people and not one alternative definition of an 'inch' has come to the surface. For all practical purposes there's only one definition of an inch and it looks like there's only ever going to be one, so we need not waste any time assuming there might be.
Foundational moral principles are similar (although they vary more widely). The core of them is so widely agreed upon that when discussing normative ethics we do not need to take into account variations widely outside of that core, anymore than when measuring something we do not ever say "what do you mean 'six inches'? Your inches, or my inches". The issue never arises, not because inches are an objective value, but because they are so widely agreed upon.
This is a normative ethical discussion. We might well have someone psychopathic turn up, someone whose brain is damaged and has no empathy. They would have different foundational views, and would not be 'incorrect' for that. But thus is unlikely and assuming it all the time stifles meaningful normative discussion.
You can invent them all day long. "Standard" doesn't imply a widespread consensus (ignoring the sorites problem there). But at any rate, to avoid quibbling over that, since it's not the point, that's why I added "definition."
Did you miss all of my comments about normatives, re how it's not correct to conform to the norm, etc.? We're not disagreeing over whether there's a norm or what it is. We're disagreeing that the norm is correct or that it implies a normative a la what anyone should do, etc.
I've already stated my objection to that, so I won't repeat it. It's up to you whether or not you decide to address it.