Is being a mean person a moral flaw?
What is your definition of a mean person or someone being mean?
Is being a mean person a moral flaw, just a personality quirk, or something else?
When is being mean called for (if ever) and when is it not?
Is being a mean person a moral flaw, just a personality quirk, or something else?
When is being mean called for (if ever) and when is it not?
Comments (144)
Differences between American and British English: mean
Quoting schopenhauer1
It is a negative impression that one person has about the behaviour of another person. I think that it requires an incident in which that person has misbehaved. But then again, it does not mean that this person is always misbehaved. It is possible to morally judge an incident, as we have witnessed it, but it is much more difficult to judge a person with all his past and future behaviour.
Still, better safe than sorry. If someone has done something really objectionable to you (or someone else), I understand that you decide to avoid dealing with that person in the future.
Yes, I mean the U.S. definition/version. The U.K. definition would be more uncharitable, scrooge-like, ungenerous, stingy, etc.
Quoting alcontali
Interesting, besides that it is about "impressions" of the beholder of the mean person, you added something about an incidence of misbehavior. I guess I would like something a bit more concrete. Misbehavior doesn't have to be mean.
If behaving morally/ethically requires being considerate to others, and being mean is a kind of inconsiderate behaviour, then yes... by definition alone... mean people are immoral(have a moral flaw).
Ok, but then what is the basis for being considerate? At what times should one be considerate and at what times should one not? Is it all the time? Is it good to use as defense against an inconsiderate or insulting attack of some kind?
If you used a word that covers the same behavior and intentions of a mean person, but is not pejorative, then perhaps you could say it does not entail them being immoral.
You'd have to clarify that. What do you mean by pejorative in this case? Are you saying a mean person is someone who expresses contempt (aka pejorative) or someone who is worthy of contempt?
While I think meanness is by definition undesirable, I do not think it is indicative of a fundamental character flaw, but instead of unresolved negative emotion. This can be somewhat benign, or it can be rooted in much deeper psychological issues.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't think so. An eye for an eye doesn't just make the whole world blind, but it also erodes one's moral integrity by engaging in the sort of behavior one finds immoral. Such is the debasement of oneself, no matter what kind of a situation it is applied to.
What do you mean by unresolved negative emotion? This is doing the opposite of the other poster who put the burden of the meanness on the observer (calling it an impression). This is putting the sole focus on the mean person (unresolved negative emotion). Should there be any focus on the mean person's action towards the person it is directed at, or are you purposely trying to maintain that the attention should solely be on the mean person, as if an oddity that should just be watched from a distance and have him/her work their negative issues out.
Are you asking if being considerate is good while being inconsiderate is not?
Emotions like the ones I mentioned (fear, anger, insecurity) that a person has not found a means to discharge and thus are "trapped" in his mind.
This can be somewhat benign. Lets say I spilled a cup of coffee over my desk and it frustrated me. This emotion then needs to be discharged. I may go for a walk or perform some physical exercise. I may express my frustration verbally towards a colleague. Or I may bottle it up and be moody for the rest of the day. Since the source of frustration is gone, this sort of emotion tends to resolve itself in time.
It can also be more severe in nature. Imagine the same sort of process, but with a heavier emotional load. Perhaps someone has had a difficult relationship with their parents. Perhaps someone was deeply hurt in a relationship. It is possible for such events to become internalized, whereby the actual source of the emotion is gone, but the mind itself becomes the new source. This starts getting in the realm of mental trauma.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That's right.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think an action can be mean even if the 'victim' of meanness does not interpret it that way, so mostly the latter. Though, there are certain aspects that we haven't covered yet.
For example, there has to be an aspect of non-consensuality. However, consensuality does not solve everything. Even in a consensual exchange a person can still be mean, like in an abusive relationship. Though, one must ask if such a relationship is truly consensual.
It's a bit like one can't call a car crap and not think it's a bad car. That isn't a moral judgment, but mean is also pejorative and must, I think, entail a moral judgment if the speaker thinks in moral terms.
It's always good to be considerate. Being considerate does not equal being defenseless. One can be both considerate and well defended. It's always good to be considerate and well-defended.
Not all insults have the same effect/affect upon the listener. An insult can be appropriate. Here, on this forum, it can exemplify any number of different underlying situations. Some considerate people insult others as a result of careful consideration.
unkind nasty spiteful foul
malicious malevolent despicable
contemptible obnoxious
vile odious loathsome
disagreeable unpleasant
unfriendly uncharitable
shabby unfair callous
cruel vicious base low
horrible horrid hateful
rotten lowdown beastly
bitchy catty shitty
Harm causing, all. Bad news.
Mental trauma?
When memories of emotionally devastating situations perpetuate past feelings of fear, anger, and/or insecurity.
Internalized?
As if memories, emotions, and being devastated were not always - in part at least - already internal to begin with. How does something go from already being internal to being internalized?
I'm English and our definition covers both being tight with money and being cruel in some way. I doubt the definitions are worth mentioning.
Mean is in the eye of the beholder. Most children think their parents are being mean. The animal kingdom seems rife with it. Being mean is something only another can consider a personal flaw. If it's in the culprits best interest, how could it be a flaw of their personality? It all depends on who answers the question. The supposed mean person, or the one (s) who they're doing something to.
I think that meanness is indicative of a character flaw and unresolved negative emotions. How can character not be influenced and revealed by the ways in which we act out our emotions?
Trauma can create a flawed character as well as a damaged psyche: many people who are the victims of severe abuse in infancy and childhood become abusers, and many have paranoid-schizoid splits that make it extremely difficult for them to realize consciously that they're repeating the same horrible behavior that was done to them. Actually, it's not so uncommon at all for most people to split off from their own mean behavior and not recognize it for what it really is. I'll never forget a colleague I had years back who had been shamed and humilliated by her doctoral exams committee (mean, insecure people), and she loved to be mean to undergraduate students. Meanwhile, she saw herself as the loving mother of four children.
So I'd have to call it a character flaw when people have a "dark side" that they never really own as responsible for nasty behavior. When I lose my temper, I think of my own behavior in these terms.
Being an asshole, a bitch, a dick, etc.
I wouldn't say it's a "moral flaw," no, although I suppose often enough it leads to behavior that I'd classify as immoral. For example, an asshole might be more likely to hire someone to do work for them and basically wind up ripping them off a bit--maybe they'd short them a bit, or push them to do something outside of the context of what they hired them for without additional compensation or something like that, for example.
I like people to be honest/to honestly express themselves/to be existentially authentic. So if being an asshole or a bitch is how they authentically feel, I think they should express that. I'm just not going to be hanging out with them if it's a way they regularly are.
A. Joe is a mean person.
B: What did he do?
That question it seems to me can always expect and answer. I suppose the mean person might have just stared at the proverbial old lady in the street moaning and pain and done nothing, but that would probably be immoral to most people, and to those who would use the word 'mean'.
It could just be speech, for example. I don't consider any speech immoral.
or
someone at work walks up to after you've been in a meeting and say that your wife came by and they couldn't find you and how sorry he is that your daughter was killed by a bus.'
It's kinda fun making these up, but you the idea. I presume you won't think these are immoral. I can't imagine why, though. Let me know.
It's a moral flaw, meanness tends to be petty and selfish, if meanness isn't a moral flaw then idk what is.
I don't even know if that's a mean comment per se.
Yeah, not immoral to me.
I'm someone who wants people to express themselves as they feel like expressing themselves, and who thinks that we need to not put too much weight on things that people say/we need to be at least a bit skeptical of things that people say. In expressing themselves, some people might be odd, might enjoy joking around, might have odd senses of humor, etc.
This doesn't imply that I'm going to enjoy every way that people express themselves--as I said earlier, I'm not going to spend a lot of time with people who are regularly "mean," or who regularly complain, who are often negatively judgmental, but I don't feel it's immoral for people to express whatever they want to express, even if it's dishonest, manipulative, etc.--again, be at least a bit skeptical of what people say.
Mean-ness can be thought as describing a subjective feeling under the umbrella of arrogance. Being mean is the manifestation of mean-ness, and takes its objective form by causing the feeling of displeasure in another subject of like kind by an action that supports mean-ness.
IFF one predicates his own morality on the existence and power of moral law, he is immediately immoral, that is, subjectively, by having mean-ness incorporated into his personality, yet only mediately, that is, objectively, immoral if he should subsequently act to treat another subject as an end, by means of the satisfaction of his own feelings of arrogance.
To be arrogant in its various forms, is the prime facilitator for actions that exhibit such immoral conditions in a subject, but does not thereby make such actions absolutely necessary, re: the deviation from which is impossible, for it is not uncommon to witness people generally known for being mean circumstantially acting kindly.
Personally, yes, I think a mean person is immoral, and I think mean-ness is a moral flaw. But I have been mean, and I may yet be mean, so......there is that.
I see, you are explaining a possible origin of a mean act or person. Do you think all mean acts/people come from a place of unresolved conflict in some past event or trauma? Can it be just a general attitude of the person without being from some past event? What happens if one chooses to freely be a mean person vs. some indistinct prior emotional event?
Some personality-types and leaders think meanness gets their point across. Perhaps they think it is effective, or don't call it "mean" but "bluntness" or "direct". When is that line crossed into meanness? Say it is effective. Would mean be immoral or just good leadership (I am NOT saying it is, this is just a hypothetical)? How about in an argument? A mean remark to the person you are arguing with can shut down the argument because it causes the other person to want to disengage. Has the mean person "won" the argument? Is it a pyrrhic victory? When does "wit" or "humor" become "mean" and when is it appropriate to show someone a truth of some kind about that person?
I guess I should say with all this, what are the boundaries of mean and something else?
So if it's in the best interest of the mean person, it is not immoral? That seems to bypass the very definition of moral, unless you are a complete moral nihilist or perhaps moral egoist (it's moral if it is in your best interest only).
So hurting someone and being malicious with words is okay as long as you can get away. But can't words also cause trauma in others if done in a very cruel manner?
That's a really good point. People have many facets when in different situations. However, it is easier (perhaps?) to tolerate one's own kin than others. Wouldn't it be the easy way out to love one's own kids and then treat other people and relations with cruelty? Is meanness at a workplace ever called for or is it usually always some sort of either character flaw or some hot-tempered thing in the heat of the moment, perhaps from some stressful situation?
This is an interesting response but this would be about the British definition of "stingy" or "ungenerous" when this is more about the asshole kind of being mean. Someone being mean to a person.
You'd really have to explain this for me to comment on. So, meanness comes from arrogance?
Intuitively I would say yes.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The question would be why one desires to intentionally hurt others, and in otherwise healthy human beings I would relate such a desire to unresolved negative emotion.
I would list intentionality as another aspect of 'meanness', come to think of it.
First, I only have a moral objection to force (when it's nonconsensually applied, and then only with particular criteria).
I don't believe that speech forces any psychological states. And we certainly can't show that it does, even if it were the case that it does.
With something like someone getting offended by something someone says, I think that the person with a problem is the person getting offended (well, at least if they'd rather not be offended). That's what needs to be worked on in that situation. They need to learn to not be offendable--which is possible to do in my view.
I've mentioned this before, and I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it here. I think sometimes that people thinking I'm joking about stuff like that, but I'm not. I'm serious. People who get offended are the problem when that happens, not the person who offended them.
It's more about the definition of mean. It's in itself not a moral issue. A child taking a toy from another because it wants it and feels jealousy for it, cannot be considered immoral in any way. it's only when it's intentionally meant to be mean that it becomes a moral issue. But even then, one person's mean, is anothers, just. The word 'mean' is too flimsy for a definitive answer about whether being it is moral, or not. I would say it's a perception of another more than a personal trait.
How do you see this as an easy way out? From what???
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think the whole point is that there are people who think it's ok to be mean in whatever situation, and I view those folks as lacking control and believing it's ok for them to "act out." Acting out is never ok in my book.
I suppose being mean is like being callous, insensitive, showing a disregard for the feelings and sensitivities of others.
I think “being mean” isn’t so much an aspect of our being or character as it is a method of social relations.
Yes, but mean-ness could also be pathological, in which case explanations from psychology holds sway. Humans are seldom entirely arrogant, which is an over-abundance of conceit, nor are they entirely humble, which is the containment of it, the two simply naming the major groups under which all our inclinations may be listed.
Non-pathological mean-ness is a variety of arrogance, where a subject thinks himself powerful enough to cause discomfort or displeasure in others, not as a matter of course, but rather as a merely spontaneous incidence, and because this kind of arrogance is a rational rather than physical condition, the influence of our inclinations on our moral disposition may be explained from moral philosophy.
One such philosophy asserts that the highest humility in humans is respect for moral law, which defeats arrogance; as the one goes up, the other goes down. One who holds moral law as the legislative authority in the service of his morality has contained his arrogance in the recognition of a force understood and granted as greater than himself, hence is not apt to mean-ness, hence is not likely to be mean. But then.....nobody’s perfect.
That can make sense. What would be the moral way to handle unresolved negative emotions? Also, is it ever appropriate to be mean?
So emotional pain is not a real thing?
Is it ever appropriate to be mean? Spite might be one form of meanness. There can be others though, no? For example, you don't like someone's comment on here because you disagree with it or it doesn't make sense to you, so you bash the hell out of the comment as this or that. When is the line drawn between disagreeing, calling someone out on not having enough knowledge, and being mean?
So, what would make it moral or immoral? If the other person thinks it is out of bounds? I'll ask the same thing I asked previous poster: For example, you don't like someone's comment on here because you disagree with it or it doesn't make sense to you, so you bash the hell out of the comment as this or that. When is the line drawn between disagreeing, calling someone out on not having enough knowledge, and being mean?
I meant, it's easy or easier to love your own children, but not others. Thus I was reiterating your example of treating coworkers and colleagues like shit and maybe not your own children. However, I'm willing to bet that kind of thing bleeds into many spheres.
Quoting uncanni
So what is "acting out" and what makes it immoral versus just imprudent or something that some people disapprove of.
Is the method immoral? Is it simply consequential? Only if the consequences for that person are bad, is it bad? What if a mean person gets a lot of praise from those that admire the mean person for his/her meanness? What if they don't perceive it as mean? What if they do? Does this make a difference for the admirer of the mean person? When can someone judge when someone is mean?
I think ‘mean’ is always a subjective, relative term. It refers to a value relation between the subject and object, but rather than good/bad, the distinction implies a middle-of-the-road value that is neither good nor bad as such. The similarity to ‘inconsiderate’ mentioned earlier alludes to the lack of intentionality: I don’t think people choose to be mean as such, rather their behaviour towards someone or something is evaluated (by anyone interacting with the relational behaviour) as lacking in intentional kindness, while not involving intentional malice, either.
It’s like: ‘I don’t want to imply that you’re doing it on purpose, but what you’re doing or saying lacks a certain level of kindness that I expect from the exchange’.
Personally, I think withdrawing kindness has no positive effect in any exchange, and there is no call or justification for it under any circumstances. But I wouldn’t call it immoral - I tend not to evaluate behaviour in this way.
If you tell me that I’m being ‘mean’, I would interpret it as a call to consider that my behaviour has fallen below the minimum level of kindness and civility that you expect in the exchange. Of course, I may not agree with your assessment or that the exchange requires that level of kindness - but if I wish to continue the exchange, then we need to reach some level of agreement.
I think mean-ness also relates to humility, so the association with ‘arrogance’ mentioned earlier is another good point. When we call a behaviour out as ‘mean’, we consider our own behaviour in the exchange (or as a rule) to be kinder in comparison. That may not be accurate, but withdrawing kindness as a response to ‘mean’ behaviour is only stooping to their level. If I build someone's self esteem, I am not extracting it from my own or tipping a balance in their favour. When both parties withdraw kindness, then nothing positive will result, and any suggestion otherwise is a matter of ignorance, IMO.
I think continuing to demonstrate the level of kindness we expect from others is the most effective way to eliminate mean-ness in an exchange.
I notice you using "withdraw kindness". I think that's an interesting phrasing as withdrawing kindness assumes that the default is kindness. Perhaps that isn't everyone's default?
Quoting Possibility
What if a mean person gets a lot of praise from those that admire the mean person for his/her meanness? What if they don't perceive it as mean? What if they do? Does this make a difference for the admirer of the mean person? When can someone judge when someone is mean? There may be no bad consequences for the mean person. It is like asymmetric warfare if a person is continually nice in the face of meanness. There is an unfair advantage that is being exploited.
I suppose it depends on if the meanness is deserved. If it is deserved it is just, and therefor moral. If it is undeserved it is unjust, and therefor immoral.
And what is the criteria for just?
Granted, but it’s still relative. When I say ‘withdraw kindness’, I’m referring to a level of kindness or civility that was previously assumed as a default in the exchange.
It’s like when you engage in what you believe is an intellectual discussion, and then someone starts making unfavourable assumptions about your intelligence, education, upbringing or mental health. Now, personally I think a minimum level of kindness or civility for an intellectual discussion is to give people the benefit of the doubt in terms of reasonable intelligence or education - but I know that many people gauge these by certain subjective criteria, and will readily discount the intelligence/education of someone who doesn’t fit that criteria. Of these, there are people who will withdraw kindness at this point - and it shows in their use of language.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is what I mean about humility. Is it really warfare, or is that just how we perceive it? There are many posters here who begin or enter a discussion with a certain amount of pride in the superiority of their viewpoint. They’ve put a lot of thought and research into it, after all, and many have degrees and experience to back it up. When a fellow poster disagrees, is the aim to win the argument, or is it to reach a mutual understanding? For those who are set on winning the argument, kindness often has no place in the discussion. Does that make them a ‘mean person’, or is it just their approach that is ‘mean’? Should there be bad consequences for this approach?
I think most people who recognise they are being ‘mean’ have either a logical or other value-based justification for refusing to interact with kindness - one that renders their ‘meanness’ neutral in their opinion, rather than good or bad. When others admire someone for being ‘mean’, they view the exchange as warfare and have a similar value-based reason for choosing that particular side.
Many of society’s value structures are based on warfare, tipping scales, finite resources, survival of the fittest, etc. We tend to view humility - like pain, loss or lack - as suffering: something we should strive to avoid at all cost. But humility isn’t a bad thing - it’s essential to the process of life. There is no ultimate position of superiority - to exist we accept humility: there exists always something greater, better, stronger, more important than ourselves.
Kindness doesn’t mean being a mouse. Someone who maintains kindness in the face of meanness is not being exploited - they’re standing their ground, recognising that their inferiority is not something to hide from. It’s just a starting point.
Truth is meanness can be felt or dished out and it can be either just or injustice. meanness can be felt even when the intentions are good or vice versa. And when it comes to if its a personality flaw or not, again, relies mostly on the judge because what some see as simple retribution or maybe punishment for a wrong, looks to some as mean, others may find it immoral and some think it's all a joke.
Have you ever told a kid off about something and mid sentence realised you had the wrong end of the stick. Then you feel bad for being mean. Even though it felt completely justified a second ago? Therefore it wouldn't be fair for any judge to count meanness as something immoral, being as it pivots on understanding of a situation. My son is 7 now and he gets what mean is. Although many time he considers something mean because he can't see the good in it or he will not realise he's been mean because he couldn't see the bad in it. Meaning what's actually mean, doesn't mean anything.
You might like a mean person IFF s/he is on your side of whatever conflict you can imagine. What does that tell you about us?
I think meanness is natural but all that's natural isn't good. This is the odd thing about morality - it's nature fighting it's own self. One could even say it's mother nature looking in the mirror and discovering that she doesn't like some of her features. I hope she has a plastic surgeon who can fix it.
Acting out: https://dictionary.apa.org/acting-out Trump is pretty much acting out all the time. He's a deeply traumatized child.
Morality concerns the way we behave and relate to others (and to ourselves); let's leave imprudence and disapproval aside.
As for the benign negative emotions: things like physical exercise, talking to a person about the problem, simply counting to ten and taking a big breath.
As for the more deeply rooted negative emotions, it's more complicated. Many people aren't even aware they have them and that they affect their own well-being and that of others. Becoming aware would be the first step, and self-reflection is undoubtedly one of the most important tools for this. For some, self-reflecting may be enough to be at peace with what negative experiences they have had. Others may need psychiatric help.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think not. Negative emotions are potentially poisonous to one's own psyche and to those of others. Spreading them creates a cycle; think of the bully that, by bullying others, potentially creates more bullies. I'm sure you are familiar with concepts like the cycle of abuse and the cycle of violence. It benefits no one.
Even as a response to the meanness of another I think it is inappropriate, following the axiom of 'an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.' Repaying immoral behavior with immoral behavior of one's own can never be considered moral or right.
Let's take each one of those: I don't want a society where I have to ask three people for directions a lot of the time because most people like to fuck with strangers. Of course, when I ask for directions, I assume they might be wrong. But generally I assume they are doing their best. If someone chooses to mislead me, they're a dick for doing that. I won't call the police on them, but they were being an asshole.
Doctors and other professionals would be even more immoral if the intentionally mislead me. I am probably more skeptical than most people in this forum when it comes to conventional medicine, but I do expect them to deal with me responsibly. To not do it affects me emotionally, and it would mean some level of hateful, sociopathic thinkng and attitudes to do it. If one does not believe in morals, fine it isn't immoral, but if you believe in morals, well their is not reason to think speech acts cannot be immoral. They get to express themselves and deal with the consequences, which will include people thinking they are bad people. They are still free. How would my thinking they are assholes or immoral stop them?
And then family/friends. Sorry, that's a callous way to treat someone. Trust is a part of being a social mammal. Of course I have not always been trustworthy. But if I lie about something important, I understand why a friend or family member would be angry and judge it immoral. Because that is part of the reason we get close. I don't want to treat those close to me like I need to treat sales reps. That's part of intimacy, the being able to be much less skeptical.
They can continue to do this, of course. My judgments, just like their speech, do not force them to stop. So, your wanting them to express themselves is irrelevent.
Further they are not expressing themselves. They are doing something else, at least also.
Me, a guy punching me in the shoulder for thinking I cut ahead of him in line, has done something vastly less immoral than the doctor in my example.
I think this is odd. That guy is dishonest and manipulative - perjorative terms - but not immoral - pejorative term. Could you parse that for me`? To immoral is a larger category, in which one subset of behavior would be dishonest and manipulative behavior.
If you'd described the doctor's behavior as imaginative and thinking out of the box. Well, ok. You don't just it with pejorative terms. But you did use pejorative terms. Why is the pejorative 'immoral' wrong to use?
I won’t pretend to know the answer to such a question, but I like to think being just means being fair, giving people what is deserved of them.
Niceness is far more a moral flaw than meanness. "Niceness" is used by narcissists far more than meanness, it is the gateway to destruction. Because it skillfully remains ingrained in "acts of kindness" we ignore that niceness is deployed by the those with the malicious intents.
Meanness is not attempting to exploit or extract by the means of malicious manipulation and recklessly preying without self-restraint and the expense of others' well-being. SJW's are nice people. Stalin was a nice guy. He wanted nice. He had a nice vision. All destructive leaders do. Hitler had a vision of nice future. Trump is a nice guy; that is why his ruling sucks. He is too nice. We need someone mean now. Not someone that fetishizes niceness. He wants everything to be nice and great. We don't need that vision. It is unrealistic, malicious, and narcissistic. All politicians are ultimately nice people bluntly talking about nice things trying to make everything nice for everyone. It is a flaw and a problem.
Meanness is restrained and an effective tool to suppress "niceness" getting out of hand, especially brainless niceness we see today from the bat-shit ALT right and crazy SJWs. The right wants everyone to be play nice, they fear meanness. It can only go so far before they begin to hurt themselves in the process. Niceness can go on for hours. It can go years, dishonesty, unaddressed and days. If a mean person get's out of hand? Another mean person will handle it.
Many, many, many philosophers and thinkers are mean. There is nothing nice about them. There ideologies are mean. Their thinking is mean. There ideas are mean. Etc., Zizek is an example of meanness. Muir was mean when he shut off great portions of the world from humans to protect wilderness. Revolutionaries are mean. Feminists are mean. Challengers are mean. Policies are mean. Atheists are mean, and very few are running for the main positions. Because they know, they'll have to be nice.
The intelligent person falls back from niceness - questionably and examines, the smart person uses meanness to suppress the malicious intent of niceness. To say meannness is a moral flaw is dangerous. There is not one thing nice about truth, knowledge, or integrity. It is all mean, rude, and invasive. If you don't feel sad or upset yet, you are probably too nice.
Kindness prevails above both niceness and meanness. It is necessary for survival because you cannot not be kind. Kind is morality. Yes, you can be kind and mean.
Sure, we want to be able to trust people, but we often can not, and there's no way to enforce that everyone is going to be trustworthy.
Keep in mind, by the way, that re some stuff you're bringing up, I would still have contractual law much as it is now. People could still be liable for contractual fraud/breech of contract.
Many situations of a doctor misleading you are going to be contractual fraud, because there's an implied contract in that scenario that they're not going to give you intentional misdiagnoses, and especially not intentionally contraindicated prescriptions and so on.
Other than that, sure, I might say someone is being an asshole, too, but to me, "immoral" is stronger than just "he's being an asshole."
I think emotional pain is a real thing, sure.
But, there's no need to be offended by anything anyone says. I see being offended as a flaw with the person who is offended. Not a flaw with the offendee.
Trolling research lists contagion as one of the problematic results of online nastiness. Everyone acting out their PTSD, thereby triggering someone else's PTSD, and so on. Meanness metastasizes, like cancer.
On the other hand, trolling research is trolling.
That's meaningless...
I usually prefer to not explain jokes, but in other words, if we read "trolling research" as saying "research that is trolling" rather than "research into trolling"
This just seems like mincing words and meanings- up is down, down is up.. A bit too Nietzscheanesque for me. So being nice is immoral because it hides some sort of truth statements that are somehow associated with meanness. I'm not sure that necessarily correlates. You can call someone a fuckn moron who doesn't know his own ass from his head.. or you can say that someone is misinformed. I don't know, one seems a bit meaner than the other and unnecessary, both convey the same message. Also, it just seems like you are stretching the meaning of "kind" too much beyond its meaning.
If you are trying to say that "the truth hurts" then that is something to explore. For example, the idea that you aren't force recruiting new people into a labor force by abstaining from procreation. You aren't force causing the conditions for a lifetime of various negative experiences by abstaining from procreation. That to me is a truth, and often times it is an odious idea to people and perhaps hurts their sensibilities. However, I don't intend to hurt with it. It I believe to be the truth of the matter, but I don't think anyone would construe that as being "mean". Now, if I went up to a pregnant lady and started harassing her about how awful she is for having kids, that would be mean and I wouldn't condone it. So this bit of wordplay between kind and mean and truth and mean doesn't pass muster with how I see it.
Yes, it is hard to not ask for retribution from the mean person. Usually that means being mean back, a retaliation. But as you explained, no one wins when both people "withdraw kindness". I think the idea that being mean is withdrawing a base level of kindness is not a bad way to look at meanness. It is evaluating the other person as not worthy of a certain kind of respect or civility. Something about that other person has triggered in the mean person a response or a way of relating that involves ridiculing, demeaning, isolating, or acting with condescension towards another person. The intent is to probably hurt, and the hope is that the meanness is received negatively the target of the meanness. What is the appropriate response to the mean person then? Is it pointing out that meanness is taking place? Is it just ignoring it? Is it getting an apology? Silently just know that the other person is being an asshole but not letting them know? What would be the just way to handle this sort of asymmetry of attacks?
This is of course keeping in mind that there actually is someone being mean, and not in the "victim's" head. The epistemology of this is something to take into account. How does one tell if one is just oversensitive or misperceiving what is the case?
Very good definition there. Being that suffering is one of the most important things to consider in morality, I can very much get on board with the idea that it is one of many things that leads to suffering in others. Of course, the next question is why would morality be based on whether one causes suffering or not in others? But this is then metaethics.
I don’t believe the intention of meanness is to hurt, though. The feelings of the target are irrelevant, but it is because we expect some level of consideration (kindness) that meanness is perceived as malicious intent. In most situations, I would argue there is no intentional malice. The intent is to win, to avoid humility and reassure themselves of relative superiority at all cost. They are more often than not being led by their own fears - fears they will of course deny.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think the person being mean should be made aware that their behaviour has fallen below an expected level of kindness and civility, without assuming it was done intentionally. The hardest thing about being the one to tell them this is that we must accept a certain amount of humility ourselves in doing so: it feels like we’re acknowledging their power or capacity to harm us, doesn’t it? But isn’t it true? Why do we need to deny that fact? What are we afraid of?
Part of being kind is giving people the benefit of the doubt, with the aim of inspiring kindness in return, regardless of past experience. It’s the whole ‘turn the other cheek’ thing. If we don’t, if we retaliate, then we give in to our own fears, and contribute to anger, hatred, oppression, etc. If we try to pretend it didn’t happen, though, we fail to prevent it from happening to others.
Justice isn’t about punishing those who fail to live up to our expectations. It’s about helping them to understand what those expectations are. We don’t need to withdraw kindness to do this - surely we’re smarter and more creative than to stoop to their level?
You don't think there is at least some intentional malice going on with certain incidences of meanness? Though, I would agree that there are other factors that may weigh more heavily- win at all costs, avoid humility, relative superiority, etc. It may be simply stress. When one is stressed, and has too much going on, one tends to lash out. So there are many causes here, and many of them are not from malicious intent.
Quoting Possibility
Yes, I think there is a certain discomfort confronting in general. But depending on the situation, it may be a waste of time, or just unpleasant to deal with. The mean person is hoping this will override any admonitions.
Who said anything about enforcing? Quoting Terrapin StationFunny because that's bringing in force. I was talking about people making a moral judgment.Quoting Terrapin StationIn what sense. That seems like a moral judgment via an expressive label. He's an asshole, he does asshole things, but he's not immoral seems odd to me. Unless you don't believe in morals. But then if one doesn't believe in morals, there is no need to distinguish between speech and other behavior.
I don't think that holds. 'a bit' is a vague term. One could be a bit skeptical, but also foolish not to react when lied to about a fire in a building. About a doctor saying your child is going to die. About misinformation in other areas of life. The asshole who is spreading lies to try and hurt people, means that that bit of skepticism has to be a bit more. It leads to us having to be more skeptical, and that is a cost or pain for social mammals. Your vague 'a bit' gets increased for every asshole.
But here you seem to see use of the word immoral as a problem. It doesn't enforce anything. In fact calling someone an asshole is as likely to have effects if not more so than the word immoral describing an act of that person is.
It seems like you have a judgment that 'immoral' as a speech act is more causal of problems than the word 'asshole'. But you don't think words can be causal.
It certainly can't cause any problems. We can all be skeptical about whatever nuances that word has that asshole doesn't when we hear it applied to someone.
It seems implicit in your argument that 'a bit' of skepticism prevents any harm mean, dishonest, assholes create via their use of language. But of course it wouldn't. Unless that bit was huge. And if the bit is huge, that's harm. Because if you have tremendous distrust for what everyone says to you, you lead a hampered existence. Because you must double and triple check things or always be in extra anxiety that you've been lied to, even by those you love.
I happen to have a very hard skull. You punch me in the head, the chances are, unless you are a pro fighter, your hand will get more damage than my head. That doesn't make it less immoral to throw a punch at my head without cause. Just because an act intended to harm me and one that will in some or many cases harm someone does not harm me, it's still immoral. Of if someone else is trained (analogous to 'a bit skeptical'), someone trying to assault them is still being immoral, even if they fail. No physical attack is guaranteed to cause harm. Yet we would still judge, though perhaps not you, attempts of violence as violent and immoral. Guns can jam, bullets can miss, blows can miss or not harm, some people even like to be attacked. Still we judge people as immoral for trying to do bodily harm, despite the lack of some 100 percent causal chain.
Here I am not saying anything about judging it a crime, just as immoral. Doing something intended to hurt other people out of a mean or cruel attitude towards others. Waht is the harm of calling that immoral, that calling them an asshole or mean person somehow manages to avoid? And since whatever harm it causes depends on others believing it and it is not causal in their believing it,w hat's the problem?
No, I don’t. Meanness is categorically different from malicious intent. I dare say if you kindly point out the apparent withdrawal of kindness in their behaviour, their subsequent response will usually inform you of their intent. I agree that when one is stressed, they are also focused on their own feelings and tend to be less considerate of others’ feelings.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That depends on whether you need validation. What can seem from my perspective to be a ‘waste of time’ might be the only kindness that person receives that day. A large number of my posts on this forum appear to be ignored, in that no-one responds to them or a discussion ends there. Some might consider them a waste of time, but I’m not doing it for validation (although it would be nice). I have information and a perspective to be shared.
I still think you’re assuming that kindness on your part will be met with unpleasantness, or else still assuming intent on the part of the mean person in hoping their unpleasantness will somehow prevent unpleasantness in return. You might need to test your assumptions - ask the question.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I’m not sure here if you mean the proper response from the person who thinks they’re superior, or from the person they’re being mean to. I’ll try to address both.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The manager-employee relationship often has a contract to handle entitlement, and any employee should be made aware of the expectations of the job before signing. Beyond that, showing ‘disapproval’ can take many forms, and managers often have defense mechanisms in place to conceal the fear that they may not be sufficiently competent themselves as managers. This often includes maintaining a certain relational distance from their employees that can be construed as a lack of kindness. The employee may not know the manager well enough to distinguish this from a subtle message that they’re not meeting expectations. It takes courage as an employee to ask for clarification. I would say the responsibility of a manager, though, is to make sure their employee is aware of expectations they may not be meeting, and give them the opportunity and perhaps even support to then strive to meet those expectations before taking due course. Firing is only ‘mean’ if the employee was unaware that they weren’t meeting expectations before being fired.
On the other hand, if a person is being made to feel inferior, the natural response is to try to turn the tables - to gain the upper hand. But regardless of whether or not I am inferior to them in every way possible, I need to acknowledge that they know about stuff I don’t. That will ALWAYS be true. So I don’t really need to gain the upper hand unless this is a competition or a formal debate. My aim, then, is to accept a certain inferiority, and then demonstrate what unique competence I can bring to the discussion that complements their own. If they’re no longer fighting to be superior or right, they’re less likely to be mean, and more open to learning a thing or two by accident.
Many times that response is pretty mean too ha.
Quoting Possibility
Ok, but waste of time because the people are known already to respond a certain way. Your posts are probably less confrontational.. People on the forum tend to like conflict, which possibly is why people tend to ignore your posts.
Quoting Possibility
This sounds like it makes sense. I can probably have a whole topic on how the workplace changes social relations in general.
Quoting Possibility
Makes sense but the natural human tendency is to not be in a lower position, thus retaliation to gain the upper hand. So while this ideal makes sense, it's easier to respond in kind rather than taking the higher road. There's very much a "you first" mentality when meanness is responded to with meanness. Thinking about the bigger picture is lost. In a way, this is how trolls operate. They know human nature is to try to fight back in the same meanness. This is how they trap the victim.
I have noticed this about forums, yes - ha ha. I make a living in part by removing confrontational language from written communications, so it’s a challenge for me to initiate an argument, I’ll admit.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Ha - I didn’t say it was easy... humility is suffering, just like pain and loss. It’s a necessary experience of living - especially for humans. Denial of our own humility adds to the suffering of others, so while it may be a ‘natural human tendency’, it is ultimately destructive, and so the ‘you first’ mentality is unjustifiable.
English is not my native language, but I think what @alcontali provided in the first post as the U.K. definition is not accidental. To me, "mean" emphasizes that the person approaches his conflicts with cheap tactics and uses another person's unrelated disadvantages. For example, if a someone's parent dies and you remark that "you have both your parents" in attempt to humble them in a confrontation. (A child would say this sometimes.) Or if a person loses their child, loathing on it in justified anger, because said person was harmful to many, is still mean. Not because of the lack of compassion per se, but because their unfortune has beset them for reasons unrelated to their character, and the incident doesn't produce any morale. On the other hand, if their child dies as direct consequence of their own harmful actions, then a sense of gratification is not mean in my book. It may be wrong, or bad taste, but not mean.
To me, mean is a pejorative in the sense that someone is using their fortune or their opponent's unrelated misfortune when contending (verbally or otherwise) instead of opting for leveled play. This brings shame to the game, so to speak. It is social instinct to ostracize such behavior, whether it can be interpreted as rational or not.
When someone is described as being mean or as a mean person, intent to be cruel in pretty much implicit. And it is certainly in no way a contradiction.
He was mean to me, but didn't intend to be seems rather off to me.
He was blunt and it hurt my feelings, but he didn't intend to be makes sense to me.
It's certainly not going to be the case that everyone's trustworthy of their own accord.
Quoting Coben
I don't know how to answer that, because I don't know what "senses of not considering that a moral issue" would be. Maybe it would be helpful to bring up my short definition of morality again: "morality is dispositions about interpersonal behavior that one considers to be more significant than mere etiquette." So morality involves scale or degree. Not all behavior that one makes a judgment about is a moral issue.
Quoting Coben
Intentionally yes, because (a) it's a subjective issue, and (b) it's also going to vary from situation to situation.
Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.
And in our first interaction on this, I said certain kinds of lying with the intent to make other people feel bad was immoral.
Your response was you want people to be able to express themselves.
How does my labeling such meanness immoral stop them from expressing themselves?
You had said, "Well, sure. But I want to be able to trust people." So I thought you were saying that our stances or policies on this stuff was going to have something to do with whether you are able to trust people. So that's why I wrote, "Sure, we want to be able to trust people, but we often can not, and there's no way to enforce that everyone is going to be trustworthy." Or in other words, our stances or policies on this stuff aren't going to have anything to do with whether we can trust people; there's no way to make everyone trustrworthy (even via enforcement).
I read many statements like "I want x" as a problem to be solved, if possible. I don't think this is a solvable problem aside from sort of radical bio-engineering which might not be possible.
Quoting Coben
It doesn't. What I was saying is that it's not undesirable to me for people to express themselves. It's rather desirable.
Good point
I'm not going anywhere. Taunt if you must.
OK, so now we know that they can still express themselves, even if I or we judge them immoral. So, again, why is it harder for them to express themselves if I call them immoral rather than asshole or mean or bad or say this is someone to avoid.Quoting Terrapin Station
And, of course, there are lots of ways of expressing themselves.
And further if you pull away from or avoid people who are mean and lie, well, that might be used by some of them as a reason not to express themselves in certain ways.
I don't think it's harder for them to express themselves if you call them immoral. I had said that I don't consider any speech to be immoral, and said that part of why I don't consider any speech is immoral is that I prefer people to express themselves as they feel like expressing themselves. If I prefer that, then I'm not going to think that someone expressing themselves as they feel is immoral, because "immoral" denotes things that I do not prefer, and to a particular degree of significance.
Quoting Terrapin StationHere, you say there is a difference in degree between asshole and immoral. A difference in degree. This is why you would not use the term 'immoral'. But you would use the term asshole. But here you argue that you want them to express themselves, so you wouldn't use immoral since this would imply that you don't prefer them to express themselves. Asshole implies this also, though according to you, to a lesser degree.
Further one could prefer that everyone expresses themselves rather than not expresses themselves. So this would include people who don't lie to hurt people and people who lie intentionally to hurt people. You could prefer that everyone does what they want with language but still judge just some of those people on occasion or in general for having been immoral.
You could prefer that people feel free to make mistakes or to reveal their true nature and personalities over a more inhibited society where people do not do this, but still judge some of them or some acts as being immoral. Or for being assholes or mean.
People might think if you think someone is an asshole or a dick you prefer that they do not express themselves. But this isn't the case. It need not be the case with immoral either, especially since the issue is one of degree.
In fact here you are willing to call the latter behavior immoral. Unless you meant literally 'push', iow use physical force, this would have meant verbal manipulation and pressure. And of course would also potentially be covered by contract law.
With assholes, I just don't want to hang out with them . . . well, at least if they're not consistently assholes. That doesn't imply that I have a problem with people being assholes to other people. Some people enjoy hanging out with assholes. (And even I can enjoy it in certain contexts--for example, the schtick of some comedians is that they're an asshole, and I can enjoy that in that context. I'm a big fan of comedy, including stand-up. There are very few stand-up comedians that I don't enjoy.)
Here are a couple similar examples that might be easier to understand: I also don't want to hang out with:
* People who are regularly, negatively judgmental, including in the manner of criticism. For example, someone who is really finnicky about music, or films, etc. and who negatively criticizes most music or films--people who agree with Sturgeon's law, basically. Of course, people do this towards other people too--always finding some fault or other. Some people, however, really like/admire this personality trait in others. They think it's a positive trait in the guise of that person being "discerning." Maybe they like commiserating with those folks because they're frequently negatively judgmental, too. For my tastes, though, I don't like hanging out with people who are often negatively judgmental. But I don't think it's immoral to be negatively judgmental on a consistent basis.
* People who are hyper . . . because that's just not my disposition and it tends to stress me out. There certainly isn't anything immoral about people being hyper though. Obviously some people prefer being hyper and prefer being around others who are. Similarly, I'm not a "dog person." Dogs seem hyper to me. I'm a cat person. I'd never have a dog as a pet. But I don't think that dogs are immoral.
* People who want to argue all the time. I actually hate arguing. People arguing all the time strike me as similar to people who are often negatively judgmental. But obviously lots of people like arguing frequently--look what happens on this board, for example. My goal here is never to argue, though, which is one reason that I get annoyed when people keep responding to me in an argumentative frame of mind. So offline, I'd never hang out with someone who wants to argue all the time. Do I think it's immoral though? No. Not at all.
So that's what "asshole" is like to me, too, or in general, "people being mean" via speech.
And just anticipating this response, it's not just because other people want to be around some of the stuff I'm talking about that I'd say it's not immoral. The vast majority of people, including me, wouldn't want, say, a brown recluse spider as a pet, or wouldn't want to hang out with someone who only showers once per year but who goes to the gym every day, etc. but I don't think those things are immoral.
I think we have to distinguish what kind of asshole we are talking about. An asshole whose intent is to routinely try to emotionally denigrate or hurt someone would be immoral. It is purposely trying to harm a person. A person can be harmed emotionally. Physical harm is not the only one that exists, and often emotional harm can lead to physical harm, so it is enmeshed. It is incumbent on the victim to get away from the asshole, but sometimes this can't happen as easily, or sadly, if the asshole and the victim have to share some sort of resource, it is the asshole that will win out even if the victim would also like to use that resource, because the victim doesn't want to be around the asshole. This happens in friend groups too, but any institutions, clubs, groups, and workplaces, I can see this also taking place.
That's not my view. For example, I don't think there's anything immoral about intentionally offending someone.
Offending has many shades here.. Is this friends clearly teasing each other, something understood in its context, or is this outright being mean to be mean?
There is no intentional offense that I'd consider immoral. When someone is offended I see it as their problem, not the offender's problem.
Two things going on here that are troubling:
1) You don't seem to put any stock in emotional abuse. That's concerning.
2) The motive of someone trying to inflict emotional abuse is to harm them.
I consider harm the basis of most things that fall into morality. How can someone trying to harm someone else not be considered at least "negative" in some way? This is trying to illicit negative emotional states from another person by being mean.
In other words, even if what you are saying is correct, they are not mutually exclusive. Someone can try to inflict harm (and thus be immoral or at least be accused of trying to illicit a negative response which I would think most people would disapprove of), and the target of the meanness can be taught how to psychologically block the mean person's comments. Those are two separate issues though.
Yeah, I don't put much stock in it for a number of different reasons including:
(1) causality issues, where what I'm concerned with there is force (and being able to demonstrate force)
(2) the subjectivity of it, including but not limited to the fact that it's impossible to confirm anyone's report (because we can't observe anyone else's mind)
(3) the fact that in most situations, the "victim" can just tell the person they're having a problem with to get lost, they can just stop associating with them, etc. The only exception is when we're talking about kids.
Forced to hear the comment? So are you claiming a sort of consequentialism whereby an act is only as moral as to what the outcome of the act has done? Intent or the behavior itself is something you don't look at in terms of moral issues?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Again, why is the sole focus on the consequence? A person with mean intent is trying to invoke a negative consequence whether successful or not.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Same issue as the other two, all based on consequence. Also, even if we do look at solely consequences, there may be issues of shared resources. If the two people have to share the same resource. The onus in is on the target even if they did not ask for this?
Force in terms of forcing an outcome. That's the sense of causality I care about.
I consider intent, but not intent alone. I don't consider any thoughts immoral, only certain actions. Intent does matter for those actions, but intent absent the actions, and absent forced outcomes, doesn't matter to me.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Not sure what you'd be talking about there with respect to offensive speech.
I also don't consider thoughts immoral either (although if someone provides some clear examples of how it is, I may change that notion). However, being mean is usually some sort of behavior towards someone so we can start with that. Intent absent forced outcomes, is where we disagree perhaps? I don't even know actually. Someone being mean to another person, whether it matters to me or not, can be immoral because the intent is to harm them. To bypass this back-and-forth can we agree that we have hit the relevant axioms here which don't go further?
Your position seems to be that as long as someone can get away from the mean person, it is not immoral, is that about right?
My position is that if the person has intent to inflict harm, and is acting in such a way to inflict harm, then it is in the realm of morality, and is perhaps indeed immoral.
I think that is our point of disagreement, but I think we can agree on some things:
1) It would have to involve an action, not just thoughts or anything about another person. That really doesn't matter if it is thoughts in someone's head.
2) There is definitely degrees of meanness.. We can probably both agree there are behaviors which are more mean than others.
So can we agree on these points? I'm trying something new where we find what we can agree on and find the hard stops where we disagree that cannot go any further. Otherwise, we will just have the same back and forths.
I've mentioned this many times, but I don't hinge any ethical view on "harm" unqualified. It's too vague. Many things that many people might consider harm I don't think are any problem at all. An example is offensive speech. Someone might consider being offended by speech harm, but as I said, I think it's their problem. I have to problem with the person who offended and who intended to offend them. In fact, I think it's a good thing to offend the offendable.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Lol, no, that's not my position. That would be very misleading to say. But it's fine to say that one reason I don't have a problem with "emotional harm" is because in most situations, you can just tell the person off yorself, or you can just not deal with that person. It would be misleading to characterize that as the sole reason or as sufficient in itself, though.
At any rate, insofar as I understand what you wrote in your two points, though, it looks like we agree on those.
I think we can parse out offensive speech and being mean to a particular person.. For example, I don't see anything wrong with comics that are offensive.
Also, just because something might be vague as a concept, I think we can both find cases where we agree when someone is being mean to someone else (and not just offensive, like a comment, or a public figure, or when someone spouts off their beliefs).
Quoting Terrapin Station
I mean what else is there? That's all I got from your "force" statement.. That's a bit vague.
Let's say that we can show that x is causal to y, in the sense of x forcing y. If S does x to R, so that y results in R, I wouldn't necessarily say that x isn't morally problematic just because R can remove himself from S doing x.
In the case of speech and mental states in someone else, one of the problems is that we can't show causality in the force sense.
My views about this are not just based on someone being able to remove themselves from a situation. Hence why I said "I don't put much stock in 'emotional harm' for a number of different reasons including . . . " and then I listed a few different things. And even that's not an exhaustive list (which "including" should indicate to you).
Re the other part, I'm just explaining that R considering y "harm" isn't sufficient for me to think there's any moral problem with x. And neither is that S intended to produce y in R. Offensive speech is an example of that.
You responded to the calling someone immoral for speech acts as if this would meant you didn't want them to express themselves. But it doesn't entail that. As I argued above. Ah, well, there was a bunch of stuff there and this post of yours isn't really a response to any of the points I made.
But since I know now you hate arguing and I am arguing against your points or at least trying to make sense of what seem like contradictory statements or stated effects or entailments I don't think are there, I will drop it.
I could try a new line with this one, why people can't express themselves with this kind of communication. A communication that seems assholish, but nothing compared to trying to hurt people by lying to them, but hey, that's me. At least we've found that you will censor.
The way it entails that is that morality is about preferences. Preferences are things we want to be the case, no?
You'd not prefer that the doctor lie to you about your kid's health, right? (This is ignoring, by the way, the comments about contractual obligations that I made earlier, but we'll ignore that for a moment.)
RIght, so then you'd not prefer that the doctor do the thing that you consider immoral--lying about your kid's health.
It wouldn't make sense to say "I consider x immoral, but I'd prefer if people do x" where we're not equivocating.
One thing we might be missing here, re making it explicit (I was assuming this would be understood), is that morality isn't just preferences about interpersonal behavior (more than significant than etiquette) towards oneself, but generalized, a la "how people treat each other, whether I'm involved or not."
Yeah, but that's not what I'm saying. I am saying Given that he is the guy who would be cruel like that, I want him to express it. You are leaving out the context. It is a lesser evil, because now I know who he is. I have a sociopathic doctor. I prefer I know this through speech acts over physical acts. No way my kid is around this guy again. I consider it immoral to tell me my kid is dying when he isn't. Glad that's out there, because it gives me information that may very well prevent something horrible. Me, glad he showed he immoral assholish nature. It is a lesser evil, but it is still an evil.
I'd prefer he doesn't prefer to be an asshole. Given that he is who he is, I prefer he commits the immoral speech act, hopefully early on in our knowing each other, so I can make choices based on that.
I'd prefer a telephone salesman tell me he's a telephone salesman up front, real clear. I don't want telephone sales calls. I wish he hadn't called me at all. (that's not necessarily a moral situation, jsut trying to show in another type of situation how I can want someone to say something I don't want to hear in general. You are confusing general contextless with specific situations.
And you still never address why you considered asshole different in degree, when all your arguments treat it as categorically different.
Yeah, that doesn't change anything for me. I think it's good if the immoral assholes are open about it. It makes navigating the world easier for all of us. And if they say things I consider immoral, that's useful information and helps us all navigate.
And I prefer this in close relationships too. If my spouse thinks I am a piece of shit, I want that to be out in the open.
That doesn't mean that I prefer to have people tell me that I am a piece of shit. But IF THEY think so, then let's get it out. Now that's not an immoral think to think, hopefully it's just wrong.
But can you see the category error you're making? If someone is an immoral asshole I'd like to know and I think it is good for all of us to know. I'd prefer they weren't and I'd prefer that isn't what they'd want to say, but given that they do, a lesser evil happens.
And since my thinking it is immoral and even saying it is immoral cannot in any way inhibit them, according to, they is absolutely no drawback. They are free to express themselves.
But man, I give up.
That sounds like you're assuming a whole package of likely actions that you're reading the lie to be a beacon for, and you're saying that you want the beacon so you can avoid the other actions.
I don't look at it that way. There's no way I'm going to assume a whole package of likely actions just because someone says something like that.
Quoting Coben
I rather see that as a category error. People aren't moral or immoral overall. Particular actions are moral or immoral.
I don't even understand this comment unfortunately.
Sorry I missed this comment.
I disagree with this. As I explained before, meanness is not an intent to be cruel - that’s just what is assumed by the person they’re being mean to, or by another observer. Meanness is a relative perspective of behaviour: it’s in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.
That was mean. You hurt my feelings.
It wasn’t mean - I was just being honest. Perhaps I was a bit blunt.
Most of the time what is mean includes actions or words that are thoughtless, ignorant or inconsiderate. Unfortunately, some people (like @Terrapin Station, perhaps?) think there’s no need to ever take anyone else’s feelings into consideration when speaking, for instance. You and I might say that this is being mean, sure - but that’s only because we expect a certain level of kindness, whereas they don’t. I still wouldn’t say they’re intending to be cruel, though - or that their behaviour is ‘immoral’.
We can’t force people to be kind - certainly not by punishing them if they don’t comply. That defeats the purpose, don’t you think? If we stoop to their level, we’re only accepting the exchange on their terms. We CAN let them know they’re being mean/ignorant/inconsiderate, and we can set the tone by our own words/behaviour. But if we refuse to interact unless they raise their behaviour to our expected level of kindness, then we can’t expect them to respond to self-righteous indignation with an ‘Okay, sorry - I’ll try to be more polite.’ That’s a choice we make to interact or not.
If I’m easily offended, then I’ll be easily offended. The world doesn’t owe me a certain level of kindness.
I wouldn't say that. One thing I said was that I don't consider any speech immoral. That doesn't imply that I think there's no need to ever take anyone else's feelings into consideration when speaking, however.
I also said that I think that sometimes negative feelings in response to speech are a problem with the person with the negative feelings, not a problem with the person who said whatever they did to cause the negative feelings. That's always the case in my opinion when it comes to offense, for example.
I find it unfortunate when harm is intended towards people, and undesirable. I tend to think that harm is a basis for morality. We cannot help but harm others though, so my view trends towards existential harm that's already done by being born. We are bound to harm each other by merely being born in everyday intra-worldly affairs. However, "polluting the waters" constantly makes for a very irritating existence, and thus, done consistently and with high aggressive capacity, contributes to such a negative state for some people, that I do believe it can fall under immoral, but only when crossing thresholds of certain intensities and duration. I can't give you a specific though of what that would be. Again, even if someone can get away, it really also depends on the motive and character of the aggressor here. In some degree it depends on the act itself, and not just intention. There are things which are harder to get away from- family, work, etc. so often it is not as easy. Sometimes it is a conflict of various social levels that you may not be accounting for. Human existence is more nuanced then "Person A can get away from person B hypothetically".
Re harm being a basis for morality, I don't think that everything that any arbitrary person considers harm is something we should support in the sense of thinking that there isn't something wrong with that person that we instead need to try to fix.
It's just like not everything that any arbitrary person has a fear response to is something that we support. We try to help people overcome fears in general, but in particular there are some fears that we see as very irrational, where we think the people with those fears need serious psychological help. For example, if someone is afraid to go outside, or afraid of rain, or afraid of trees. or whatever it might be.
Re I said basis but not the whole story. Also mentioned duration and intensity.
Well, people can have really intense fears of trees, and that fear is probably going to be persistent, but what needs to be worked on there is what's going on with the person psychologically. The aim is to try to alleviate if not cure what's seen as an irrational reaction.
The weird thing is that in the last couple decades, there's a faction that sees being offended as something of a "sacred" reaction--it's blasphemy to suggest that being offended is irrational, with no exceptions.
[As an aside, by the way, I was looking up unusual fears just now, and one was "Nomophobia- fear of being without mobile phone coverage." How did they miss out on the opportunity to depart from tradition a bit and name that "Nomophonia" instead?]
Fair enough - and my apologies for misrepresenting you. I agree that morality is related specifically to behaviour, and speech in itself doesn’t fit the bill. However, I do think that speech within the context of interaction is a moral issue. So while speech cannot be considered ‘immoral’ in itself, a verbal or written interaction can.
Having said that, I personally think this ‘morality’ we’re striving for is going to go the way of ‘universal time’ as an objective structure of reality, anyway - so I tend not to get too involved in discussions of ‘is it immoral?’
Quoting Terrapin Station
I think being offended (themselves and on behalf of others) has become a card that people play in scrambling for the moral high ground - a sort of ‘free pass’ for not just rational thinking but also relational skills to take a back seat in the interaction.
I think that leading with your emotions (positive or negative) in any interaction is a problem, but so is discounting emotion in favour of logic and rationality. So many forum discussions deteriorate because two people are arguing from an emotional and rational ‘high ground’ respectively - or more specifically from two different systems of value.
We have the capacity, as human beings, to interact in a relational space that transcends our individual value structures. We are capable of relating with each other emotionally, rationally, ideologically, etc, as well as engaging in self-reflection and evaluation - all at the same time - but to do so effectively, we need to be open to increasing awareness, connection and collaboration beyond the level of value structure. We risk experiencing humility, loss of beliefs and painful changes in knowledge structures.
Heading for the high ground - either taking offence or being mean - is a fear response, in my opinion. It turns a relationship into a war zone.
Yes, this would be a straw man. Because some people overreact all mean acts are exempt? That just sounds fishy. Rather, a more reasonable line of thinking is people from an early age should be taught to take any mean action with a grain of salt, ignore, get away, keep in mind what NOT to do, etc. However, the mean person is at fault here for trying to inflict some sort of pain on someone. They don't get a pass just because people should be taught to ignore mean people as much as possible. As I was saying, it depends on several things, so it is a situation by situation thing- things like intent, duration, intensity, context, place, etc. Also, as I stated, not everything is as easy as "Target can move away from Aggressor". Life isn't that simple sometimes.
Also, you are subtly moving the argument from morality to speech. I never said mean speech should be banned. It is more about the descriptor of that speech, not any legal status of it, or whether it should be allowed or not. Mean speech is still free speech in my opinion, but we are not evaluating that dimension of it in this argument. I do think a forum owned/run by administrators, just like other private establishments can choose to have standards they want to keep though, but if we are talking public acts, etc. yeah free speech, but not the issue.
I would also direct you to my last comment.
You suggested intensity and persistence as criteria.
So are you bringing up epistemic arguments that since there is no arbiter of how intense or persistent the mean person is actually being, it becomes useless to try to figure it out?
??
No. I was saying that there are fears that are intense and persistent but not rational, so we try to fix the fact that people have them rather than moderating the external stuff that triggered the fear.
No I get what you were saying, but I was saying earlier that helping someone "protect" against perceived meanness, doesn't exempt the mean person for trying to be mean. Again, "mean" here is more about intensity, context, duration, intent, etc.
Ah--intensity, etc. of the "mean person," not the person who sees it as mean?
I don't think that needs to be "excused" though when the problem lies with seeing the behavior as mean.
Again, trying to be mean to someone isn't the "fault" of the person its targeted to. There can be mutually exclusive things going on a) the aggressor is wrong for being mean b) the target should try to grow a thick skin.
Your thought-process is making more sense in general though in your behavior.
Why is the aggressor wrong for being mean if no one should be upset at what the aggressor is doing?
Intent
Why would intent be a problem if the actions it's directed towards are not a problem?
I will continue to disagree that the mean person is trying to inflict some sort of pain on someone. You keep judging a person as ‘mean’ based on how you’d feel on the receiving end, as if this were the only important perspective. Discount, ignore, exclude, prevent: none of these actions take into account that there is another human being involved here - one who is currently interacting, albeit imperfectly. I recognise that the ideal situation is to interact without any experience of pain, but given that may not be possible, is the main priority here to avoid any experience of pain, or to interact?
So, sometimes, on the other hand, they are the problem of the person who said the whatever they said to cause the negative feelings. IOW above you say sometimes the problem rests with the listener, implying strongly that sometimes it is the sender's problem. (and of course both could be factors in any given instance) I can't see what the problem is with saying that it is immoral, in those cases where the problem is on the side of the sender. Where they intend to hurt the other person's feelings and to be cruel.
You can still want a society that does not punish these people, for a wide variety of reasons.
Otherwise it just seems like we are playing the progessive preschool teacher game, where instead of say it was bad when you did X to Cynthia, we say it was unharmonious. Here we can't say, for some reason it is immoral to tell someone they just heard that their father got run over by a bus, when it isn't true and the goal is to scare someone, but we can say that the problem is on the side of the person sending this message.
Or we can call them an asshole, but we cannot call the act immoral.
You would avoid assholes - those who get this label through speech acts, which you were willing to give some people -, but you want them to be assholes.
It's a matter of right epistemic judgment on what is mean. I dont see causing undue pain as necessary.
Actually it's just a rhetorical tactic to avoid sidelining the idea with a bigger dispute that's not what you want to focus on.
A pet peeve of mine here, which tends to be a bigger problem with doing this on a message board rather than via chat, is that we don't focus on one idea at a time and resolve anything about it.
When you’re not the one causing the undue pain, then epistemic judgement is not a call you get to make. As the one potentially experiencing pain, you get to decide whether you interact with the world or avoid experiencing pain.
I don’t see causing undue pain as necessary, either. I don’t see causing any pain as necessary. But undue pain happens - and I won’t stop it from happening just by judging that it shouldn’t happen, or even by avoiding the pain myself.
This is the problem with moral judgement - and it relates to the other discussion on what triggers hate, too. Judging something as ‘immoral’ does what, exactly? Does it make the behaviour disappear from the world? Or does it simply define the parameters of what we hate - what we refuse to accept in our reality?
People are mean - they cause undue pain - and the majority of it is from fear, ignorance and selfishness rather than actually intending harm. But you don’t get to decide whether or not someone else intended to cause harm. If you make a judgement based only on how you feel, then it’s a judgement based on your own fear, ignorance and selfishness, not on any ‘objective’ sense of the world. If you act on that judgement then you’re no better than the mean person.
Whether being a mean person is a ‘moral flaw’ or not doesn’t change the fact that people are mean and we don’t like it happening. So what? Moral judgement declares one perspective of the world to be the only one that matters. All that does is cause more pain through fear, ignorance and selfishness - unnecessarily.
How can any emotion be rational? It's not 'rational' to fear being chased by a tiger. It's rational to run away from it (presuming you want to preserve your life) but you could do so calmly without fear, or in a mad panic.
Whether a person is treated for their fears has nothing whatsoever to do with rationality. It's to do with whether those fears are significantly impacting on their daily life in a negative way when compared to the attitudes normal people manage. You're just trying the same old hypocrisy again. When it suits your argument you invoke what we know, and practice, about psychology, then when someone presents some psychological norms which contradict your dogma you say we don't really know anything about psychology and it's all guesswork.
People respond a certain way to verbal abuse. That is a fact. Your absurd claim that they could respond some other way has absolutely no basis in fact, no support from psychology and is frankly reckless.
For you to even communicate effectively, let alone be a member of any community, requires that you make some broadly accurate assessments of how other humans will react to your actions (verbal or otherwise), to do this you have to have a model of how human psychology works. You can either base that model on experience (and controlled experiment where more detail is required), or you can base it on some wacko idea you've just made up. You're welcome to try either, but good luck persuading anyone remotely rational to attempt the latter.
Again, this suggests that you're an Aspie. Same problem: I'm asking because this is further evidence of your reading comprehension deficiencies. You have a tendency to read everything "as 'literal' as possible," with no evidenced ability to pick up on contextual clues for semantic nuance.
If that wasn't the intent though, why would we call it "mean"? At worst it'd be careless.
Quoting Possibility
Uh, why not? It's a fairly basic feature of human interaction to judge intent.
Quoting Terrapin Station
If that isn't an instance of the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is.
Marijuana doesn't talk.
Is that what you were looking for?
As good a rejoinder as any.
But it’s more than careless. It’s an intentional withdrawal of kindness, but not intended to cause harm as such. A mean person has no regard for the feelings of others. There’s a difference between this and being intentionally harmful.
Refer to my first post.
Quoting Echarmion
My argument is that it’s not a ‘right epistemic judgement’ if it’s limited to the victim’s perspective. You need to take into account the ‘mean’ person’s perspective, which includes whether or not they genuinely intended to cause harm. You won’t get accuracy from your own limited judgement - especially if you’re the one who was harmed.
Having no regard for the consequences counts as intent in my book. It is, after all, an intentional disregard of the safety of others.
Quoting Possibility
How is that supposed to work, practically? And why are you now qualifying the intent as genuine? What's an example of a non-genuine intent?
Quoting Possibility
Optimally, one should of course take as much evidence into account as possible. But I don't quite see what option I have, when judging the morality of an act, apart from making the judgement myself. At best I can refer the case to the court of popular opinion.
I agree. It’s still different from an intent to harm, though.
Quoting Echarmion
Non-genuine intent is intent that you’ve assumed is there.
Quoting Echarmion
You could speak with the person who committed the act...