When someone says something offensive to you … it seems like you should be offended by that. … to the extent that you can shape your reactions (or character traits), this seems like one you’d want to keep.
His examples were cases where we might want to keep the reaction. But that doesn’t mean he was talking about “objecting to harm” instead of offence, as you suggest. He was just using the most positive examples for his argument.
His examples were cases where we might want to keep the reaction.
And I am trying to elucidate something of his likely sorting algorithm, such that the reasons for favoring one side of those cases might be a little more obvious to you, who seemed to find it suspicious he didn’t take the other side.
The reason for favouring one side of those cases is obvious. If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t have used them. However, the fail to support his point, because “offence” supports both sides of each of his cases.
Would you be fine with the compromise of “we should get offended over genuine harm”? i.e. bullying is offensive, and gay kids are not. Rape is offensive, and the wife having a low sex drive is not.
For different reasons, I think that’s not true. Lots of things hurt me that it doesn’t seem appropriate to get offended over. For example, paying income taxes, getting fired from a job, or being randomly mugged in the street. I might try to prevent these, but the psychological reaction of offence is not the appropriate one.
“Harm that is both genuine and unfair”, then? Income taxes are ‘fair’ (and I would find it baffling to call that ‘harm’ unless they somehow came as a surprise), getting fired is offensive if it’s done solely because your manager doesn’t like you, but fair (and therefor not offensive) if it’s because you failed to do the job. I think getting mugged is a good thing to get outraged about—we want to make that happen less!
I think your claims about income taxes are implausible, but won’t pursue that line of argument, as what I took to be an obvious truth is apparently political.
I might be outraged at being mugged but not offended. I think I would be more likely to be violent than either though.
HaydnB said
His examples were cases where we might want to keep the reaction. But that doesn’t mean he was talking about “objecting to harm” instead of offence, as you suggest. He was just using the most positive examples for his argument.
And I am trying to elucidate something of his likely sorting algorithm, such that the reasons for favoring one side of those cases might be a little more obvious to you, who seemed to find it suspicious he didn’t take the other side.
The reason for favouring one side of those cases is obvious. If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t have used them. However, the fail to support his point, because “offence” supports both sides of each of his cases.
Would you be fine with the compromise of “we should get offended over genuine harm”? i.e. bullying is offensive, and gay kids are not. Rape is offensive, and the wife having a low sex drive is not.
For different reasons, I think that’s not true. Lots of things hurt me that it doesn’t seem appropriate to get offended over. For example, paying income taxes, getting fired from a job, or being randomly mugged in the street. I might try to prevent these, but the psychological reaction of offence is not the appropriate one.
“Harm that is both genuine and unfair”, then? Income taxes are ‘fair’ (and I would find it baffling to call that ‘harm’ unless they somehow came as a surprise), getting fired is offensive if it’s done solely because your manager doesn’t like you, but fair (and therefor not offensive) if it’s because you failed to do the job. I think getting mugged is a good thing to get outraged about—we want to make that happen less!
I think your claims about income taxes are implausible, but won’t pursue that line of argument, as what I took to be an obvious truth is apparently political.
I might be outraged at being mugged but not offended. I think I would be more likely to be violent than either though.