My criticism of Chalmers is not that he is trying to convince others, in which case your criticism would be correct, but that he wants to find way to control others.
Perhaps you don’t understand the difference between trying to convince people and trying to control people?
I fully understand it. The thing is that you have not made the case for control over conviction, as something that is literally true. All your arguments are based on loaded language.
I’m not claiming that this paper is a weapon, but rather that it’s an apologia for weaponizing concepts.
“Weaponised concept” is a misleading metaphor.
In the conclusions of the paper, he states that: “Concept design and concept evaluation are relatively tractable, but widespread concept implementation is a difficult social project. As a result, conceptual engineering on a community-wide scale is difficult, but it is possible.”
Chalmers describes this kind of social engineering as being desirable
Chalmers doesn’t use the term “social engineering”. Your argument is a slippery slope from “conceptual engineering” to “social engineering” to “control”.
None of these are apolitical examples
I said “little” , not “none”.
The idea that things should be evaluated first and foremost by ethics, rather than by other means, is central to the Social Justice ideology,
And the Christian, Buddhist , Muslim.....ideologies. “Evaluate things ethically” is not an extraordinary claim. Even classical liberalism holds that you should evaluate things and foremost by their impact on freedom, which is an ethical argument.
The thing is that you have not made the case for control over conviction, as something that is literally true.
I’m not sure how one could ever prove that, in the absence of hindsight and perhaps not even then. Many people didn’t expect Hitler to prosecute the Jews, despite what he wrote in Mein Kampf, so as far as I can tell, even that book doesn’t meet your standard of proving that Hitler wanted to prosecute the Jews in a way that is “literally true.”
Of course, you can choose to always err in favor of petting animals unless that specific animal has already harmed someone, but that policy is only feasible in an environment with very few (very) dangerous animals. Your policy is not suitable to other environments.
Anyway, my claim is based on large part on the total absence of recognition in the paper that there is any potential problem with seeking to control others and instead, his claim that the only problem is that making people use your concepts is very difficult. Then there is his approval of highly problematic and extremist social justice advocates, without giving any competing political examples, which makes it highly likely that he has extremist politics himself, based in the rather simply logic that people tend to quote and approve of things they believe in themselves.
But it doesn’t really matter what he believes, because the paper is an apologia for being so one-sided, in particular in the current political climate. It is pushing an open door.
I said “little” , not “none”.
Yet I was easily able to find a paragraph with him approving of three different extremely political and polarizing examples, which he chose to use instead of neutral examples. When a very high percentage of the examples is political, that is not “little.”
And the Christian, Buddhist , Muslim.....ideologies. “Evaluate things ethically” is not an extraordinary claim.
It is/was actually crucial for human development and peace that religions are/were liberalized. For example, the Peace of Westphalia liberalized Christianity in Europe, requiring believers to stop acting on their belief that only faith in their religion would ensure eternal salvation, which they considered justification for extreme warmongering.
And that something is not an “extraordinary claim,” doesn’t mean that it is not extremely harmful or that it can’t lead to extraordinary outcomes. Hitler’s antisemitism wasn’t extraordinary, but the final solution outcome was extraordinary. However, even fairly common outcomes can be quite bad.
Even classical liberalism holds that you should evaluate things and foremost by their impact on freedom, which is an ethical argument.
You are again failing to distinguish the object level and the meta-level. Setting global rules that allow individuals to fairly freely make their decisions based on their own ethics is fundamentally different from desiring/demanding that each of those decisions is tightly controlled directly or indirectly by a global set of ethical rules.
I fully understand it. The thing is that you have not made the case for control over conviction, as something that is literally true. All your arguments are based on loaded language.
“Weaponised concept” is a misleading metaphor.
Chalmers doesn’t use the term “social engineering”. Your argument is a slippery slope from “conceptual engineering” to “social engineering” to “control”.
I said “little” , not “none”.
And the Christian, Buddhist , Muslim.....ideologies. “Evaluate things ethically” is not an extraordinary claim. Even classical liberalism holds that you should evaluate things and foremost by their impact on freedom, which is an ethical argument.
I’m not sure how one could ever prove that, in the absence of hindsight and perhaps not even then. Many people didn’t expect Hitler to prosecute the Jews, despite what he wrote in Mein Kampf, so as far as I can tell, even that book doesn’t meet your standard of proving that Hitler wanted to prosecute the Jews in a way that is “literally true.”
Of course, you can choose to always err in favor of petting animals unless that specific animal has already harmed someone, but that policy is only feasible in an environment with very few (very) dangerous animals. Your policy is not suitable to other environments.
Anyway, my claim is based on large part on the total absence of recognition in the paper that there is any potential problem with seeking to control others and instead, his claim that the only problem is that making people use your concepts is very difficult. Then there is his approval of highly problematic and extremist social justice advocates, without giving any competing political examples, which makes it highly likely that he has extremist politics himself, based in the rather simply logic that people tend to quote and approve of things they believe in themselves.
But it doesn’t really matter what he believes, because the paper is an apologia for being so one-sided, in particular in the current political climate. It is pushing an open door.
Yet I was easily able to find a paragraph with him approving of three different extremely political and polarizing examples, which he chose to use instead of neutral examples. When a very high percentage of the examples is political, that is not “little.”
It is/was actually crucial for human development and peace that religions are/were liberalized. For example, the Peace of Westphalia liberalized Christianity in Europe, requiring believers to stop acting on their belief that only faith in their religion would ensure eternal salvation, which they considered justification for extreme warmongering.
And that something is not an “extraordinary claim,” doesn’t mean that it is not extremely harmful or that it can’t lead to extraordinary outcomes. Hitler’s antisemitism wasn’t extraordinary, but the final
solutionoutcome was extraordinary. However, even fairly common outcomes can be quite bad.You are again failing to distinguish the object level and the meta-level. Setting global rules that allow individuals to fairly freely make their decisions based on their own ethics is fundamentally different from desiring/demanding that each of those decisions is tightly controlled directly or indirectly by a global set of ethical rules.