If they are interchangeable it follows that answering an argument with a bullet may be the efficient solution.
That’s clearly not the case. If they’re interchangable, it merely means they’d be equally appropriate, but that doesn’t say anything about their absolute appropriateness level. If neither are appropriate responses, that’s just as interchangable as both being appropriate—and it’s clearly that more restrictive route being advocated here (ie. moving such speech into the bullet category, rather than moving the bullet category into the region of such speech).
The brits are feeling the pain of a real physical assault, under the skin.
So what distinguishes that from emotional pain? It’s all electrochemistry in the end after all. Would things change if it were extreme emotional torment being inflicted by pictures of salmon, rather than pain receptors being stimulated? Eg. inducing an state equivalent to clinical depression, or the feeling of having been dumped by a loved-one. I don’t see an inherent reason to treat these differently—there are occassions where I’d gladly have traded such feelings for a kick in the nuts, so from a utlitarian perspective they seem to be at least as bad.
The intensity in this case is obviously different—offence vs depression is obviously a big difference, so it may be fine to say that one’s OK and the other not because it falls into a tolerable level—but that certainly moves away from the notion of a bright line towards a grey continuum.
A crucial difference is that we can change our minds about what offends us but we cannot choose not to respond to electrodes
This is a better argument (indeed it’s one brought up by the post). I’m not sure it’s entirely valid though, for the reasons Yvain gave there. We can’t entirely choose what hurts us without a much better control over our emotional state than I, at least, posess. If I were brought up in a society where this was the ultimate taboo, I don’t think I could simply choose not to be, anymore than I could choose to be offended by them now. You say “It is within my power to feel zero pain from anything you might say”, but I’ll tell you, it’s not within mine. That may be a failing, but it’s one shared by billions. Further, I’m not sure it would be justified to go around insulting random strangers on the grounds that they can choose to take no harm, which suggests to me that offending is certainly not morally neutral.
Personally, I think one answer we could give to why the situations are different is a more pragmatic one. Accept that causing offence is indeed a bad action, but that it’s justified collateral damage in support of a more important goal. Ie. free speech is important enough that we need to establish that even trying to prevent it will be met by an indescriminate backlash doing the exact opposite. (Though there are also pragmatic grounds to oppose this, such that it’s manipulable by rabble-rousers for political ends).
If they are interchangeable it follows that answering an argument with a bullet may be the efficient solution.
That’s clearly not the case. If they’re interchangable, it merely means they’d be equally appropriate, but that doesn’t say anything about their absolute appropriateness level. If neither are appropriate responses, that’s just as interchangable as both being appropriate—and it’s clearly that more restrictive route being advocated here (ie. moving such speech into the bullet category, rather than moving the bullet category into the region of such speech).
I don’t understand this… the notion of a “more restrictive route” doesn’t seem to make much of a difference to the objection—the suggested move involves placing a certain type of speech act into the realm of “bullets”, and as such makes bullets an appropriate response to such acts, whereas they were not before. Is that right?
Edit: That is, if speech B is now equivalent to shooting someone, it’s not a case of “harmless speech A can now be responded to with bullets or B,” but of “speech B can now be responded to with bullets.”
and as such makes bullets an appropriate response to such acts, whereas they were not before.
Ah, I think I’ve misunderstood you—I thought you were talking about the initiating act (ie. that it was as appropriate to initiate shooting someone as to insult them), whereas you’re talking about the response to the act: that bullets are an appropriate response to bullets, therefore if interchangable, they’re an appropriate response to speech too. However, I don’t think you can take the first part of that as given—many (including me) would disagree that bullets are an appropriate response to bullets, but rather that they’re only an appropriate response to the specific case of averting an immediate threat (ie. shoot if it prevents killing, but oppose applying the death penalty once out of danger), and some pacifists may disagree even with violence to prevent other violence.
However, it seems that it’s the initiating act that’s the issue here: is it any more justified to causing offence as to shoot someone. I think it could be argued that they are equivalent issues, though of lesser intensity (ie. back to continuums, not bright lines).
I’m only interjecting, if there is a misunderstanding, it’s probably with jtk3. For my part I think the positions being argued are much clearer now, thank you!
That’s clearly not the case. If they’re interchangable, it merely means they’d be equally appropriate, but that doesn’t say anything about their absolute appropriateness level. If neither are appropriate responses, that’s just as interchangable as both being appropriate—and it’s clearly that more restrictive route being advocated here (ie. moving such speech into the bullet category, rather than moving the bullet category into the region of such speech).
So what distinguishes that from emotional pain? It’s all electrochemistry in the end after all. Would things change if it were extreme emotional torment being inflicted by pictures of salmon, rather than pain receptors being stimulated? Eg. inducing an state equivalent to clinical depression, or the feeling of having been dumped by a loved-one. I don’t see an inherent reason to treat these differently—there are occassions where I’d gladly have traded such feelings for a kick in the nuts, so from a utlitarian perspective they seem to be at least as bad.
The intensity in this case is obviously different—offence vs depression is obviously a big difference, so it may be fine to say that one’s OK and the other not because it falls into a tolerable level—but that certainly moves away from the notion of a bright line towards a grey continuum.
This is a better argument (indeed it’s one brought up by the post). I’m not sure it’s entirely valid though, for the reasons Yvain gave there. We can’t entirely choose what hurts us without a much better control over our emotional state than I, at least, posess. If I were brought up in a society where this was the ultimate taboo, I don’t think I could simply choose not to be, anymore than I could choose to be offended by them now. You say “It is within my power to feel zero pain from anything you might say”, but I’ll tell you, it’s not within mine. That may be a failing, but it’s one shared by billions. Further, I’m not sure it would be justified to go around insulting random strangers on the grounds that they can choose to take no harm, which suggests to me that offending is certainly not morally neutral.
Personally, I think one answer we could give to why the situations are different is a more pragmatic one. Accept that causing offence is indeed a bad action, but that it’s justified collateral damage in support of a more important goal. Ie. free speech is important enough that we need to establish that even trying to prevent it will be met by an indescriminate backlash doing the exact opposite. (Though there are also pragmatic grounds to oppose this, such that it’s manipulable by rabble-rousers for political ends).
I don’t understand this… the notion of a “more restrictive route” doesn’t seem to make much of a difference to the objection—the suggested move involves placing a certain type of speech act into the realm of “bullets”, and as such makes bullets an appropriate response to such acts, whereas they were not before. Is that right?
Edit: That is, if speech B is now equivalent to shooting someone, it’s not a case of “harmless speech A can now be responded to with bullets or B,” but of “speech B can now be responded to with bullets.”
Ah, I think I’ve misunderstood you—I thought you were talking about the initiating act (ie. that it was as appropriate to initiate shooting someone as to insult them), whereas you’re talking about the response to the act: that bullets are an appropriate response to bullets, therefore if interchangable, they’re an appropriate response to speech too. However, I don’t think you can take the first part of that as given—many (including me) would disagree that bullets are an appropriate response to bullets, but rather that they’re only an appropriate response to the specific case of averting an immediate threat (ie. shoot if it prevents killing, but oppose applying the death penalty once out of danger), and some pacifists may disagree even with violence to prevent other violence.
However, it seems that it’s the initiating act that’s the issue here: is it any more justified to causing offence as to shoot someone. I think it could be argued that they are equivalent issues, though of lesser intensity (ie. back to continuums, not bright lines).
I’m only interjecting, if there is a misunderstanding, it’s probably with jtk3. For my part I think the positions being argued are much clearer now, thank you!