I have basically two friends that I can talk to about things like this (I have other friends who are smart but who aren’t terribly interested in extensive, serious discussions). One of them is a fundamentalist Christian, so there’s a lot of disagreement, but the points of disagreement essentially boil down to completely different axioms that don’t leave much room for knowledge diffusion. In everything that ISN’T directly impacted by his religious beliefs, he pretty much either agrees with me, or disagreements between us stem from one/both of us being unaware of the facts, and as soon as we’ve done some research, we arrive at the same conclusions.
My other friend mostly ends up agreeing with me (or I with her) about things when it what actions should actually be taken. But oddly enough her thought process is completely different. She is completely frustrated with abstract hypothetical thought experiments, she doesn’t feel any need to have a moral system based on central axioms or even any dedicated examinations of what is right and why. So far as I can tell her morals are loosely based on “People have certain rights that are just inherent to the world,” and those rights are mostly unrelated and arbitrary. I do think that when you’re starting from a position of “maximize everyone’s preferences” you end up quickly arriving at “it’s beneficial to act as if people have certain inalienable rights”, and those rights are, for the most part, the same ones she believes in.
But notable exceptions occur, and it’s frustrating to me that so many elements of her morality are axiomatic and non-negotiable. For example, “right to privacy” is a big deal to her. I mostly agree with that. But a major point of disagreement is whether it’s reasonable for the government to have a database of fingerprints that are taken at birth. I don’t consider fingerprints “private.” You leave them everywhere. I have no close, intimate relationship with my fingerprints.
So for me, the question is “what is the probability that the government turns into a totalitarian state such that I’d actually be afraid of them having access to the general population’s fingerprints.” I know that we disagree strongly on what that probability, but even if we didn’t she opposes it on principle.
Not sure there is any lesson in those two anecdotes. Just thought it was interesting and somewhat relevant.
I have basically two friends that I can talk to about things like this (I have other friends who are smart but who aren’t terribly interested in extensive, serious discussions). One of them is a fundamentalist Christian, so there’s a lot of disagreement, but the points of disagreement essentially boil down to completely different axioms that don’t leave much room for knowledge diffusion. In everything that ISN’T directly impacted by his religious beliefs, he pretty much either agrees with me, or disagreements between us stem from one/both of us being unaware of the facts, and as soon as we’ve done some research, we arrive at the same conclusions.
My other friend mostly ends up agreeing with me (or I with her) about things when it what actions should actually be taken. But oddly enough her thought process is completely different. She is completely frustrated with abstract hypothetical thought experiments, she doesn’t feel any need to have a moral system based on central axioms or even any dedicated examinations of what is right and why. So far as I can tell her morals are loosely based on “People have certain rights that are just inherent to the world,” and those rights are mostly unrelated and arbitrary. I do think that when you’re starting from a position of “maximize everyone’s preferences” you end up quickly arriving at “it’s beneficial to act as if people have certain inalienable rights”, and those rights are, for the most part, the same ones she believes in.
But notable exceptions occur, and it’s frustrating to me that so many elements of her morality are axiomatic and non-negotiable. For example, “right to privacy” is a big deal to her. I mostly agree with that. But a major point of disagreement is whether it’s reasonable for the government to have a database of fingerprints that are taken at birth. I don’t consider fingerprints “private.” You leave them everywhere. I have no close, intimate relationship with my fingerprints.
So for me, the question is “what is the probability that the government turns into a totalitarian state such that I’d actually be afraid of them having access to the general population’s fingerprints.” I know that we disagree strongly on what that probability, but even if we didn’t she opposes it on principle.
Not sure there is any lesson in those two anecdotes. Just thought it was interesting and somewhat relevant.