Vox Day’s post appears to be an example of the moral equivalence fallacy
While not vouching for the validity of the the specific points he is making, I see him attempting to make a moral argument with a valid form. Briefly: absence of correlation is evidence for absence of causation, and absence of causation is evidence for absence of moral blame.
What you see as a “we’re not as bad as X” argument, can be seen as an observation of lack of positive correlation. Suppose that a woman observes that while women commit a certain fraction of assaults, men, about equally numerous, commit a larger fraction of assaults (this is hypothetical—for all I know women do commit a larger fraction of assaults). You could interpret that as the woman making a “we’re not as bad as men” argument. But another interpretation is that there is a negative correlation between being a woman and committing assault. This is evidence for the claim that being a woman does not cause a person to commit assault.
(In contrast, being angry probably does correlate positively with committing assault, which would be evidence for the claim that being angry can cause a person to commit assault.)
So that covers the point that absence of correlation is evidence for absence of causation. As for the point that absence of causation is evidence for absence of moral blame, I trust that I don’t need to explain it.
While not vouching for the validity of the the specific points he is making, I see him attempting to make a moral argument with a valid form. Briefly: absence of correlation is evidence for absence of causation, and absence of causation is evidence for absence of moral blame.
What you see as a “we’re not as bad as X” argument, can be seen as an observation of lack of positive correlation. Suppose that a woman observes that while women commit a certain fraction of assaults, men, about equally numerous, commit a larger fraction of assaults (this is hypothetical—for all I know women do commit a larger fraction of assaults). You could interpret that as the woman making a “we’re not as bad as men” argument. But another interpretation is that there is a negative correlation between being a woman and committing assault. This is evidence for the claim that being a woman does not cause a person to commit assault.
(In contrast, being angry probably does correlate positively with committing assault, which would be evidence for the claim that being angry can cause a person to commit assault.)
So that covers the point that absence of correlation is evidence for absence of causation. As for the point that absence of causation is evidence for absence of moral blame, I trust that I don’t need to explain it.