Well, people changed their mind about this issue, and since you consider this a rational change, you presumably believe they changed their mind based an a rational argument. Or are you using “rational” as a 2-place function?
Well, people changed their mind about this issue, and since you consider this a rational change
Hold on there. That doesn’t follow. It is possible to do the same thing either for rational or irrational reasons.
Nobody who was an adult in 1901 is alive today, but for people who changed their mind and were adults many decades ago, I’d suggest that either
the influence of religion on them went down, so they were susceptible to a rational argument recently, but no rational argument could have convinced them in the earlier time period, or
they changed their mind about the issue for a reason that was not rational (such as their preacher telling them that God says gay marriage is okay)
“many decades ago” was long enough after 1901 that there wasn’t as much religious influence on them in the first place, so they were susceptible to rational argument, but only because they were not from 1901
the influence of religion on them went down, so they were susceptible to a rational argument recently, but no rational argument could have convinced them in the earlier time period,
(..)
“many decades ago” was long enough after 1901 that there wasn’t as much religious influence on them in the first place, so they were susceptible to rational argument, but only because they were not from 1901
First as I explain in more detail here your claim that it was religious influence that kept people from believing gay marriage was a reasonable thing, appears highly dubious upon closer examination. Second, since you presumably believe that the arguments that convinced them to be less religious were also rational, you could presumably convince them using the rational arguments to be less religious followed by the rational arguments for gay marriage.
Since 1901 is in the 20th century, I think you need to be a bit more charitable and figure out that that’s a typo.
Once you correct that, there are two things going on here:
People from 1901 and people from the 21st century aren’t the same people. The people from 1901 didn’t become people from 2014 and get more rational in the process; they died off and were replaced by different people who were more rational from the start.
Even limiting it to a shorter timespan, people who became rational didn’t do so for rational reasons. In fact, they couldn’t—it would be logically contradictory. If they became rational for rational reasons they would already be rational.
I suppose that it depends on what you mean by “rational”. In particular, it matters whether you consider logically valid reasoning based on false premises (such as the premise “every interpretation of the Bible by my religion is true”) to be rationality. If you do, then I concede, that it might be no change in rationality or even a change in the direction of less rationality.
On the other hand, if you consider rationality to be following a process that results in true beliefs, then believing that gay marriage is okay is rational and rejecting gay marriage is not, but to convince you of that I would have to convince you that the former is a true belief and it’s probably impossible for me to do that.
“every interpretation of the Bible by my religion is true”
First, I don’t think even most Christians at the time would agree with that as a premise. This about as accurate a caricature as describing someone’s position as “every one of my beliefs is true”. Second, as I have pointed out repeatedly in this thread even the atheists at the time rejected gay marriage.
but to convince you of that I would have to convince you that the former is a true belief and it’s probably impossible for me to do that.
Why are you so convinced that is in fact a true belief since you don’t seem able to produce any argument for it?
This about as accurate a caricature as describing someone’s position as “every one of my beliefs is true”
“such as” means that what follows is an example, not an exhaustive list, and what I said doesn’t apply just to that example and to nothing else. If rationality means deriving conclusions logically from premises, then I concede that opposition to gay marriage can be rational, given appropriate premises.
Why are you so convinced that is in fact a true belief since you don’t seem able to produce any argument for it?
It’s pointless to produce an argument for it. The chance that even with a valid argument I could persuade someone who opposes gay marriage, to support gay marriage, is negligible.
An argument is valid if, given true premises, it always and exclusively produces true conclusions. A valid argument in this context might therefore be “given that we wish to maximise social welfare (A) and that allowing gay marriage increases social welfare (B), we should allow gay marriage (C)”. A and B really do imply C. Some people contend that the argument is not sound (that is, that its conclusion is false) because at least one of its premises is not true (reflecting reality); I am not aware of anyone who contends that it is invalid.
Jiro is contending that people who oppose gay marriage do not do so because they have valid arguments for doing so; if we were to refute their arguments they would not change their minds. Xe has argued above that people (as a group) did not stop being anti-homosexuality for rational reasons, i.e. because the state of the evidence changed in important ways or because new valid arguments were brought to bear, but rather for irrational reasons, such as old people dying.
The fact that Jiro considers it rational to believe that gay marriage is a good thing, and thus that people’s beliefs are now in better accord with an ideal reasoner’s beliefs (“are more rational”), does not contradict Jiro’s belief that popular opinion changed for reasons other than those that would affect a Bayesian. Eugine_Nier appears to be conflating two senses of “rational”.
As RichardKennaway observes, we ought to ask why Jiro believes that we should allow gay marriage. I suspect the answer will be close to “because it increases social welfare”, which seems to be a well-founded claim.
To a first approxmotion: the fact that there’s uptake for it means people judge it to increase their welfare.
Which also applies to things like smoking and starting a war with your neighbours. Are you really arguing that everything people do in noticeable numbers increases social welfare?
You’re making the argument “people doing X is evidence for X increasing social welfare”. I don’t think this argument works, first approximation or not.
It would be an odd utility function which had an explicit term for gay marriage specifically. Arguments for it tend to be based on broader principles, like fairness and the fact of its non-harmfulness to others.
An irrational opposition might be something like having a term for fairness but failing to evaluate that term in some particular case, or becoming convinced of harmfulness despite the absence of evidence for such.
Well, people changed their mind about this issue, and since you consider this a rational change, you presumably believe they changed their mind based an a rational argument. Or are you using “rational” as a 2-place function?
Hold on there. That doesn’t follow. It is possible to do the same thing either for rational or irrational reasons.
Nobody who was an adult in 1901 is alive today, but for people who changed their mind and were adults many decades ago, I’d suggest that either
the influence of religion on them went down, so they were susceptible to a rational argument recently, but no rational argument could have convinced them in the earlier time period, or
they changed their mind about the issue for a reason that was not rational (such as their preacher telling them that God says gay marriage is okay)
“many decades ago” was long enough after 1901 that there wasn’t as much religious influence on them in the first place, so they were susceptible to rational argument, but only because they were not from 1901
First as I explain in more detail here your claim that it was religious influence that kept people from believing gay marriage was a reasonable thing, appears highly dubious upon closer examination. Second, since you presumably believe that the arguments that convinced them to be less religious were also rational, you could presumably convince them using the rational arguments to be less religious followed by the rational arguments for gay marriage.
I do not believe that the arguments that convinced them to be less religious were rational (and probably weren’t even, strictly speaking, arguments).
Then in want sense did you mean “people in 1901 had much lower levels of rationality than people from the 20th century”?
Since 1901 is in the 20th century, I think you need to be a bit more charitable and figure out that that’s a typo.
Once you correct that, there are two things going on here:
People from 1901 and people from the 21st century aren’t the same people. The people from 1901 didn’t become people from 2014 and get more rational in the process; they died off and were replaced by different people who were more rational from the start.
Even limiting it to a shorter timespan, people who became rational didn’t do so for rational reasons. In fact, they couldn’t—it would be logically contradictory. If they became rational for rational reasons they would already be rational.
So what is the basis for your claim that these changes constitute becoming more as opposed to less rational?
Um, by examining the reasons they gave.
I suppose that it depends on what you mean by “rational”. In particular, it matters whether you consider logically valid reasoning based on false premises (such as the premise “every interpretation of the Bible by my religion is true”) to be rationality. If you do, then I concede, that it might be no change in rationality or even a change in the direction of less rationality.
On the other hand, if you consider rationality to be following a process that results in true beliefs, then believing that gay marriage is okay is rational and rejecting gay marriage is not, but to convince you of that I would have to convince you that the former is a true belief and it’s probably impossible for me to do that.
First, I don’t think even most Christians at the time would agree with that as a premise. This about as accurate a caricature as describing someone’s position as “every one of my beliefs is true”. Second, as I have pointed out repeatedly in this thread even the atheists at the time rejected gay marriage.
Why are you so convinced that is in fact a true belief since you don’t seem able to produce any argument for it?
“such as” means that what follows is an example, not an exhaustive list, and what I said doesn’t apply just to that example and to nothing else. If rationality means deriving conclusions logically from premises, then I concede that opposition to gay marriage can be rational, given appropriate premises.
It’s pointless to produce an argument for it. The chance that even with a valid argument I could persuade someone who opposes gay marriage, to support gay marriage, is negligible.
The question is not, how would you persuade someone else, but, what persuades you?
What would constitute a valid argument in this context?
An argument is valid if, given true premises, it always and exclusively produces true conclusions. A valid argument in this context might therefore be “given that we wish to maximise social welfare (A) and that allowing gay marriage increases social welfare (B), we should allow gay marriage (C)”. A and B really do imply C. Some people contend that the argument is not sound (that is, that its conclusion is false) because at least one of its premises is not true (reflecting reality); I am not aware of anyone who contends that it is invalid.
Jiro is contending that people who oppose gay marriage do not do so because they have valid arguments for doing so; if we were to refute their arguments they would not change their minds. Xe has argued above that people (as a group) did not stop being anti-homosexuality for rational reasons, i.e. because the state of the evidence changed in important ways or because new valid arguments were brought to bear, but rather for irrational reasons, such as old people dying.
The fact that Jiro considers it rational to believe that gay marriage is a good thing, and thus that people’s beliefs are now in better accord with an ideal reasoner’s beliefs (“are more rational”), does not contradict Jiro’s belief that popular opinion changed for reasons other than those that would affect a Bayesian. Eugine_Nier appears to be conflating two senses of “rational”.
As RichardKennaway observes, we ought to ask why Jiro believes that we should allow gay marriage. I suspect the answer will be close to “because it increases social welfare”, which seems to be a well-founded claim.
Ok, now what’s the evidence that this is in fact the case?
To a first approxmotion: the fact that there’s uptake for it means people judge it to increase their welfare.
Since that is obvious, I suppose you mean there are negative externalities that lead to ne.tt negative welfare. In which case: what is YOUR evidence?
Which also applies to things like smoking and starting a war with your neighbours. Are you really arguing that everything people do in noticeable numbers increases social welfare?
“To a first approximation.”
We know the negative externalities of the examples you mention.
You’re making the argument “people doing X is evidence for X increasing social welfare”. I don’t think this argument works, first approximation or not.
We’re discussing social and cultural memes, not formal logic.
Do note that “I oppose gay marriage because it goes against God’s law” is a valid argument.
What would it even mean for support or opposition to gay marriage to be rational or irrational? The utility function isn’t up for grabs.
It would be an odd utility function which had an explicit term for gay marriage specifically. Arguments for it tend to be based on broader principles, like fairness and the fact of its non-harmfulness to others.
An irrational opposition might be something like having a term for fairness but failing to evaluate that term in some particular case, or becoming convinced of harmfulness despite the absence of evidence for such.