I think it actually is a value difference, just like Blueberry said.
I do not want to participate in nastiness (loosely defined). It’s related to my inclination not to engage in malicious gossip. (Folks who know me personally consider it almost weird how uncomfortable I am with bashing people, singly or in groups.) It’s not my business to stop other people from doing it, but I just don’t want it as part of my life, because it’s corrosive and makes me unhappy.
To refine my own position a little bit—I’m happy to consider anti-PC issues as matters of fact, but I don’t like them connotationally, because I don’t like speaking ill of people when I can help it. For example, in a conversation with a friend: he says, “Don’t you know blacks have a higher crime rate than whites?” I say, “Sure, that’s true. But what do you want from me? You want me to say how much I hate my black neighbors? What do you want me to say?”
I don’t think that’s an issue that argument can dissuade me from; it’s my own preference.
This discussion prompted a connection in my mind that startled me a lot. Let’s put it in the open.
We’ve been discussing the moral status of identical copies. I gave a partial reductio sometime ago, but wasn’t really satisfied. Now consider this: what about the welfare of your imperfect copies? Do UDT-like considerations make it provably rational to care more about creatures that share random features with you? Note that I say UDT-like considerations, not evolutionary considerations. Evolution doesn’t explain professional solidarity or feminism because neither relies on heritable traits. Ganging up looks more like a Schelling coordination game, where you benefit from seeking allies based on some random quality as long as they also get the idea of allying with you based on same quality. And it might work better if the quality is hard to change, like sex or race. Anyone willing to work out the math is welcome to do so...
I think it actually is a value difference, just like Blueberry said.
I do not want to participate in nastiness (loosely defined). It’s related to my inclination not to engage in malicious gossip. (Folks who know me personally consider it almost weird how uncomfortable I am with bashing people, singly or in groups.) It’s not my business to stop other people from doing it, but I just don’t want it as part of my life, because it’s corrosive and makes me unhappy.
To refine my own position a little bit—I’m happy to consider anti-PC issues as matters of fact, but I don’t like them connotationally, because I don’t like speaking ill of people when I can help it. For example, in a conversation with a friend: he says, “Don’t you know blacks have a higher crime rate than whites?” I say, “Sure, that’s true. But what do you want from me? You want me to say how much I hate my black neighbors? What do you want me to say?”
I don’t think that’s an issue that argument can dissuade me from; it’s my own preference.
This discussion prompted a connection in my mind that startled me a lot. Let’s put it in the open.
We’ve been discussing the moral status of identical copies. I gave a partial reductio sometime ago, but wasn’t really satisfied. Now consider this: what about the welfare of your imperfect copies? Do UDT-like considerations make it provably rational to care more about creatures that share random features with you? Note that I say UDT-like considerations, not evolutionary considerations. Evolution doesn’t explain professional solidarity or feminism because neither relies on heritable traits. Ganging up looks more like a Schelling coordination game, where you benefit from seeking allies based on some random quality as long as they also get the idea of allying with you based on same quality. And it might work better if the quality is hard to change, like sex or race. Anyone willing to work out the math is welcome to do so...
Asserting group inequalities means speaking more ill of one group of people but less ill of another, so doesn’t that cancel out?
I’m not talking about empirical claims, I’m talking about affect. I have zero problem with talking about group inequalities, in themselves.