Social ideas and norms are much the same way. Appeal to tradition, “it has always been that way”, is just about the worst argument you can make when defending an existing social custom, right next to “God decrees so”.
I disagree that this is the worse argument—I find that it’s a decent argument, when expressed as “we don’t know where this custom comes from or why it exists, therefore we should treat it with care until we do”. The existence of a custom/social norm is weak evidence that it’s a good thing for society.
Well, yes. You can’t tell if something is good or bad without looking at any evidence. And if the first bit of evidence you see is “slavery is traditional” that pushes the scales up a bit. Then you look at the other evidence and quickly the scales fall the other way.
If a social custom is too old, I in fact consider it a more likely candidate for being discarded today. Our ancestors had access to less evidence and experience than we do, and all too often what seemed a good idea at that time, gets in the way now. Appeal to tradition is used as a curiosity-stopper—usually when the idea can’t defend itself against progress on its own accord.
Our ancestors had access to less evidence and experience than we do, and all too often what seemed a good idea at that time, gets in the way now. Appeal to tradition is used as a curiosity-stopper—usually when the idea can’t defend itself against progress on its own accord.
I agree with this bit. But being an old tradition isn’t evidence against a custom (even if most of the customs we should discard are old traditions). There are loads of old customs we don’t question, simply because they’re obviously true (like agreeing to use language to communicate).
Even slavery what? I didn’t say traditional social norms were good, I said the existence of a traditional social norm was weak evidence of it’s goodness. That doesn’t mean other arguments can’t be considered.
“Even slavery?” Seems like an amusing comeback until you put it into the context of the societies where it originated. In the ancient world, food was often very scarce. If you went to war with a group of people and you kept them as prisoners, they would starve to death because 9 out of 10 people were involved in food production.
It’s easy to say that slavery was a bad tradition now that we have a tradition that says ‘slavery is always bad and evil’, but let’s say you found yourself in a hypothetical post apocalypse. If you were actually making a choice between slaughtering a rival band of survivors and putting them to work (basically slavery), are you sure that you wouldn’t start a slavery tradition?
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I disagree that this is the worse argument—I find that it’s a decent argument, when expressed as “we don’t know where this custom comes from or why it exists, therefore we should treat it with care until we do”. The existence of a custom/social norm is weak evidence that it’s a good thing for society.
Even slavery?
Well, yes. You can’t tell if something is good or bad without looking at any evidence. And if the first bit of evidence you see is “slavery is traditional” that pushes the scales up a bit. Then you look at the other evidence and quickly the scales fall the other way.
If a social custom is too old, I in fact consider it a more likely candidate for being discarded today. Our ancestors had access to less evidence and experience than we do, and all too often what seemed a good idea at that time, gets in the way now. Appeal to tradition is used as a curiosity-stopper—usually when the idea can’t defend itself against progress on its own accord.
I agree with this bit. But being an old tradition isn’t evidence against a custom (even if most of the customs we should discard are old traditions). There are loads of old customs we don’t question, simply because they’re obviously true (like agreeing to use language to communicate).
Why is slavery a salient example to you? Because you already know the answer, but that’s not despite not considering the question.
Even slavery what? I didn’t say traditional social norms were good, I said the existence of a traditional social norm was weak evidence of it’s goodness. That doesn’t mean other arguments can’t be considered.
“Even slavery?” Seems like an amusing comeback until you put it into the context of the societies where it originated. In the ancient world, food was often very scarce. If you went to war with a group of people and you kept them as prisoners, they would starve to death because 9 out of 10 people were involved in food production.
It’s easy to say that slavery was a bad tradition now that we have a tradition that says ‘slavery is always bad and evil’, but let’s say you found yourself in a hypothetical post apocalypse. If you were actually making a choice between slaughtering a rival band of survivors and putting them to work (basically slavery), are you sure that you wouldn’t start a slavery tradition?