Take, for example, ‘crossing the road’. [...] That is all presented using the mechanism for morality. This is necessary for most young children [...]
Mine is still too young for us to let her cross the road unshepherded, but I’m certainly not presenting that sort of thing to her “using the mechanism for morality”; at least, I’m trying not to and so far as I can tell I’m succeeding. (I think my wife is doing likewise, but I don’t know for sure; we haven’t discussed the matter in depth.) When there’s something she mustn’t do for reasons of safety, we tell her “don’t do X, it’s dangerous and here’s why”. Seems to be working well so far.
Now, maybe however I present things my daughter interprets them using “the mechanism for morality” (e.g., if that’s automatically triggered by any sense of parental disapproval); it’s hard to tell. And maybe I, or my daughter, or both, are unusual. But a blanket statement that “That is all presented using the mechanism for morality” seems to me to need some actual justification which isn’t in evidence; it looks clearly false to me.
There is no other example you can think of where morality is useful for keeping young people from being hurt by environmental or social dangers that they are later able to handle in a more sophisticated, practical way, without the morals of children protecting them?
This may be an inferential distance that is too large to cross. Morality is something that many find hard to reduce.
Obviously I can think of any number of examples in which one could use “the mechanism of morality” to keep young children from being hurt. Your claim, however, was not merely that there are such examples; it was that in such cases “that is all presented using the mechanism of morality”. Not “could be presented”, not “is often presented”, not even “is usually presented”; simply “is presented”.
The (perhaps unreasonably strong) literal interpretation of this, with an honest-to-Cthulhu universal quantifier in it, seems to me to be demonstrably false, though of course if you bothered to say what you mean by “the mechanism of morality” it might turn out otherwise, since the childrearing practice I know best, namely my own, is firmly nonmoralistic about such things. It seems to me that weaker interpretations are at best in need of solid supporting evidence.
The time for worrying that you might be on the high side of a too-large inferential gap is after you have made a bona fide attempt to explain your position, found it not understood, and considered carefully whether the problem is that the other party is too stupid or ignorant to understand you or that what you’re saying doesn’t really make sense. In particular, the following exchange doesn’t seem reasonable to me:
Proponent: blah blah blah X blah blah blah.
Skeptic 1: I wonder if you have a nonstandard understanding of X.
Proponent: I’m using a perfectly standard definition of X. Blah blah blah X blah.
Skeptic 2: That second thing you said seems implausible to me, because blah blah blah blah.
Proponent: I think maybe you’re too stupid or ignorant for us to talk about this; the notion of X is hard for many people to reduce.
… because it surely can’t be true both that your usage of X is straightforward and standard and needs no elaboration and that when someone else disagrees with you in this area the problem a good inference is that you understand how to reduce X and they don’t.
It is not a position which I have a particular vested interested in evangelising. I also know from experience and would in any case predict theoretically that when discussing morality there is a significant signalling cost to doing so from a detached descriptive perspective rather than from ‘within’ - even when not actually advocating anything ‘immoral’.
My initial statement was a casual observation of the way morality works—not a declaration that I would be willing to engage in a verbal duel with anyone who considered it ‘bizarrely false’. The chances of such a conversation being productive is negligible, so I am happy to leave you to disagree and would never presume to question your right to express disagreement or presume that any readers would consider the question resolved when disagreement remains.
I don’t disagree with ‘is often’, by the way and note now that there is a difference between ‘skeptic 1’ and ‘skeptic 2’ that changes the meaning of your claim somewhat.
Well, yes, there’s a difference between Skeptics 1 and 2, because they’re different people: just as randallsquared and gjm are different people. I wasn’t the person who called your statement “bizarrely false” and I have no wish for a verbal duel (though it sure seems like you’re trying to have one, for some reason) nor for a clash of evangelisms. What I was hoping for was a reasoned discussion.
Far be it from me, though, to insist that you bear a significant signalling cost. (Though I think you already paid it; anyone who’d be upset at a detached discussion of morality was probably already upset by your statement that morality becomes less important as one matures.)
[EDITED some hours after writing, to add: for that matter, those same people were presumably even more upset by your earlier comment about the original purpose of morality. It’s a bit late to be worrying about what those people might think of you.]
Well, yes, there’s a difference between Skeptics 1 and 2, because they’re different people
Yes, I got that and added the last bit at the end. That difference indicated to me that your own interest was limited to the specific example about road crossing. I conceded ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’ there so I don’t think I have a substantial disagreement with you there.
It’s a bit late to be worrying about what those people might think of you.
True enough. They feel sufficiently ‘out group’ that different instincts are in play. The relevant factor is that it is a behaviour that I hold in utter contempt. And contempt is the one one emotion that I find has an unambiguously deleterious influence on thought. It makes me careless. (Not noticing a different commenter, for example.) It is better to avoid such situations all together. Hindsight suggests I should have downvoted and ignored Randall, rather than replying.
Mine is still too young for us to let her cross the road unshepherded, but I’m certainly not presenting that sort of thing to her “using the mechanism for morality”; at least, I’m trying not to and so far as I can tell I’m succeeding. (I think my wife is doing likewise, but I don’t know for sure; we haven’t discussed the matter in depth.) When there’s something she mustn’t do for reasons of safety, we tell her “don’t do X, it’s dangerous and here’s why”. Seems to be working well so far.
Now, maybe however I present things my daughter interprets them using “the mechanism for morality” (e.g., if that’s automatically triggered by any sense of parental disapproval); it’s hard to tell. And maybe I, or my daughter, or both, are unusual. But a blanket statement that “That is all presented using the mechanism for morality” seems to me to need some actual justification which isn’t in evidence; it looks clearly false to me.
There is no other example you can think of where morality is useful for keeping young people from being hurt by environmental or social dangers that they are later able to handle in a more sophisticated, practical way, without the morals of children protecting them?
This may be an inferential distance that is too large to cross. Morality is something that many find hard to reduce.
Obviously I can think of any number of examples in which one could use “the mechanism of morality” to keep young children from being hurt. Your claim, however, was not merely that there are such examples; it was that in such cases “that is all presented using the mechanism of morality”. Not “could be presented”, not “is often presented”, not even “is usually presented”; simply “is presented”.
The (perhaps unreasonably strong) literal interpretation of this, with an honest-to-Cthulhu universal quantifier in it, seems to me to be demonstrably false, though of course if you bothered to say what you mean by “the mechanism of morality” it might turn out otherwise, since the childrearing practice I know best, namely my own, is firmly nonmoralistic about such things. It seems to me that weaker interpretations are at best in need of solid supporting evidence.
The time for worrying that you might be on the high side of a too-large inferential gap is after you have made a bona fide attempt to explain your position, found it not understood, and considered carefully whether the problem is that the other party is too stupid or ignorant to understand you or that what you’re saying doesn’t really make sense. In particular, the following exchange doesn’t seem reasonable to me:
Proponent: blah blah blah X blah blah blah.
Skeptic 1: I wonder if you have a nonstandard understanding of X.
Proponent: I’m using a perfectly standard definition of X. Blah blah blah X blah.
Skeptic 2: That second thing you said seems implausible to me, because blah blah blah blah.
Proponent: I think maybe you’re too stupid or ignorant for us to talk about this; the notion of X is hard for many people to reduce.
… because it surely can’t be true both that your usage of X is straightforward and standard and needs no elaboration and that when someone else disagrees with you in this area the problem a good inference is that you understand how to reduce X and they don’t.
It is not a position which I have a particular vested interested in evangelising. I also know from experience and would in any case predict theoretically that when discussing morality there is a significant signalling cost to doing so from a detached descriptive perspective rather than from ‘within’ - even when not actually advocating anything ‘immoral’.
My initial statement was a casual observation of the way morality works—not a declaration that I would be willing to engage in a verbal duel with anyone who considered it ‘bizarrely false’. The chances of such a conversation being productive is negligible, so I am happy to leave you to disagree and would never presume to question your right to express disagreement or presume that any readers would consider the question resolved when disagreement remains.
I don’t disagree with ‘is often’, by the way and note now that there is a difference between ‘skeptic 1’ and ‘skeptic 2’ that changes the meaning of your claim somewhat.
Well, yes, there’s a difference between Skeptics 1 and 2, because they’re different people: just as randallsquared and gjm are different people. I wasn’t the person who called your statement “bizarrely false” and I have no wish for a verbal duel (though it sure seems like you’re trying to have one, for some reason) nor for a clash of evangelisms. What I was hoping for was a reasoned discussion.
Far be it from me, though, to insist that you bear a significant signalling cost. (Though I think you already paid it; anyone who’d be upset at a detached discussion of morality was probably already upset by your statement that morality becomes less important as one matures.)
[EDITED some hours after writing, to add: for that matter, those same people were presumably even more upset by your earlier comment about the original purpose of morality. It’s a bit late to be worrying about what those people might think of you.]
Yes, I got that and added the last bit at the end. That difference indicated to me that your own interest was limited to the specific example about road crossing. I conceded ‘sometimes’ or ‘often’ there so I don’t think I have a substantial disagreement with you there.
True enough. They feel sufficiently ‘out group’ that different instincts are in play. The relevant factor is that it is a behaviour that I hold in utter contempt. And contempt is the one one emotion that I find has an unambiguously deleterious influence on thought. It makes me careless. (Not noticing a different commenter, for example.) It is better to avoid such situations all together. Hindsight suggests I should have downvoted and ignored Randall, rather than replying.