If someone believes something about the moral implications of conception, that is something they likely just took in as a social truth, and then later learned and crafted a rationalization for. I don’t think we have moral instincts about cellular organisms.
To the extent that their in group remains constant, it would take a lot of serious moral argument to overcome that social truth. The problem with political arguments is that people don’t seriously have them. They volley a couple of bumper stickers at each other, and then go off in a huff. They may do it a million times—but a million bogus arguments designed to achieve nothing individually will likely achieve nothing in the aggregate as well.
The social truth remains intact—no serious moral arguments oppose it—why would we ever expect a change?
Where you might expect a change—when one moves between social groups, or when one commits to and is capable of serious moral argument.
The social aspect is at least theoretically testable—how big are the moral shifts when people change in groups? I suspect pretty large.
And in the relatively rare ideologue class, the shifts are often pretty big too. I knew a gal who went from seminary->Leninism->WIcca/EnviroProgressivism. Lots of atheist ideologues are former fundamentalists. Conservatives who were former marxists.
Arguments work on people who engage in them. I’d guess that a changing social truth works even better on most.
And in the relatively rare ideologue class, the shifts are often pretty big too. I knew a gal who went from seminary->Leninism->WIcca/EnviroProgressivism. Lots of atheist ideologues are former fundamentalists. Conservatives who were former marxists.
This kind of stuff happens very often among people in their late teens in my home town. (Most but not all of them just support political ideologies the way they’d support football teams.)
A small class of people care about and are interested in ideas. You can change their minds through argument. The vast majority are Green Team Blue Team, and they change their ideology if required by a change in their social affiliation.
If someone believes something about the moral implications of conception, that is something they likely just took in as a social truth, and then later learned and crafted a rationalization for. I don’t think we have moral instincts about cellular organisms.
To the extent that their in group remains constant, it would take a lot of serious moral argument to overcome that social truth. The problem with political arguments is that people don’t seriously have them. They volley a couple of bumper stickers at each other, and then go off in a huff. They may do it a million times—but a million bogus arguments designed to achieve nothing individually will likely achieve nothing in the aggregate as well.
The social truth remains intact—no serious moral arguments oppose it—why would we ever expect a change?
Where you might expect a change—when one moves between social groups, or when one commits to and is capable of serious moral argument.
The social aspect is at least theoretically testable—how big are the moral shifts when people change in groups? I suspect pretty large.
And in the relatively rare ideologue class, the shifts are often pretty big too. I knew a gal who went from seminary->Leninism->WIcca/EnviroProgressivism. Lots of atheist ideologues are former fundamentalists. Conservatives who were former marxists.
Arguments work on people who engage in them. I’d guess that a changing social truth works even better on most.
This kind of stuff happens very often among people in their late teens in my home town. (Most but not all of them just support political ideologies the way they’d support football teams.)
That’s it.
A small class of people care about and are interested in ideas. You can change their minds through argument. The vast majority are Green Team Blue Team, and they change their ideology if required by a change in their social affiliation.