someone with little or no stake in an issue can often discuss it with far less emotion than someone with a lot of stake in it, precisely because of that differential. That doesn’t mean the former party is more likely to be objective or make the right decision
Really? It seems that keeping yourself in system 2 mode would lead to better reasoning on such matters. Certainly I don’t feel particularly rational when frothing at the screen and TYPING IN CAPS LOCK.
Yeah, no. I’ve watched perfectly calm and reasonable-sounding people sincerely debate whether some group of other people (queer folks and disabled folks come to mind) have a right to exist that should not be overridden in favor of euthanasia to satisfy their own utility functions. I’ve watched this happen in the halls of supposedly respectable institutions while members of the group under discussion protested outside.
The people going “Hey, this is really fucked up that our right to exist can just be casually debated with or without us in a mainstream, powerful institution, and our not raising a fuss about that is apparently more important to people than the actual suggestion” weren’t polite or unemotional, but they did seem to understand the situation for what it was a whole lot better than the folks inside. I’m not sure I want to be around people who can’t perform that kind of sanity check on occasion.
What’s the alternative to rationally debating ideas that violate our moral sensibilities, assuming some people hold them?
Is it to declare with 100% certainty that any idea that violates our moral sensibilities is false? Is it to say that maybe there’s a small chance that ideas violating our moral sensibilities are true, but even so we must never discuss them so if they’re true we’re out of luck and will never reach that true belief? Is it to say we may discuss them, but not rationally—that is, we must let the screaming protesters into the debate so that they can throw eggs and mud onto the debaters because that will improve the quality of discourse?
Also, I bet (and correct me if I’m wrong) that whatever debate you’ve watched was not about “Let’s round up the [Other Folk] and execute them.” My guess is it was either about allowing them voluntary euthanasia, allowing abortion or infanticide on the part of their parents, or ceasing to specifically allocate scarce health resources to them.
That means that what we’re really talking about is “Any idea that can be massaged into sounding like an idea that violates our moral sensibilities is 100% certainly wrong, or should never be discussed, or needs more egg-throwing.”
What’s the alternative to rationally debating ideas that violate our moral sensibilities, assuming some people hold them?
When inviting a guest speaker for an honorarium to hold forth in front of an audience on a subject that affects few or none of them directly, and just giving them that platform without any semblance of discourse apart from taking questions at the end...yeah, I’m gonna say “Rationally debating ideas that violate our moral sensibilities” is not what was going on. Doubly so since in many cases those ideas actually affirm the moral sensibilities of some fair portion of the population.
Also, I bet (and correct me if I’m wrong) that whatever debate you’ve watched was not about “Let’s round up the [Other Folk] and execute them.” My guess is it was either about allowing them voluntary euthanasia, allowing abortion or infanticide on the part of their parents, or ceasing to specifically allocate scarce health resources to them.
Yeah, you’re wrong—we’re talking about folks who honestly and straightforwardly suggested it was an ethical good to terminate the lives of these people which they felt either had no value (usually through “gentle” methods of euthanasia, and I do not mean voluntarily applied), or had such small value in comparison to their suffering that it was worth it. This is not hyperbole—though I find it interesting you found the idea so difficult to believe straight up that your interpretation must be that I’m just flipping my lid over a loose patternmatch and couldn’t have possibly understood that right. It suggests you think it doesn’t happen often enough for rational people to be concerned about.
That means that what we’re really talking about is “Any idea that can be massaged into sounding like an idea that violates our moral sensibilities is 100% certainly wrong, or should never be discussed, or needs more egg-throwing.”
No, you’re not listening to what I’m actually saying, you’re just assuming from the get-go that I’m a screaming mindless chimp flinging feces because The Bad Thing Is Bad.
(although to be fair, you did say you watched “calm and reasonable people sincerely debate this” and that people were objecting to it being “casually debated”, so I don’t think it was my fault for assuming it was a debate rather than one person going on about it unopposed.)
Now I’m very curious what exactly was going on, although I understand if you don’t want to look like you’re pointing fingers at specific people.
(although to be fair, you did say you watched “calm and reasonable people sincerely debate this” and that people were objecting to it being “casually debated”, so I don’t think it was my fault for assuming it was a debate rather than one person going on about it unopposed.)
Yah, I’m not being very clear with that, though it’s at least partly because I’m just generally underslept and sick, and have been for a couple of months now, so it’s hard to “say what I mean” rather than “verbalize something that’s more on-target for what I mean, than not.” (Gotta love autie language brain...)
Some of what I’m referring to is just conferences, symposia, guest speaker talks or, yes, actual debates, usually hosted at an academic institution that I or someone I knew was attending. I was particularly uninclined to take anybody’s word for much of anything at the time, and insisted on looking into it a bit myself before really trying to interpret what they were upset about .
Some of it is just random discussions with other people over the years, both on and off of LW.
Wait. You’ve heard people proposing to gently euthanize queers? Can you say in what country and decade, if you don’t want to give too much information? I can’t see the mercy-killing crowd going against queers, nor the gay-murdering crowd preferring gentle methods to hanging.
I’m also surprised people are still openly supporting involuntary euthanasia after WW2. Forced sterilization isn’t even done on whole groups anymore since the seventies.
US, this decade. They weren’t euthanasia advocates per se, they were various flavors of fundamentalist in some cases—but they were polite, non-frothing, non-raving flavors of fundamentalist.
I think the last actual legally forced sterilization in the US was in the early 80s, in Oregon, although some states did keep the laws on the books after that (they simply didn’t use them thereafter).
I would find that much easier to believe if I saw non-hearsay evidence -of people advocating euthanasia of queers, in the US, this decade) - either texts written by those people, or a video filmed from a cellphone, or a summary of their position from a reputable institution or something.
(unless you’re talking about Wesboro Baptist Church, or anonymous posters on a forum)
According to Largent’s “Breeding Contempt” (following Robitscher), all sterilizations in the US in the 70s were in Virginia and none were in the 80s. There are reasons to believe that these are undercounts and earlier Largent had claimed that Oregon had sterilizations after 1965, but as far as I can tell, the widely reported 1981 date stems from a hospital striking the procedure from its books a couple years before the state changed its laws and has nothing to do with actual sterilizations.
Largent’s story doesn’t accord with testimony from those who were charged with destroying the records of the Oregon Eugenics Board, or the widespread nationwide practice of sterilizing Native American women in BIA hospitals for other procedures (which is barely touched on even in other scholarly treatments of the general phenomenon). The book might sound persuasive to you, but it’s not true.
I’ve watched perfectly calm and reasonable-sounding people sincerely debate whether some group of other people (queer folks and disabled folks come to mind) have a right to exist that should not be overridden in favor of euthanasia to satisfy their own utility functions.
Since Jandila seems to have evaded questions on the claim about euthanasia advocates and the claim about legal forced sterilizations in the eighties, I’m inclined to assume those aren’t exactly true, or at least are somewhat exaggerated or deformed.
(though in this specific case, she’s probably talking about hypothetical anti-gay-rights activists or something that aren’t particularly euthanasia advocates, but are advocating euthanasia of queers or something; so there’s no inherent contradiction, I just suspect it didn’t happen as described)
Sure, system 2 can make mistakes. Though it is not uncontroversial to classify all the instances you point to as mistakes—I’m thinking pro-abortion people, and Peter Singer.
But in any case, the question is whether it is in general more prone to them than system 1, a questions which requires data rather than anecdotes. However, I’m willing to bet the angels of our better nature show through more when we’re thinking than when we’re not.
Really? It seems that keeping yourself in system 2 mode would lead to better reasoning on such matters. Certainly I don’t feel particularly rational when frothing at the screen and TYPING IN CAPS LOCK.
Yeah, no. I’ve watched perfectly calm and reasonable-sounding people sincerely debate whether some group of other people (queer folks and disabled folks come to mind) have a right to exist that should not be overridden in favor of euthanasia to satisfy their own utility functions. I’ve watched this happen in the halls of supposedly respectable institutions while members of the group under discussion protested outside.
The people going “Hey, this is really fucked up that our right to exist can just be casually debated with or without us in a mainstream, powerful institution, and our not raising a fuss about that is apparently more important to people than the actual suggestion” weren’t polite or unemotional, but they did seem to understand the situation for what it was a whole lot better than the folks inside. I’m not sure I want to be around people who can’t perform that kind of sanity check on occasion.
What’s the alternative to rationally debating ideas that violate our moral sensibilities, assuming some people hold them?
Is it to declare with 100% certainty that any idea that violates our moral sensibilities is false? Is it to say that maybe there’s a small chance that ideas violating our moral sensibilities are true, but even so we must never discuss them so if they’re true we’re out of luck and will never reach that true belief? Is it to say we may discuss them, but not rationally—that is, we must let the screaming protesters into the debate so that they can throw eggs and mud onto the debaters because that will improve the quality of discourse?
Also, I bet (and correct me if I’m wrong) that whatever debate you’ve watched was not about “Let’s round up the [Other Folk] and execute them.” My guess is it was either about allowing them voluntary euthanasia, allowing abortion or infanticide on the part of their parents, or ceasing to specifically allocate scarce health resources to them.
That means that what we’re really talking about is “Any idea that can be massaged into sounding like an idea that violates our moral sensibilities is 100% certainly wrong, or should never be discussed, or needs more egg-throwing.”
When inviting a guest speaker for an honorarium to hold forth in front of an audience on a subject that affects few or none of them directly, and just giving them that platform without any semblance of discourse apart from taking questions at the end...yeah, I’m gonna say “Rationally debating ideas that violate our moral sensibilities” is not what was going on. Doubly so since in many cases those ideas actually affirm the moral sensibilities of some fair portion of the population.
Yeah, you’re wrong—we’re talking about folks who honestly and straightforwardly suggested it was an ethical good to terminate the lives of these people which they felt either had no value (usually through “gentle” methods of euthanasia, and I do not mean voluntarily applied), or had such small value in comparison to their suffering that it was worth it. This is not hyperbole—though I find it interesting you found the idea so difficult to believe straight up that your interpretation must be that I’m just flipping my lid over a loose patternmatch and couldn’t have possibly understood that right. It suggests you think it doesn’t happen often enough for rational people to be concerned about.
No, you’re not listening to what I’m actually saying, you’re just assuming from the get-go that I’m a screaming mindless chimp flinging feces because The Bad Thing Is Bad.
You’re right, I apologize.
(although to be fair, you did say you watched “calm and reasonable people sincerely debate this” and that people were objecting to it being “casually debated”, so I don’t think it was my fault for assuming it was a debate rather than one person going on about it unopposed.)
Now I’m very curious what exactly was going on, although I understand if you don’t want to look like you’re pointing fingers at specific people.
Upvoted for owning up to it.
Yah, I’m not being very clear with that, though it’s at least partly because I’m just generally underslept and sick, and have been for a couple of months now, so it’s hard to “say what I mean” rather than “verbalize something that’s more on-target for what I mean, than not.” (Gotta love autie language brain...)
Some of what I’m referring to is just conferences, symposia, guest speaker talks or, yes, actual debates, usually hosted at an academic institution that I or someone I knew was attending. I was particularly uninclined to take anybody’s word for much of anything at the time, and insisted on looking into it a bit myself before really trying to interpret what they were upset about .
Some of it is just random discussions with other people over the years, both on and off of LW.
Wait. You’ve heard people proposing to gently euthanize queers? Can you say in what country and decade, if you don’t want to give too much information? I can’t see the mercy-killing crowd going against queers, nor the gay-murdering crowd preferring gentle methods to hanging.
I’m also surprised people are still openly supporting involuntary euthanasia after WW2. Forced sterilization isn’t even done on whole groups anymore since the seventies.
US, this decade. They weren’t euthanasia advocates per se, they were various flavors of fundamentalist in some cases—but they were polite, non-frothing, non-raving flavors of fundamentalist.
I think the last actual legally forced sterilization in the US was in the early 80s, in Oregon, although some states did keep the laws on the books after that (they simply didn’t use them thereafter).
I would find that much easier to believe if I saw non-hearsay evidence -of people advocating euthanasia of queers, in the US, this decade) - either texts written by those people, or a video filmed from a cellphone, or a summary of their position from a reputable institution or something.
(unless you’re talking about Wesboro Baptist Church, or anonymous posters on a forum)
According to Largent’s “Breeding Contempt” (following Robitscher), all sterilizations in the US in the 70s were in Virginia and none were in the 80s. There are reasons to believe that these are undercounts and earlier Largent had claimed that Oregon had sterilizations after 1965, but as far as I can tell, the widely reported 1981 date stems from a hospital striking the procedure from its books a couple years before the state changed its laws and has nothing to do with actual sterilizations.
Largent’s story doesn’t accord with testimony from those who were charged with destroying the records of the Oregon Eugenics Board, or the widespread nationwide practice of sterilizing Native American women in BIA hospitals for other procedures (which is barely touched on even in other scholarly treatments of the general phenomenon). The book might sound persuasive to you, but it’s not true.
Could you give a more specific citation about Oregon?
Very tricky due to internet sources aging, but here’s a snapshot of an article discussing that testimony.
http://web.archive.org/web/20021026095240/http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/1028030290179750.xml
I don’t see where that supports
(unless your disagreement with Douglas_Knight is about something else now)
What do you mean by “testimony”?
I don’t believe anyone was charged with destroying records.
The term “testimony” doesn’t only refer to legal proceedings.
...
I am confused.
Since Jandila seems to have evaded questions on the claim about euthanasia advocates and the claim about legal forced sterilizations in the eighties, I’m inclined to assume those aren’t exactly true, or at least are somewhat exaggerated or deformed.
(though in this specific case, she’s probably talking about hypothetical anti-gay-rights activists or something that aren’t particularly euthanasia advocates, but are advocating euthanasia of queers or something; so there’s no inherent contradiction, I just suspect it didn’t happen as described)
Are you familiar with Not Dead Yet?
[Off-topic discussion taken offline.]
Sure, system 2 can make mistakes. Though it is not uncontroversial to classify all the instances you point to as mistakes—I’m thinking pro-abortion people, and Peter Singer.
But in any case, the question is whether it is in general more prone to them than system 1, a questions which requires data rather than anecdotes. However, I’m willing to bet the angels of our better nature show through more when we’re thinking than when we’re not.