I agree that talking Schelling fences is usually more productive, and that it’s probably not people’s true rejection on abortion (norms around sexuality and fertility probably play a bigger role). Note also that unlike you, I never saw an “abortion is murder” sign in real life, and don’t remember the topic ever coming up in real life.
Schelling fences probably play a bigger role for “justifiable killing” (like self-defense, the death penalty, euthanasia), where having a strong norm against killing in general discourages revenge killings (anti-abortion seem to be trying to hijack that norm to cover a case that doesn’t fall under “killing” nearly as naturally). “Racism is bad” is another case where the norm is pretty valuable and useful in itself, and acknowledging that “non-bad cases of racism are not bad” would weaken it.
I stick to my guess that it’s only a tiny fraction of the time
Eh, it probably depends of the reference class you’re picking, and how charitable you’re willing to be in interpreting people’s reasons. when deconstructing a WAitW, it may be worth directing the discussion to one on Schelling Fences / norms etc., both as a way of raising the quality of the discussion, and of leaving a line of retreat.
I agree that talking Schelling fences is usually more productive, and that it’s probably not people’s true rejection on abortion (norms around sexuality and fertility probably play a bigger role). Note also that unlike you, I never saw an “abortion is murder” sign in real life, and don’t remember the topic ever coming up in real life.
Schelling fences probably play a bigger role for “justifiable killing” (like self-defense, the death penalty, euthanasia), where having a strong norm against killing in general discourages revenge killings (anti-abortion seem to be trying to hijack that norm to cover a case that doesn’t fall under “killing” nearly as naturally). “Racism is bad” is another case where the norm is pretty valuable and useful in itself, and acknowledging that “non-bad cases of racism are not bad” would weaken it.
Eh, it probably depends of the reference class you’re picking, and how charitable you’re willing to be in interpreting people’s reasons. when deconstructing a WAitW, it may be worth directing the discussion to one on Schelling Fences / norms etc., both as a way of raising the quality of the discussion, and of leaving a line of retreat.