This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I argue it in the following sentences. I specifically said the material world as we perceive it. Should I post the exact same thing again? If you think that my stance on moral relativity is incompatible with my stance on the material world, I think you need to make that argument more clearly, instead of just continuing to say "Wah? What?".
maybe you are missing some of my relevant axioms, I'm happy to fill them in if you're actually curious. It doesn't feel like you are.
Ok. Well thanks for that. I agree you can't science your way across the is-ought gap, and have no interest in trying. The fact that at least current New Atheists appear to try to do that is part of why I have low interest in their position.
I'm not that enamored of science.
No reply to my accusation of a lack of charity? That doesn't concern you?
No, you really don't. You just say "the material world as we perceive it" and then go on to talk about something "working". I don't even know what you're talking about when you say "the material world as we perceive it". Are you just talking about subjective perceptions? If so, what is this "material world" that we are supposedly perceiving? Sounds like we actually just have subjective perceptions.
Not really. Such accusations are cheap to throw around and are usually bullshit.
You know what it means colloquially, but here is a more extensive explanation of how I would describe the material world:
It is the seemingly mostly consistent thing that we infer via our subjective perceptions. We peer through an unreliable lens. There is something on the other side that can’t be perfectly known. Whatever the stuff is on the other side that generally responds consistently to experiment, that is what we call the material world.
It appears to be a system or substrate that follows mostly consistent rules that we, whatever we are, exist within or on.
Science is the practice of measuring and manipulating that mostly consistent stuff on the other side of the lens. Therefore, science does not raise the problem of relativism, because the only justification it needs is that it effectively gives a person tools to manipulate the material world. As long as it is helpful for doing that, it is justified as legit science. That doesn't justify it morally or anything, to be clear. It just justifies it as science.
But morals are not justified by being useful for getting some kind of result. They have to be justified by being good or right or noble. And those do not have the same simple test as science, so they raise the problem of justifying moral axioms.
Alright
You're confusing "there is a material world" with "science has something to do with 'usefulness' (however ill-defined)". Your first section was a bit about the so-called "material world":
Stop here. Someone could probably write something very similar about the moral world. Nothing about hazily-defined "useful" or "result" needed.
Then, after a huuuuuge conceptual leap, you jump to science as a practice. Ok. Perhaps there are practices out there which help us get to some consistency with what is on the other side of the moral lens. We'd need to do some pretty significant philosophical lifting to describe when there are or aren't possible practices to help us get some consistency with what is on the other side of various lenses.
Would you please, 30 comments down, tell him what you believe?
Lol thanks man. I appreciate it. I'm starting to feel embarrassed for continuing this convo for as long as I have.
More options
Context Copy link
At this point, it doesn't matter what I believe. At this point, there is only one possible nugget of a thought which has any chance of altering anything about the way he thinks, and that is, "Maybe I (@Crake) don't have a trivial knock-down argument against moral realism that doesn't do significant philosophical damage in other domains."
Because right now, he thinks he does. And he thinks it's trivial. The only real path forward is to show him that, when he properly reasons through his argument, there is a sliiiiiiight difficulty beyond it being trivial. Then, perhaps, he may one day realize that it might actually be somewhat difficult, even. Then, and only then, will there be any chance to start to say, "Well, if we think about it in this different fashion, some of those difficulties go away." But right now, that is utterly impossible, so long as he thinks the whole thing is just trivially settled.
This is part of why I was saying that I would probably have to bow out soon. It's the same sense of triviality that I've seen from all sorts of adjacent folks in the past who think that the material world obviously just is, trivially... and that "science" just magically settles all questions, trivially. Yes, I'm aware this is the school of thought people were steeped in; just do the thing, say the words, and don't worry about the presuppositions or foundations; it's useful! But just like dealing with GPT, I've realized that sometimes the best way to proceed is just to say, "Think step-by-step," and then see how things develop.
You’re not debating this in a fair manner imo, you’re throwing gotchas from the ether. You can’t ask him to endlessly redefine his terms and appeal to a vague philosophic consensus without making your own attackable case. Is your point 'it's complicated'? For the record I take the sam harris position. See how that helps you understand from where my criticism is coming from, as well as give you a chance to land a few blows of your own?
I really don't think they're gotchas. I think it is genuinely saying, "Think step-by-step." And then I'm observing some difficulties with his steps.
At this point, essentially yes. As I said above, I think that's about the only point that is likely possible to get across in this conversation, at this time. I'm not looking for a way to land a few blows of my own. I'm thinking that the most productive line of discussion toward any sort of movement on the problem is to just show that the reasoning required is slightly more difficult than trivial.
Your interpretation of my position is not correct though. And it is not based on what I have actually said. You've made big assumptions.
I don't think that. I recognize that my position on morality complicates other areas. I am happy to go there and discuss those areas and the damage done. You are not. I recognize that my position creates difficulties and problems in other areas, I think they are meaningful problems that are worth exploring. I don't think this is trivial.
I really really don't think that the material world just is, trivially. That was part of my point. I tried to make it clear that my vision of the reality of the material world is thin. I think that this is a profoundly not trivial question. I thought I had done a good enough job making that clear.
I did not say "there is a material world". I said the material world is something that is just inferred. I said there is something out there that we appear to be able to interact with in an apparently consistent way. my qualifiers were not accidental.
my description of science as a practice that, to our best perception, appears to allow us to effectively interact with something that exists beyond our imperfect lens should make it clear that I am not holding science or the material world up as the most real most important and reliable thing. It is just useful. It is not deifying science, it is the opposite.
Where the hell are you getting that from?! I have not said anything remotely like that. Science doesn't and cannot solve moral problems because it is such a limited tool. That was one of my central points that I have repeated throughout this thread.
If anything I was trying to diminish the value of science. It cannot help us solve the greater mysteries. It is a notably limited tool that appears to work in a limited scope. And its value is incredibly contingent. The important stuff, like morality, is outside the scope of science. That is my point: morality is insoluble to science. Even you admitted that that was my position earlier.
Is there any way for me to say that I am not privileging science which will make you actually deal with that position? Somehow I suspect that even if I convince you that this is my position you'll find it just as odious.
Yes. Someone could do that and it would be an actually meaningful and interesting argument. That is the kind of thing I was hoping this discussion would eventually lead to. I would love to hear you make that argument. Please do.
But instead of that you insist on guerrilla warfare tactics. Instead of actually arguing with my position honestly, you needle at my position while exposing no surface of your own position for me to argue back against.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link