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Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 24, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Second, the victim(s) has to meet a very high burden of proof for someone who is unethical to be punished. This means gathering evidence, time to process evidence, etc.

Pretty dubious.

In fact, it's pretty telling just how much energy civilization dedicates to making it hard in specific contexts, precisely because people WILL rush to judgment. We are handicapped in judging people, but it's an artificial handicap.

Outside of the oasis of the legal system though...people are less constrained. They don't need to meet some insane burden. They just have to suspect you and/or convince others. For most of our history and even today, that sort of social sanction can be pretty bad on its own.

There's also the concern that, if you're the sort of person who flouts rules, you may not be able to keep the contempt that attitude implies from leaking out, which makes it easier to damn you. Not everyone is a high-functioning sociopath.

The philosophical argument for being ethical fall short.

The universalist or absolutist argument does. It's just not plausible that doing something wrong is never of benefit, absent some dubious concept of an afterlife.

That is not the same as it not being beneficial to be moral in general.

The universality of trying to justify morality (and the drive to justify our sense of it as overriding via philosophy) is telling imo.