tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5802245991247654421.post6506419520870587675..comments2017-07-04T11:39:28.639+03:00Comments on Διαύγεια: Why Sam Harris shouldn’t change his mindΑναζητήτριαhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16349080207068532223noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5802245991247654421.post-53526378383665229292014-04-07T17:05:47.485+03:002014-04-07T17:05:47.485+03:00Hm, that's weird.Hm, that's weird.Αναζητήτριαhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16349080207068532223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5802245991247654421.post-30644228047317612822014-04-06T10:39:02.145+03:002014-04-06T10:39:02.145+03:00Over at this view of life the comments (many of wh...Over at this view of life the comments (many of which seemed to refute Haidt's original post) have now disappeared.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5802245991247654421.post-70493252148313855972014-02-11T18:58:48.265+02:002014-02-11T18:58:48.265+02:00"Lack of humility" has a twin brother: &..."Lack of humility" has a twin brother: "Condescension". But two can play at that game! Your entire last comment was nothing more than a passive-aggressive ad hominem :P<br /><br />Whatever my flaws, I, in fact, want people to prove I'm wrong, when I am wrong. So, please, you would actually be doing the right thing by showing where my reasoning is flawed.<br /><br />So, let's go step by step. Do you agree that this is Haidt's point?<br />a) He thinks that the "New Atheists" are not following their own advice and are exhibiting more certainty than they should.<br />b) He thinks this proves that it's an emotional bias at work, so Harris is too attached to his idea to change his mind even if he is presented with a good counter argument.Αναζητήτριαhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16349080207068532223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5802245991247654421.post-35448553786095685082014-02-11T13:45:17.699+02:002014-02-11T13:45:17.699+02:00"But Haidt's basically saying that your t..."But Haidt's basically saying that your tone of voice indicates the correctness of the content, and that is simply false."<br /><br />This was not Haidt's point. I have addressed this in the FB comment thread and perhaps had you had more humility you would have picked it up :P. I will not comment further because I do not have the time to construct the complex answers required to intelligently address the non-sequiturs and beside-the-points in your post and simplistic answers (including those like this one) will merely come across as ad hominems. I wish you luck!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5802245991247654421.post-16676170330763737862014-02-10T20:14:23.523+02:002014-02-10T20:14:23.523+02:00"Jonathan Haidt was trying to point out that ..."Jonathan Haidt was trying to point out that reason should be tempered by humility, or more correctly complemented by humility; or even more correctly (which eliminates the idea that they're somehow separate) that if you claim to be "reasonable" and lack humility your are not actually very reasonable."<br /><br />I understand humility is considered an important value. But I think there is a confusion between tactics and content. "Humble" and "arrogant" have little to do with being "wrong" or "right" in what you're saying, only in the way you're saying it. So, I can say "1+1=2" kindly, arrogantly, loudly, timidly, but the content is either wrong or right. And if I say "1+1=3", no matter how politely I say it, it'll be wrong.<br /><br />If Haidt's point was that when you're being arrogant, you estrange people, that we should be sensitive to people's emotions, that is an entirely different story. We can talk about tactics.<br /><br />But Haidt's basically saying that your tone of voice indicates the correctness of the content, and that is simply false.Αναζητήτριαhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16349080207068532223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5802245991247654421.post-2095591134137605432014-02-10T19:54:17.461+02:002014-02-10T19:54:17.461+02:00Wearetribal, thank you for taking the time to read...Wearetribal, thank you for taking the time to read my article! You made some very good points and essentially I agree with almost everything you said.<br /><br />Morality is of course as complex as a subject can be. But that is actually the whole point. I think that where most people misunderstand Sam Harris is that they don't understand the difference between objectivity in principle and in practice. So, maybe we won't be able to answer the greatest number of moral questions. The important question is... does that mean we can't answer any question at all?<br /><br />So, to your example, maybe the moral answer is that animals have equal rights as humans. That's only a problem in practical terms, meaning we'll have trouble reconstructing our entire society to accommodate that "moral truth". It could even be that we can't or won't do that. But that does not change that the "right" answer exists. Our inability to implement it is a different story.<br /><br />You said: "Choosing to remain alive then makes even a vegan a mass murderer just as morally bad as any war criminal or terrorist or mafioso". This is a common argument, but I disagree. First of all, two things can be bad, but one can be worse than the other. Just because two things are bad doesn't automatically make them equally bad.<br /><br />Where this example gets it wrong is that judging by the result is not always a good way of analyzing morality. The way you get there is also important. Isn't there a difference between offensive and defensive violence? Two people might have killed another person, but the one who did it because they were defending their own life seems less guilty. But, anyway, this is just off the top of my head.<br /><br />Like I said, I don't disagree with the spirit of your argument. Morality is complex and we have a lot of conundrums ahead of us. The most important question is... does that mean we can't say anything about anything, because of that fact? That's the essential point Sam Harris is making, and I have to say I agree.Αναζητήτριαhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16349080207068532223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5802245991247654421.post-22781172478988205522014-02-10T15:02:19.401+02:002014-02-10T15:02:19.401+02:00"Reason can be applied correctly or falsely. ..."Reason can be applied correctly or falsely. That is not a short-coming of reason itself. You can use any tool in a wrong way. You can try to wash clothes in a dish washer, you can try to lock a door with a nail polisher. It's not the tool that's failing when you are not using it as you're supposed to. Would we have ever gotten to expose some of our biases if reason was not capable of overcoming them in the first place?"<br /><br />Jonathan Haidt was trying to point out that reason should be tempered by humility, or more correctly complemented by humility; or even more correctly (which eliminates the idea that they're somehow separate) that if you claim to be "reasonable" and lack humility your are not actually very reasonable.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5802245991247654421.post-61837063523318481822014-02-10T04:54:31.230+02:002014-02-10T04:54:31.230+02:00I very much enjoy your writing and your thinking, ...I very much enjoy your writing and your thinking, but I think there is a greater nuance and complexity to these issues of morality than you, or to be fair most philosophers or anyone else, are willing to admit to.<br /><br />For one thing, if we pick up Harris's ball of morality = well being of conscious creatures and run with it on, say, Peter Singer's animal rights team we quickly run into some deep problematic complications. Can we say that my suffering is of any greater moral significance or weight than the suffering of a mouse? Not really, conclude the animal rights folks, and no one else has suggested a logically sound counter. The logical conclusion then is that all animals "should" have equal "rights." <br /><br />Sadly, we live atop the food chain and simply choosing to remain alive as a human inevitably causes the suffering and death of numerous small conscious creatures. Choosing to remain alive then makes even a vegan a mass murderer just as morally bad as any war criminal or terrorist or mafioso. I have a problem with that. I think we have to accept that as humans we are allowed to have a preference for the well being of other humans, over that of other species, and that this preference is needed to allow us to exist together in groups and societies. Even Singer in his famous essay where he first stated his view that animal rights are equal contradicted himself by stating that, in case of an actual conflict of interests between, say, rats and poor children we might chemically castrate the rats. Castration does not sound equal to me. The unavoidable fact that Singer and others always avoid is that there is nearly always an actual conflict of interest.<br /><br />So there has to be, sad to say, some wiggle room, some relativism. Is it immoral to have roosters fight each other but moral to house chickens in horribly crowded filthy unhealthy cages where they cannot turn around? On what basis did we decide that? Is it moral to eat meat? What if we would otherwise starve? Again a really pure vegan would starve to death, it is only their odd decision not to eat honey but to still eat the food from plants that the bees pollinate that allows them to live. <br /><br />Further, we have psychological suffering to take into account. Is it immoral to shun the rude smelly kid because causes him or her psychological suffering? What about our own suffering from being around a rude smelly kid? How do we quantify and come to an objective morality there? What about criminals and rapists and so on? They suffer in prison and from social stigmatization, and is that suffering immoral? How do we determine where the line is between a moral level of punishment and stoning people to death for drinking alcohol? How do we find an objective morality there? <br /><br />There is just a frustrating amount of grey when in comes to moral questions. This does not mean that such questions are entirely relative, but it does mean that they are not entirely objective. As usual, our habit of thinking in dualistic ways makes us wrong. wearetribalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04661000372404080503noreply@blogger.com