My initial reaction to this post is not that these are necessarily bad arguments. In fact, in each case we might say that they are conceding the basic objection but saying that it is nevertheless justified. Abortion and capital punishment are justified murder, taxation is justified theft, affirmative action is justified racism, etc. The burden then shifts to the proponent of each policy for why abortion/capital punishment is different than other murder, taxation is different from other theft, affirmative action is different from other racism.
In some cases this is easier than others. I submit that showing that abortion is not “really” murder is easy if we do not have a mystical belief that life begins at conception. Capital punishment is a tough “middle” one: is the state ever justified in intentionally killing in a way that would otherwise be unjustified (ie not self defense)? On the other extreme, it’s pretty hard to show that racism is fine so long as it’s aimed at some groups and not others.
The one that doesn’t seem to fit is evo psych. Calling this “sexist” is not just “non-central”, it’s blatantly redefining terms. It’s not sexist to perceive sex as being biologically real and explanatory. It might be sexist to judge individuals based on empirically valid statistical generalizations though.
My initial reaction to this post is not that these are necessarily bad arguments. In fact, in each case we might say that they are conceding the basic objection but saying that it is nevertheless justified. Abortion and capital punishment are justified murder, taxation is justified theft, affirmative action is justified racism, etc. The burden then shifts to the proponent of each policy for why abortion/capital punishment is different than other murder, taxation is different from other theft, affirmative action is different from other racism.
In some cases this is easier than others. I submit that showing that abortion is not “really” murder is easy if we do not have a mystical belief that life begins at conception. Capital punishment is a tough “middle” one: is the state ever justified in intentionally killing in a way that would otherwise be unjustified (ie not self defense)? On the other extreme, it’s pretty hard to show that racism is fine so long as it’s aimed at some groups and not others.
The one that doesn’t seem to fit is evo psych. Calling this “sexist” is not just “non-central”, it’s blatantly redefining terms. It’s not sexist to perceive sex as being biologically real and explanatory. It might be sexist to judge individuals based on empirically valid statistical generalizations though.