It seems to me that there are a minuscule number of circumstances where yelling insults that fall afoul of the fundamental attribution error is going to have positive consequences taking everything into account.
I got the impression from OP that the “condemned condition vs. disease” dichotomy primarily manifests itself as society’s general attitudes, a categorization that determines people’s modes of reasoning about a condition. I think the Sandy example was exaggerated for the purpose of illustration and Yvain probably does not advocate yelling insults in real life.
If someone is already in a a woeful condition it is unlikely that harsh treatment does any good, for all the reasons you wonderfully wrapped up. But nonetheless an alcoholic has to expect a great deal of silent and implied condemnation and a greatly altered disposition towards him from society—a predictable deterrence. Another very important factor is the makeup of the memepool about alcoholism. If the notion that drinking leads to “wrecking one’s life” and “losing human dignity” thoroughly permeates society, an alcoholic candidate may be more likely to attempt overcoming their addiction or seeking help.
The OP only presented a model that tells us what factors could make condemnation net positive. The personal negative effects were actually presented as something to be weighed together with social positive effects; you expanded on the personal effects side of the equation.
UPDATE: After some further thinking I have to say that “just be nice to everyone” is better than Yvain’s model, in real life. There are just too many possible failure modes. You have to be simultaneously right about
Whether the condition is good or bad (I’m using Eliezer’s framework of morality). Today’s condemned condition might be tomorrow’s valued condition.
Whether there are any relevant actions that cause the condition at all. It’s been a prevalent idea that personal actions and/or peer pressure causes homosexuality, which idea caused great harm (even if homosexuality really was a moral wrong, if we knew its cause was independent from personal actions we wouldn’t ideally condemn homosexuals).
What actions really cause the condition. Currently the majority of people are utterly wrong about what causes obesity and what cures it. You condemn obese people, expect them to do some actions in order to loose weight, so the obese person proceeds to do those actions, only to find out they don’t work, which makes them internalize their “character flaw’” and makes you condemn them even more, because “they just haven’t the willpower”.
And besides all of this, you have to correctly weigh positives (which are enormously difficult to estimate) against negatives (which are enormously difficult to estimate, as we’ve seen in JenniferRM’s great comment).
I got the impression from OP that the “condemned condition vs. disease” dichotomy primarily manifests itself as society’s general attitudes, a categorization that determines people’s modes of reasoning about a condition. I think the Sandy example was exaggerated for the purpose of illustration and Yvain probably does not advocate yelling insults in real life.
If someone is already in a a woeful condition it is unlikely that harsh treatment does any good, for all the reasons you wonderfully wrapped up. But nonetheless an alcoholic has to expect a great deal of silent and implied condemnation and a greatly altered disposition towards him from society—a predictable deterrence. Another very important factor is the makeup of the memepool about alcoholism. If the notion that drinking leads to “wrecking one’s life” and “losing human dignity” thoroughly permeates society, an alcoholic candidate may be more likely to attempt overcoming their addiction or seeking help.
The OP only presented a model that tells us what factors could make condemnation net positive. The personal negative effects were actually presented as something to be weighed together with social positive effects; you expanded on the personal effects side of the equation.
UPDATE: After some further thinking I have to say that “just be nice to everyone” is better than Yvain’s model, in real life. There are just too many possible failure modes. You have to be simultaneously right about
Whether the condition is good or bad (I’m using Eliezer’s framework of morality). Today’s condemned condition might be tomorrow’s valued condition.
Whether there are any relevant actions that cause the condition at all. It’s been a prevalent idea that personal actions and/or peer pressure causes homosexuality, which idea caused great harm (even if homosexuality really was a moral wrong, if we knew its cause was independent from personal actions we wouldn’t ideally condemn homosexuals).
What actions really cause the condition. Currently the majority of people are utterly wrong about what causes obesity and what cures it. You condemn obese people, expect them to do some actions in order to loose weight, so the obese person proceeds to do those actions, only to find out they don’t work, which makes them internalize their “character flaw’” and makes you condemn them even more, because “they just haven’t the willpower”.
And besides all of this, you have to correctly weigh positives (which are enormously difficult to estimate) against negatives (which are enormously difficult to estimate, as we’ve seen in JenniferRM’s great comment).