There are plenty of situations where violence is the correct answer. There are even situations where being the first to initiate violence is the correct answer, for example, to establish a property-ownership system and enforce against anyone being able to wander in and eat the crops you grew, even if they don’t use violence before eating.
However, in real life, initiation of violence is never the correct answer to a verbal argument you don’t like. Anyone can “imagine” exceptions to the rule, involving definite knowledge that an argument persuading other people is wrong, and (more difficult) absolute knowledge of the consequences, and (most difficult) themselves being the only people in the world who will ever pick up a gun. Except that it’s easy to forget these as conditions, if you imagine in a naively realistic way—postulate a “wrong argument” instead of your own belief that an argument is wrong, postulate “I shoot them and that makes the problem go away” instead of your own belief that these are the consequences, and just not think about anyone else being inspired to follow the same rule. Real ethical rules, however, have to apply in the case of states of knowledge, rather than states of reality. So don’t tell me about situations in which it is appropriate to respond to an argument with violence. Tell me about realistically obtainable states of belief in which it is appropriate to respond to an argument with violence.
What was the point of quoting Deuteronomy, then? The Deuteronomy quote is very specifically about introducing the worship of foreign or novel gods. Conflating this with a general decree to punish critics is a totally implausible reading to anyone who’s actually bothered to pay attention to the Bible; ancient Israelite prophets frequently claimed that Yahweh’s instructions had been wrongly construed, and that the dominant power structure (including both kings and the priesthood) was in error. They seem to have been a sufficiently protected class that kings and priests would sometimes yell at them, but rarely physically injure them.
The correct modern analogue to advocating the worship of a foreign god, is advocating cooperation with a foreign government. The contemporary analogue to stoning the person introducing the worship of foreign gods, would be imposing legal sanctions against Facebook for colluding with Russian intelligence services to manipulate American election results.
I’ve found this response to be incredibly useful in other discussions of morality. I hadn’t found it formulated elsewhere, and had been looking for something like it for a long time.
There are plenty of situations where violence is the correct answer. There are even situations where being the first to initiate violence is the correct answer, for example, to establish a property-ownership system and enforce against anyone being able to wander in and eat the crops you grew, even if they don’t use violence before eating.
However, in real life, initiation of violence is never the correct answer to a verbal argument you don’t like. Anyone can “imagine” exceptions to the rule, involving definite knowledge that an argument persuading other people is wrong, and (more difficult) absolute knowledge of the consequences, and (most difficult) themselves being the only people in the world who will ever pick up a gun. Except that it’s easy to forget these as conditions, if you imagine in a naively realistic way—postulate a “wrong argument” instead of your own belief that an argument is wrong, postulate “I shoot them and that makes the problem go away” instead of your own belief that these are the consequences, and just not think about anyone else being inspired to follow the same rule. Real ethical rules, however, have to apply in the case of states of knowledge, rather than states of reality. So don’t tell me about situations in which it is appropriate to respond to an argument with violence. Tell me about realistically obtainable states of belief in which it is appropriate to respond to an argument with violence.
What was the point of quoting Deuteronomy, then? The Deuteronomy quote is very specifically about introducing the worship of foreign or novel gods. Conflating this with a general decree to punish critics is a totally implausible reading to anyone who’s actually bothered to pay attention to the Bible; ancient Israelite prophets frequently claimed that Yahweh’s instructions had been wrongly construed, and that the dominant power structure (including both kings and the priesthood) was in error. They seem to have been a sufficiently protected class that kings and priests would sometimes yell at them, but rarely physically injure them.
The correct modern analogue to advocating the worship of a foreign god, is advocating cooperation with a foreign government. The contemporary analogue to stoning the person introducing the worship of foreign gods, would be imposing legal sanctions against Facebook for colluding with Russian intelligence services to manipulate American election results.
I’ve found this response to be incredibly useful in other discussions of morality. I hadn’t found it formulated elsewhere, and had been looking for something like it for a long time.