Let me get this right. Currently, if I’m following this correctly, I’m being told that I ought to feel guilty for controlling women, despite the verifiable (and falsifiable, I think) belief I hold that it is a fact that I have never behaved in the alleged patriarchal, controlling, caging, nefarious manners towards women which I am being accused of in higher parent comments, and that I have always done my best not to behave in such a manner and to behave in an optimal-expected-happiness manner that values happiness equally for all members of a relationship?
Sorry about the long complicated sentence, I’m having a hard time expressing this in simpler ways.
I have never behaved in the alleged patriarchal, controlling, caging, nefarious manners towards women which I am being accused of
No. By eridu’s argument, this is a category error. Nothing about your behavior, beliefs etc. could have changed the fact that you are ‘oppressing’ people, for some meaning of ‘oppression’. Your status as “patriarchal, controlling, caging, nefarious, etc.” is simply ascribed, in a quasi-tautological way.
Yes, I do think this is “The Worst² Argument in the World”. It basically amounts to dogma-based emotional manipulation.
Well… a slightly more charitable way to represent eridu’s argument, IMO, would be something like this:
“I believe that you are sincere in your belief that you have never engaged in these nefarious behaviors which you’d just enumerated. Nonetheless, you do engage in many such behaviors, not because you are some mustachio-twirling villain, but because you see such behaviors as normal or even beneficial. You say that you have always done your best to avoid such actions, and I believe you, but your best simply isn’t good enough”.
Keeping in mind that my accusations and eridu’s would differ—it is always the case that you could do more. As I said, this is not a particularly interesting or compelling argument.
Almost all social behaviors reinforce the social norms to some extent. Sort of like Eliezer’s discussion of wearing the clown suit (which I can’t find just this moment).
No, TimS is asserting that you, and the rest of the humans, should feel guilty for living in a society where bad things systematically happen to people. This is at least in part because feeling guilty will motivate you to transform society into one in which those things don’t happen.
Also, gender might be relevant somehow—I’m slightly unclear on that part.
I think that is a fake justification for feeling guilt. I very much doubt that search setting out to find the optimal way to mobilize humanity against oppression would spit out “make everyone feel guilty”, when that also happens to be the output of the badly flawed moral feelings system.
Yes, I’m highly doubtful on the value of guilt trips as a tactical tool. I’m have this vague meta (and therefore mostly pointless) discussion about my frustrations about eridu’s tactics and goals—and the rest of y’all are taking me seriously on the object level.
Ceteris paribus, it is better to not feel guilty and to do better whenever you find a better way to do things, than to feel guilty and do better whenever you find a better way to do things, IMO. By that logic, I can in good conscience never feel guilty about the world I live in despite correcting for scope insensitivity, and thus still survive and not break down in a fit of guilt overload that would lead to suicide despite aware knowledge of all the horrible stuff that happens all the time.
the verifiable (and falsifiable, I think) belief I hold that it is a fact that I have never behaved in the alleged patriarchal, controlling, caging, nefarious manners towards women which I am being accused of in higher parent comments, and that I have always done my best not to behave in such a manner and to behave in an optimal-expected-happiness manner that values happiness equally for all members of a relationship?
If you haven’t read a lot of radical feminism and gone through a long process of unlearning patriarchy, I think I can provide evidence of your behaving in a way that perpetuates the patriarchy. To do this I’d have to watch you in person for a while, but if you want to answer this question without that happening, you can just read lots of feminism (even liberal feminism will work for this, I suggest starting with bell hooks and building up to some Dworkin) and reflect on your past behavior.
And yes, if you perpetuate the patriarchy, you should feel guilty. I might get to explain why later, but I’m getting downvoted so often that I can only respond once every few minutes, so you’ll have to bear with me. If I do, it’ll be higher in this thread.
If you haven’t read a lot of biblical literature and gone through a long process of unlearning your Fallen and sinful nature, and accepting Jesus as your Lord and savior, I think I can provide evidence of your behaving in a way that perpetuates sin in this world. To do this I’d have to watch you in person for a while, but if you want to answer this question without that happening, you can just read lots of the Bible (even modern translations of the Bible will work for this, I suggest starting with the Gospel of John and building up to some Letters from Paul) and reflect on your past behavior.
And yes, if you perpetuate sinfulness, you should feel guilty. I might get to explain why later, but I’m getting downvoted so often that I can only respond once every few minutes, so you’ll have to bear with me. If I do, it’ll be higher in this thread.
I mean, I don’t have a horse in this race, but this can just as easily be “If you haven’t read a lot of cognitive science and statistics and gone through a long process of unlearning your irrational and corrupted-hardware nature, and identifying the importance of rationality, I think I can provide evidence of your behaving in a way that perpetuates irrationality in this world. To do this I’d have to watch you in person for a while, but if you want to answer this question without that happening, you can just read lots of the literature on heuristics and biases (even frequentism will work for this....”
This sort of superficial pattern-matching proves nothing. It really is true that most people who don’t put effort into improving beyond the cultural baseline are most likely perpetuating the irrational biases of their culture, even if they think they’re thinking perfectly clearly; the fact that it pattern-matches your bit about the Bible doesn’t change that.
No, the bit that pattern-matches is that “patriarchy”, “oppression”, “privilege” and the like have no consistent definition, just like “sinfulness”. Also, rationalists don’t try to guilt-trip you into overcoming your biases and becoming more rational (unless you count some of the efficient-charity advocacy as akin to guilt-tripping). It really is a pseudo-religious argument.
(nods) If your comment had been clearer about your objection being to the ill-defined nature of key terms and to the use of guilt as a means of manipulating behavior, I would not have reacted as I did. But that was far from clear.
Mmm. I sympathize, but I don’t think this is likely to be very helpful; as this blog post by Yvain mentions, the Courtier’s Reply is a lot less obviously fallacious than it might naively seem. That is, it’s generally unlikely to convince anyone that’s not unusually vulnerable to an argument from authority, but there are situations where it’s appropriate too.
I’m not sure what Yvain’s proposed solution might indicate in this context, though. It seems likely to me that estimations of who’s being “smart and rational” here are so closely bound to political tribalism that reading works on gender by people you already admire would tend to reinforce existing beliefs more than it’d lead them to converge; there aren’t many well-respected writers on gender, on any side of the issue, who’re greatly accomplished in other fields. With the possible exception of evolutionary psychology, and as others have mentioned there are good reasons to doubt its prescriptions here.
Let me get this right. Currently, if I’m following this correctly, I’m being told that I ought to feel guilty for controlling women, despite the verifiable (and falsifiable, I think) belief I hold that it is a fact that I have never behaved in the alleged patriarchal, controlling, caging, nefarious manners towards women which I am being accused of in higher parent comments, and that I have always done my best not to behave in such a manner and to behave in an optimal-expected-happiness manner that values happiness equally for all members of a relationship?
Sorry about the long complicated sentence, I’m having a hard time expressing this in simpler ways.
No. By eridu’s argument, this is a category error. Nothing about your behavior, beliefs etc. could have changed the fact that you are ‘oppressing’ people, for some meaning of ‘oppression’. Your status as “patriarchal, controlling, caging, nefarious, etc.” is simply ascribed, in a quasi-tautological way.
Yes, I do think this is “The Worst² Argument in the World”. It basically amounts to dogma-based emotional manipulation.
Well… a slightly more charitable way to represent eridu’s argument, IMO, would be something like this:
“I believe that you are sincere in your belief that you have never engaged in these nefarious behaviors which you’d just enumerated. Nonetheless, you do engage in many such behaviors, not because you are some mustachio-twirling villain, but because you see such behaviors as normal or even beneficial. You say that you have always done your best to avoid such actions, and I believe you, but your best simply isn’t good enough”.
Ah, thanks!
Keeping in mind that my accusations and eridu’s would differ—it is always the case that you could do more. As I said, this is not a particularly interesting or compelling argument.
Almost all social behaviors reinforce the social norms to some extent. Sort of like Eliezer’s discussion of wearing the clown suit (which I can’t find just this moment).
No, TimS is asserting that you, and the rest of the humans, should feel guilty for living in a society where bad things systematically happen to people. This is at least in part because feeling guilty will motivate you to transform society into one in which those things don’t happen.
Also, gender might be relevant somehow—I’m slightly unclear on that part.
I think that is a fake justification for feeling guilt. I very much doubt that search setting out to find the optimal way to mobilize humanity against oppression would spit out “make everyone feel guilty”, when that also happens to be the output of the badly flawed moral feelings system.
Yes, I’m highly doubtful on the value of guilt trips as a tactical tool. I’m have this vague meta (and therefore mostly pointless) discussion about my frustrations about eridu’s tactics and goals—and the rest of y’all are taking me seriously on the object level.
This makes things a lot clearer. I agree.
Ceteris paribus, it is better to not feel guilty and to do better whenever you find a better way to do things, than to feel guilty and do better whenever you find a better way to do things, IMO. By that logic, I can in good conscience never feel guilty about the world I live in despite correcting for scope insensitivity, and thus still survive and not break down in a fit of guilt overload that would lead to suicide despite aware knowledge of all the horrible stuff that happens all the time.
Oh, sorry.
Indeed
Gender was just the original topic. This discussion about guilt/culpability is about social change generally.
If you haven’t read a lot of radical feminism and gone through a long process of unlearning patriarchy, I think I can provide evidence of your behaving in a way that perpetuates the patriarchy. To do this I’d have to watch you in person for a while, but if you want to answer this question without that happening, you can just read lots of feminism (even liberal feminism will work for this, I suggest starting with bell hooks and building up to some Dworkin) and reflect on your past behavior.
And yes, if you perpetuate the patriarchy, you should feel guilty. I might get to explain why later, but I’m getting downvoted so often that I can only respond once every few minutes, so you’ll have to bear with me. If I do, it’ll be higher in this thread.
If you haven’t read a lot of biblical literature and gone through a long process of unlearning your Fallen and sinful nature, and accepting Jesus as your Lord and savior, I think I can provide evidence of your behaving in a way that perpetuates sin in this world. To do this I’d have to watch you in person for a while, but if you want to answer this question without that happening, you can just read lots of the Bible (even modern translations of the Bible will work for this, I suggest starting with the Gospel of John and building up to some Letters from Paul) and reflect on your past behavior.
And yes, if you perpetuate sinfulness, you should feel guilty. I might get to explain why later, but I’m getting downvoted so often that I can only respond once every few minutes, so you’ll have to bear with me. If I do, it’ll be higher in this thread.
Oh, come on.
I mean, I don’t have a horse in this race, but this can just as easily be “If you haven’t read a lot of cognitive science and statistics and gone through a long process of unlearning your irrational and corrupted-hardware nature, and identifying the importance of rationality, I think I can provide evidence of your behaving in a way that perpetuates irrationality in this world. To do this I’d have to watch you in person for a while, but if you want to answer this question without that happening, you can just read lots of the literature on heuristics and biases (even frequentism will work for this....”
This sort of superficial pattern-matching proves nothing. It really is true that most people who don’t put effort into improving beyond the cultural baseline are most likely perpetuating the irrational biases of their culture, even if they think they’re thinking perfectly clearly; the fact that it pattern-matches your bit about the Bible doesn’t change that.
No, the bit that pattern-matches is that “patriarchy”, “oppression”, “privilege” and the like have no consistent definition, just like “sinfulness”. Also, rationalists don’t try to guilt-trip you into overcoming your biases and becoming more rational (unless you count some of the efficient-charity advocacy as akin to guilt-tripping). It really is a pseudo-religious argument.
(nods) If your comment had been clearer about your objection being to the ill-defined nature of key terms and to the use of guilt as a means of manipulating behavior, I would not have reacted as I did. But that was far from clear.
Many of my friends and family remain Christians. On their behalf I claim offense.
Mmm. I sympathize, but I don’t think this is likely to be very helpful; as this blog post by Yvain mentions, the Courtier’s Reply is a lot less obviously fallacious than it might naively seem. That is, it’s generally unlikely to convince anyone that’s not unusually vulnerable to an argument from authority, but there are situations where it’s appropriate too.
I’m not sure what Yvain’s proposed solution might indicate in this context, though. It seems likely to me that estimations of who’s being “smart and rational” here are so closely bound to political tribalism that reading works on gender by people you already admire would tend to reinforce existing beliefs more than it’d lead them to converge; there aren’t many well-respected writers on gender, on any side of the issue, who’re greatly accomplished in other fields. With the possible exception of evolutionary psychology, and as others have mentioned there are good reasons to doubt its prescriptions here.