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Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

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Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#291

Post by mcguire »

Clubber wrote: post #175
robonerd wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The federal government derives much of it's power over the states using a controversial interpretation of the commerce clause Given that expansive interpretations of the commerce clause seems to be the status quo, doesn't that suggest that a federal abortion law is possible? It should be easy for lawyers and politicians to find some tortured meaning of interstate commerce that includes a woman getting an abortion i…

Most of the time they just bribe the states. That's how the drinking age moving from 18 to 21 occurred. The federal government offered highway fund money (or threatened to remove it) if states increased the drinking age from 18 to 21. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_...

Everybody wants federal highway funding.

"If you want Medicare funding, you will..." could easily backfire, given that conservatives are not fond of that program either.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#292

Post by dane-pgp »

rat87 wrote: post #222
dane-pgp wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The actual Jewish tradition is against several of those I think that Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, would have something to say[0] about that: “The law, moreover, enjoins us to bring up all our offspring and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, an…

While some more traditional Jews dislike legal abortion for cases that don't relate to health/mental health and are after 40 days Jewish law is pretty clear that a fetus is not alive/a person with rights until it born and that abortion is not murder.

> Jewish law is pretty clear that ... abortion is not murder.

I don't know if you're a rabbi, but these rabbis disagree with you:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-women-express-anger-aft...

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#293

Post by guerrilla »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #278
guerrilla wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.

That was an invitation for you to comment, not to be rude :P > What you're talking about has nothing to do with what philosophers do, which is talk about how things ought to be. How is that of any use? It's not like people are going to drop what they're doing and change their morals because ethics professors said so. That would be ridiculous. > Your metaethical position is just one among very many and there are argum…

> That was an invitation for you to comment, not to be rude :)

I'm sorry, deleted my original comment. I totally misread you.

> How is that of any use? It's not like people are going to drop what they're doing and change their morals because ethics professors said so. That would be ridiculous.

Yeah, that's a question a lot of people have, but it does happen. People do read Aristotle and change their mind. People go to them with questions and they influence other academics. Overall, I'd say it's mostly not very successful and they're mostly ignored...

> You can say that against anything, really.

I meant to emphasize argumentation here, but also the lack of consensus. There's consensus in many fields, even in on many issues in philosophy.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#294

Post by gadflyinyoureye »

guerrilla wrote: post #61
h2odragon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blasphemy is alive and well! Try saying you doubt the safety and effectiveness of COVID vaccines. The reaction is the same.

No doubt, but the consequences (most places) aren't death by stoning or whatever.

Instead they are death by starvation. Many that want to close all discussion of COVID also wanted people to lose jobs. No job, no food.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#295

Post by ouid »

guerrilla wrote: post #259
ouid wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't replace Euclid's axioms. I'm sorry that you think so, because it is a common misconception that mathematics "believes in a set of axioms". The euclidean axioms are a foundation for the logical system of euclidean geometry. Eucliden geometry is not only unchanged, but is actually a system which has been proven to be consistent and decideable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarski%27s_axioms . This makes it ra…

I think you misunderstood what I said and may have demonstrated a little ignorance at the same time. Hilbert's axioms are axioms for Euclidean geometry, like Tarski's and Birkhoff's. > That which I observe exists This isn't even close to what empiricism is. You named a (very poor) ontological principle. Empiricism is a set of epistemological principles.

First point: this is why I wrote the logical system of Euclidean geometry. Propositions in that language, and the proofs therein, have not changed.

Second point: That is most definitely what empiricism is. Moreover, I have just given you a set of epistemological beliefs. It's a set with a single element, and it in fact characterizes empiricism. I don't know what else to tell you.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#296

Post by car_analogy »

ouid wrote: post #287
car_analogy wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't contradict most of what you said, except this part: > their entire moral philosophy [..] is exclusively used to justify whatever they want Unless by "want" you mean "selfishly desire or selflessly believe is the morally right thing", and not the common use of only "selfish desire".

By want I mean want. I wasn't assigning moral judgments at this point because that would have been circular. I said "whatever they want" in order to distinguish it from an unqualified "whatever". The prosperity doctrine stuff was a motivated example, but not meant to be representative.

"Want" is highly ambiguous. For example, a lawyer that believes everyone has a right to a competent legal defense may find a client personally abhorrent, but take their case anyway out of a sense of duty. It is highly misleading to describe this as the lawyer "doing whatever they want", even if that is technically true by some definition of "want", and even if the lawyer's rationalization of this is found to be internally inconsistent, or inconsistent with some other aspect of their behavior.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#297

Post by gadflyinyoureye »

MockObject wrote: post #283
dane-pgp wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose that an omniscient moral Oracle decided to reveal that the correct point before which abortions should be allowed was indeed somewhere strictly between the two bookends you mention. (Let's say that a super-majority of the public are indeed somewhere in this "middle ground", and, in a secular democracy, that's as close to an omniscient moral Oracle as you might be able to find). Now suppose that you are asked…

Would that possibly be balanced by the chance that the Oracle could find in the opposite direction later, making us retrospectively guilty as well?

What’s the guilt in that scenario. “Oops, you allowed a thing to become a person. “

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#298

Post by guerrilla »

ouid wrote: post #295
guerrilla wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstood what I said and may have demonstrated a little ignorance at the same time. Hilbert's axioms are axioms for Euclidean geometry, like Tarski's and Birkhoff's. > That which I observe exists This isn't even close to what empiricism is. You named a (very poor) ontological principle. Empiricism is a set of epistemological principles.

First point: this is why I wrote the logical system of Euclidean geometry. Propositions in that language, and the proofs therein, have not changed. Second point: That is most definitely what empiricism is. Moreover, I have just given you a set of epistemological beliefs. It's a set with a single element, and it in fact characterizes empiricism. I don't know what else to tell you.

> First point: this is why I wrote the logical system of Euclidean geometry. Propositions in that language, and the proofs therein, have not changed.

The point was that the axioms we used changed. Read further back up the thread. You're off track.

> Second point: That is most definitely what empiricism is. Moreover, I have just given you a set of epistemological beliefs. It's a set with a single element, and it in fact characterizes empiricism. I don't know what else to tell you.

No, please take an introduction to philosophy. Empericism is an epistemology, it has nothing to do with what exists which is an ontology. Ffs open Wikipedia or something. This is embarrassing Dunning-Kruger effect here.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#299

Post by dane-pgp »

MockObject wrote: post #283
dane-pgp wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose that an omniscient moral Oracle decided to reveal that the correct point before which abortions should be allowed was indeed somewhere strictly between the two bookends you mention. (Let's say that a super-majority of the public are indeed somewhere in this "middle ground", and, in a secular democracy, that's as close to an omniscient moral Oracle as you might be able to find). Now suppose that you are asked…

Would that possibly be balanced by the chance that the Oracle could find in the opposite direction later, making us retrospectively guilty as well?

Sure. Guilty of the deaths of the women who received unnecessarily dangerous and illegal abortions, guilty of the deaths in childbirth of women who otherwise would have had abortions, and guilty of something like (but less severe than) slavery for the women who had to gestate children which they didn't want to.

Someone could probably run the numbers and work out where the line should be drawn to balance out the costs of over- and under-estimating, given a uniform random distribution for where the Oracle's line could be.

Re: Why is it traitorous to understand the people you disagree with?

#300

Post by josephcsible »

mikece wrote: post #12

This blog post touches on a topic with far-reaching consequences that I think a lot of people are missing because they are focusing only on the question of abortion, and that is PRIVACY. In a nutshell, Roe makes abortion legal by guaranteeing the privacy of a woman to make that decision with her doctor. If Roe is overturned then it's this assumption of privacy which will have been vacated... and once it is I suspect…

Why would this argument not apply to any other crime that's committed in private?
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