Popular Post Dante Posted June 10, 2015 Popular Post Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 (edited) I think this discussion has missed what I see to be the money quote from that Swift interview, and it's not the one where he says that parents should think about how they're disadvantaging others by reading to their kids. He's describing the fundamental task of the philosophical work under discussion, and he describes it like this: ‘What we realised we needed was a way of thinking about what it was we wanted to allow parents to do for their children, and what it was that we didn’t need to allow parents to do for their children, if allowing those activities would create unfairnesses for other people’s children’. He assumes that the moral default is perfect equality, and that any deviation from this outcome has to be justified on some independent moral grounds. He does indeed think that many parenting activities (such as bedtime reading) can be justified on independent grounds such as 'familial relationship goods,' but it's not the specifics of what he wants to allow or forbid that I find most troublesome. It's his overall approach, in which the default choice is to forbid any activities that produce inequality of outcomes, unless we have some independent reason for keeping them. In effect, he accepts Plato's framework of total state power over the family, but argues that it should refrain in some cases from using it (it always decides what to 'allow' or not, but it should allow certain independently justifiable activities). It reminds me a lot of Rawl's approach to distributional justice, where the default seems to be perfect equality of resources, and deviations from that standard have to be justified on the basis of making the poorest better off. If I recall correctly, Rawls was trying to defend some elements of liberalism from the assault by egalitarianism (much like Swift seems to want to defend certain familial goods against total equality of opportunity), but his basic approach was to assume egalitarianism as the moral default and carve out exceptions to it. Needless to say, I find this approach to be immensely flawed. Whether or not Swift would personally advocate for banning private school or not seems to me to be beside the point. Under his framework, all family activity is guilty until proven innocent. That is what is wrong with his approach, far more than the specifics of what activities he thinks are innocent or guilty. Edited June 10, 2015 by Dante Clarity JASKN, StrictlyLogical, Plasmatic and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2046 Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 (edited) What in reality is the cognitive usefulness of the "ideological Turing test" as you explain it other than merely to parrot, the "words" used to express the position of the opposition: note that some positions are wrong, incoherent, illogical, based on false premises etc. What purpose does it serve for the "partisan" as you put it, to pretend to hold wrong positions, or pretend to possess concepts which are incoherent, pretend to "think" in a manner which is illogical, or pretend to hold false premises? Certainly during a discourse one can "repeat" what another has said, even outline their premises and logic (with all its flaws) in order to ensure you have the whole story before you proceed to decimate it (when wrong) or applaud it (when correct), but in the larger scheme who cares whether a "partisan" would or could "pretend" (and there is no doubt about it, this test is about pretending, not merely understanding) to support the other side ? Simply put, pretending achieves nothing, and it's not bad that people are not willing or interested to do so. Pretend to Support the following (Anselm's ontological argument) and you will note how ridiculous and irrelevant such an exercise is (I'm not actually asking you to do this as I believe it is a waste of time, I merely want to illustrate such is a waste of time): It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined). God exists as an idea in the mind. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist). But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.) Therefore, God exists. Because you want to respond to what someone actually said instead of making something up or accusing them of saying something other than what they said. Which seems to be your speciality I see. Argument is not beyond the realm of ethics, my friend. Like I said life is too short for that. Why do that? Edited June 10, 2015 by 2046 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonAthos Posted June 10, 2015 Report Share Posted June 10, 2015 Certainly, there is much to be said for academic language versus ordinary language meaning, and I think it's a valid argument to say that academics should strive for concision and everyday language. That being said, I don't think the authors mean what objectivists mean with a lot of what you guys have pointed to. For example, the title "unfair advantage" I don't think is egalitarian code speak for sneaking in altruism and a "duty to live for others," I mean I just saw a YouTube ad for weightlifters getting an "unfair advantage" by using their product. People use that phrase in ways other than what Rand would mean by criticizing "hatred of the good." Some people may use the phrase "unfair advantage" in ways Rand would not criticize, but in referencing the supposedly unfair advantages that things like private school conveys, this article is observing what it considers to be a problem that needs to be corrected. The article asks whether, because bedtime reading also confers advantage, it needs to be curbed. That it comes down against curbing that particular advantage is meaningful (due to "familial relationship goods"), but it also helps us to understand that the fact of the advantage itself is regarded as negative. Whether you recognize it or not, that's the very sort of egalitarianism that Rand would/did criticize. There's nothing wrong with being concerned about the welfare of others either. No, there's nothing wrong with being concerned about the welfare of others. If someone's made that argument here, I must have missed it. I've certainly not claimed anything like that. (Unless you're demonstrating what a "straw man" looks like for rhetorical purpose?) Yes family units are deemed questionable. By Plato. At the beginning of the article. And also by the professor in portions I've already quoted, such as here: For Swift and Brighouse, our society is curiously stuck in a time warp of proprietorial rights: if you biologically produce a child you own it. ‘We think that although in practice it makes sense to parent your biological offspring, that is not the same as saying that in virtue of having produced the child the biological parent has the right to parent.’ So there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, there's good arguments and there's bad arguments. If the author is saying one thing, and that's a bad argument, then it's wrong. If he's saying private schools should be abolished, and so forth, then hey that's wrong. If he means something else, and is in fact an Aristotelian arguing for the family and in favor of book reading and opposing the viewpoint you don't like, then hey, the article is downright libertarian and individualistic. Yes, if the author was saying things other than what he was saying, he might mean different things. So there's another argument to be made against what can be called Randroidism here, that is, against this kind of echo chamber of reading altruism and man hating egalitarians around every corner, reading the most uncharitable interpretation in order to find the ghosts you are looking for, throwing around red meat in order to heroically defeat straw men, and refusing to see the other point of view or even read the article, throwing around click baiting quotes that are brazenly out of context. While this might happen at times, here or elsewhere, in this case the article is representative of egalitarianism, not as a product of any "echo chamber" reading, but by virtue of the things it says. Perhaps you're so used to arguing against "Randroids" that you can't see these things clearly when they occur. There's an argument to be made against that, too. It all contributes to what seems to me like the GOPization of objectivism. And I don't think that's good. Maybe I'm not allowed to say that, maybe some people's sensitive minds need to be protected from such "insulting" points of view. Well delete it then. Life is too short. Calling those who disagree with you about the meaning of an article "Randroids" is insulting, obviously, and regardless of whether or not it is officially moderated you should strive to do better than that. It degrades reasonable discussion. You may not think that the "GOPization of objectivism" is good, but then you don't yet understand the meaning of this article, and you are yourself giving the most uncharitable reading to every reply you receive. If you are going to adopt a critical stance here, it might be best to avoid becoming the very type of person you seek to criticize. If you would like Objectivists to be more reasonable and honest debaters, then I would ask you to demonstrate some reasonable and honest debate. Lead by example. But in any event, saying "no what about your preconceived notions man" is spectacularly missing the point. Not in this case, it's not. This is a case of motes and beams. softwareNerd 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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