Thank you, Helen. Debate used to serve the purpose of training us to argue rationally and consistently. Unfortunately, at least in the States, high school and college debate have largely been perverted so that the "right" side in the judges' minds win. What a terrible loss.
“We just have to be able to justify those intuitions with a well-reasoned argument.”
But, as Popper argued, justifications are logically impossible because they lead to an infinite regress (each justification requires a further justification and so on…). All we can do is criticize moral intuitions we believe are faulty and then see if our criticisms withstand criticisms in turn.
I should probably finish reading before I comment.
But I can’t resist.
In general the issue I have with liberalism generally is that moral judgment of anything/everything for liberals seems to be subordinate to liberal ideology.
Anything liberal = good and illiberal = bad.
It’s frustrating. Things should be evaluated on their own merit regardless of weather they lead to a liberal or illiberal outcome.
I think intuition and disgust are often excellent indicators of what’s health or unhealthy.
But that's just coherent. I am explicitly arguing from a liberal framework so I do evaluate things as good or bad depending on whether they are liberal or not. That's what I consider to have merit. There is no objective marker of merit outside of an ethical framework. Things have to be good for something or bad for something. In the same way, you could not ask someone's whose ethical framework is Christian to evaluate something as morally good or bad on its own merits outside of whether it is Christian. That would be to evaluate it by some other framework or somebody else's idea of merits.
Yes it is coherent. Too coherent if you ask me. I feel that is overly rigorously logical, and therefore incongruent with the deeper truth that life is full of paradox and contradiction.
If something is wrong, even if labelling it wrong leads to an illiberal conclusion, then liberalism must bend.
Otherwise you are a fanatic. Same with Christianity. Or Islam. Our world has been taken over by liberal fanatics, imo.
Hence, we have the pornification, transgenderism, rampant drug use etc. because to meaningfully curtail these things would be illiberal, the liberal connot oppose them, and therefore they must be allowed. Which to me, is fanatical. Which is why I am not a liberal.
I feel strongly the the logical, rationalist, materialist liberal has totally dominated our society to an unhealthy extreme. In my opinion.
Aha! Precisely my point. It seems to me, that baked into liberalism is a requirement that the credentialed experts substantially agree on what constitutes harming someone else (for example mass distribution of searchable databases of terrifying pornography to curious teens and children) based on “the data” and “the studies” (of dubious merit and methodology), and since nearly nothing meets this impossibly high and subjective standard, liberals are effectively unable to say “NO, we will not tolerate this”. Which has led to the collapse of our culture. And that’s a major and inherent flaw, which is why I’m not a liberal. Thank you for listening to my rant. Best wishes and congratulations on your continued recovery !❤️🩹
Bit scared to suggest it, but I think there is a possibility of feeling positive about controlled numbers of wealthy skilled migrants who contribute and large numbers of destitute unskilled migrants arriving in an uncontrolled manner from cultural systems which do not align with our rights and freedoms, entering a system where there is no requirement to integrate and an awareness of significant harms done by persons from that same culture/belief system. I think it would be reasonable to feel a sliding scale of positive views towards these two situations which would to some extent likely correlate with the adjectival attributes of said group. And of course baseline human is to reject the other so we are pushing against our ape brains as we decide to update ancient wiring (or not) depending on perceived threat level and many other extrinsic and intrinsic factors.
Another excellent piece of clear thinking modelled for the rest of us Helen. Thank you. For those, like me, who are very highly motivated to learn how to think in such clear, honest ways more consistently, do you have any recommendations for books/courses which would help people to acquire and practise the sort of thinking you demonstrate in your Substack, perhaps with clear definitions and examples of the sort of conceptual terms you often use e.g. first principles, motivated reasoning etc.?
You could try ' The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion' by Jonathan Haidt - he who is leading the charge on reducing social media/phone use by kids. And of course keep reading HP.
I also like this take - it’s helped me to avoid wasting energy on bad faith actors (you could repace ‘conspiracy theories’ with ‘bad/emotional reasoning’ of the sort your article focuses on):
The first step is to determine whether they are a reliable actor, interested in the world...... or if their interest is merely feeling better about themselves - psychological survival. To the latter, conspiracy theories can have great emotional/psychological appeal - pure, strong copium that eases the pain of problems to do with - self (insecurity, doubt, fear of failure); others (fear, zenophobia); and the World (epistemic matters; the need for certainty in an uncertain world). Specifically, conspiracy theories can supply certainty, where there is overwhelming anxiety (a sure path when one feels lost); prestige, where there are self-esteem problems (‘I possess important information most people do not have) & ability ('I have the power to reject “experts” and expose hidden cabals'); vindication when one feels besieged (my ‘enemies’ are wrong, morally, scientifically)'; connection when one feels alone; and liberation:, 'If I imagine my foes are completely malevolent, then I can use any tactic I want'.
Thank you, Helen. Debate used to serve the purpose of training us to argue rationally and consistently. Unfortunately, at least in the States, high school and college debate have largely been perverted so that the "right" side in the judges' minds win. What a terrible loss.
Brits who move to Spain should learn to speak Spanish!!!
My brother lives in Sweden with his Swedish wife, and he is progressing well at learning Swedish.
That being said I thoroughly enjoyed your essay.
On the hijab I'm generally pluralist, but I do think there is a veritable laundry list of good reasons for banning it in schools for the under 16s.
“We just have to be able to justify those intuitions with a well-reasoned argument.”
But, as Popper argued, justifications are logically impossible because they lead to an infinite regress (each justification requires a further justification and so on…). All we can do is criticize moral intuitions we believe are faulty and then see if our criticisms withstand criticisms in turn.
I should probably finish reading before I comment.
But I can’t resist.
In general the issue I have with liberalism generally is that moral judgment of anything/everything for liberals seems to be subordinate to liberal ideology.
Anything liberal = good and illiberal = bad.
It’s frustrating. Things should be evaluated on their own merit regardless of weather they lead to a liberal or illiberal outcome.
I think intuition and disgust are often excellent indicators of what’s health or unhealthy.
But that's just coherent. I am explicitly arguing from a liberal framework so I do evaluate things as good or bad depending on whether they are liberal or not. That's what I consider to have merit. There is no objective marker of merit outside of an ethical framework. Things have to be good for something or bad for something. In the same way, you could not ask someone's whose ethical framework is Christian to evaluate something as morally good or bad on its own merits outside of whether it is Christian. That would be to evaluate it by some other framework or somebody else's idea of merits.
Yes it is coherent. Too coherent if you ask me. I feel that is overly rigorously logical, and therefore incongruent with the deeper truth that life is full of paradox and contradiction.
If something is wrong, even if labelling it wrong leads to an illiberal conclusion, then liberalism must bend.
Otherwise you are a fanatic. Same with Christianity. Or Islam. Our world has been taken over by liberal fanatics, imo.
Hence, we have the pornification, transgenderism, rampant drug use etc. because to meaningfully curtail these things would be illiberal, the liberal connot oppose them, and therefore they must be allowed. Which to me, is fanatical. Which is why I am not a liberal.
I feel strongly the the logical, rationalist, materialist liberal has totally dominated our society to an unhealthy extreme. In my opinion.
I shall continue to fanatically leave other people alone unless they’re hurting anyone else.
Aha! Precisely my point. It seems to me, that baked into liberalism is a requirement that the credentialed experts substantially agree on what constitutes harming someone else (for example mass distribution of searchable databases of terrifying pornography to curious teens and children) based on “the data” and “the studies” (of dubious merit and methodology), and since nearly nothing meets this impossibly high and subjective standard, liberals are effectively unable to say “NO, we will not tolerate this”. Which has led to the collapse of our culture. And that’s a major and inherent flaw, which is why I’m not a liberal. Thank you for listening to my rant. Best wishes and congratulations on your continued recovery !❤️🩹
Bit scared to suggest it, but I think there is a possibility of feeling positive about controlled numbers of wealthy skilled migrants who contribute and large numbers of destitute unskilled migrants arriving in an uncontrolled manner from cultural systems which do not align with our rights and freedoms, entering a system where there is no requirement to integrate and an awareness of significant harms done by persons from that same culture/belief system. I think it would be reasonable to feel a sliding scale of positive views towards these two situations which would to some extent likely correlate with the adjectival attributes of said group. And of course baseline human is to reject the other so we are pushing against our ape brains as we decide to update ancient wiring (or not) depending on perceived threat level and many other extrinsic and intrinsic factors.
Another excellent piece of clear thinking modelled for the rest of us Helen. Thank you. For those, like me, who are very highly motivated to learn how to think in such clear, honest ways more consistently, do you have any recommendations for books/courses which would help people to acquire and practise the sort of thinking you demonstrate in your Substack, perhaps with clear definitions and examples of the sort of conceptual terms you often use e.g. first principles, motivated reasoning etc.?
Thank you, Julian!
You could try ' The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion' by Jonathan Haidt - he who is leading the charge on reducing social media/phone use by kids. And of course keep reading HP.
Oh, yes, of course! And Jonathan Rauch’s Kindly Inquisitors. These aren’t primers for reasoning but do cover the main problems we run into.
Edited to correct to "Rauch." There are also good books on the subject by people not called "Jonathan."
Thanks, I’ll look into the other Jonathan.
I also like this take - it’s helped me to avoid wasting energy on bad faith actors (you could repace ‘conspiracy theories’ with ‘bad/emotional reasoning’ of the sort your article focuses on):
The first step is to determine whether they are a reliable actor, interested in the world...... or if their interest is merely feeling better about themselves - psychological survival. To the latter, conspiracy theories can have great emotional/psychological appeal - pure, strong copium that eases the pain of problems to do with - self (insecurity, doubt, fear of failure); others (fear, zenophobia); and the World (epistemic matters; the need for certainty in an uncertain world). Specifically, conspiracy theories can supply certainty, where there is overwhelming anxiety (a sure path when one feels lost); prestige, where there are self-esteem problems (‘I possess important information most people do not have) & ability ('I have the power to reject “experts” and expose hidden cabals'); vindication when one feels besieged (my ‘enemies’ are wrong, morally, scientifically)'; connection when one feels alone; and liberation:, 'If I imagine my foes are completely malevolent, then I can use any tactic I want'.