Is it just me or do some people have trouble understanding ethical debate, and confuse this with the personal morality of the questioner? It is almost as if they don't really understand how to debate works at all. Instead they treat is simply a way to express a narrative, and get irritate if an counter narrative is expressed. It is probably becuase people aren't used to defending positions they don't hold like you would have to do in formal debating.
Yet at some point they were convinced of their position either independent or through some conditioning. However I'd expect independent thinker to be able to handler counter narratives.
Personal morality is linked emotional motors like empathy based on how the individual sees the world baring in mind the experiences they may have. Ethical theory is about weighing up different positions and outcomes in scenarios based on harm. Often there are no easy answers. Some scenarios are so complex you are dealing with probability of outcome based of probability on outcome.
Some people consider certain subjects so taboo that even discussing them is considered off limits. Unless it is within a very narrow politically correct narrative. This is not really testing the ethics of this position.
I think there fatal flaw in thinking that by diminishing discussion on "dangerous" ideas such as bigotry, that makes those ideas go away. When in reality it is engagement and discourse that is more effective. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Not when ideas can't be challenged, you can go from one form of bigotry to another.
14 Oct 2016, 1:14 pm
