I posted this meme to the Lemmy Shitpost community. I reckoned that it might generate a bit of debate, and would probably end up locked, but the entire post got deleted, and moreover, I’m now forbidden from sharing political posts to the community. Political posts are not against the rules of the community.
I have reason to believe that the post was deleted not because it was controversial, but because the moderator (Decoy321) disagreed with the political slant of the meme. The reason I find this suspicious is because other controversial posts, such as one about veganism remains up, and Decoy321 seemed to enjoy the fact it was controversial:
I wasn’t refuting that a lot of philosophers are deontologists. I was saying that’s irrelevant.
it’s highly relevant to your erroneous claim
“no one should entertain people who value virtue over consequence.”
the experts in the field just disagree with this stance.
Experts in philosophy are well educated in philosophy, but generally their reading and discourse choices are specifically guided by motivated reasoning more than in other fields.
Experts are just people who’ve learned a lot about a topic. While the required reading to achieve that is commendable (given the dire state of literacy these days), so do medical quacks, conspiracy theorists, and theologians and I don’t waste time debating or engaging seriously with them either.
if your position is that professional ethicists are wrong, and we shouldn’t entertain their stance, I don’t see how you’re any different from a quack or theologian.
OK, let me actually explain why I don’t think they’re worth engaging with:
Ethics are based on subjective axioms but they are motivated by certain objective beliefs about reality. Deontological and virtue ethics are both strongly motivated by a belief in free will, compatibilist or libertarian.
Both compatilism and libertarianism are akin to basically believing in magic (free will) because it feels good. And it feels bad to believe you have no free will.
But most people (including experts) believe in it anyway. Because its very human. We are evolutionary biased to believe in this fairy tale. It helps keep us motivated, the idea that we are in control of our fate (we aren’t).
And if you believe in free will, deontological or virtue ethics both make perfect sense. So most experts, who are well read and smart people, are operating on on their education but also… motivated reasoning.
If this is unconvincing to you, then yeah there is no reason for us to talk. Go ahead and think of me as a quack I don’t give a shit I don’t want to waste my time.
if the world is deterministic, ethics don’t exist.
If you wanted to goad a response from me, you’ve succeeded. That statement is false.
If we’re going to throw around experts purely as justification for a belief, Robert Sapolsky and Tapio Lappi-Seppälä would like to have a word.
Determinism also isn’t precisely the issue itself either, but I suppose its fair to bring that up given I brought up compatibilism and libertarianism. The ultimate point though is that even if the world isn’t determined, that simply means its indeterminate. That doesn’t justify a belief in free will either.
The very question of whether we have free will itself has a profound impact on ethics. Coming to the conclusion that there is no such thing as free will changes ethics, but it doesn’t cause it to cease to exist. Ethics do not rely on free will to exist. All you need for ethics to be meaningful is the existence of conscious experience(s) of a negative or positive quality.
It essentially means that, when you know that “choice” is an illusion for everyone, it means punishment and reward for their own sake makes no sense and our desire for both is just emotional catharsis with a bunch of mental gymnastics to justify it all. It however doesn’t mean suddenly that your behavior or the behavior of a body that governs reward and punishment is not influenced by the new information, or that ethical thought itself suddenly shut down.
Humans, and some other biological life forms, are just a bunch consciousness’s riding a path of physical entropy. A process with previously set rules, that none of us had any control over. No one chooses to be born. No one chooses their own mind.
if no one chooses their own mind, why are you trying to convince me of anything. it’s completely absurd.
Information changes us, whether it be dictated by deterministic or indeterministic forces.
That said, my motivation in my response’s here isn’t to change your mind. A past version of me would have been motivated by that, but I know full well that the real honest reason I’m doing this is to kill down time at work and to essentially intellectually challenge myself. (Again, because in a certain way it feels good… sometimes)
Changing people’s mind via argument is a fool’s errand. The past few US elections essentially have proven this to me. You might change 1 in 20 people’s minds via debate, and only slightly.
“If you wanted to goad a response from me”
without free will I can have no intention.
Intention exists, its just a form of information processing in your mind. Like all thoughts and motivations.
"even if the world isn’t determined, that simply means its indeterminate. "
this is such an interesting nuance that I hadn’t considered. of course it’s not relevant. if the world is somehow non-deterministic but we still don’t have free will, this whole conversation is absurd.
Existence is absurd.
"Humans, and some other biological life forms, are just a bunch consciousness’s riding a path of physical entropy.”
if this were true, fascism isn’t an evil ideology, it’s just a thing that happens and is neither good nor bad.
Its bad because Fascism causes pain and suffering. It causes death. As a policy, it makes existence worse. Fascism itself is largely its own system driven entirely by irrational and emotional thinking and catharsis of demographics with power. Its a threat response that justifies itself with a mystic ideology of a chosen or special group, one that “deserves” to be in charge over others and to dominate.
Further, “Will” is a big thing with fascists.
I don’t oppose fascism because the fascists lack virtuousness or are bad people. Why would I give a shit about that? I oppose fascism because of the consequences of fascism. I oppose fascists being tolerated because it can lead to fascism, not because I want them to suffer for their bad fascist thoughts.
I do also want to say: catharsis and the perception of having will power for one’s self are not in of them selves bad things. “Making choices” feels good, and I want people to feel good. And another thing fascism does is deprive people of their agency (which is not the same as free will btw). It deprives them of their perception of freedom.
Like I’ve said, I only care about consequences, because that’s the only rational thing to care about.