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Hmm, that's a consistent approach, but it reminds me of a hill-climbing algorithm. Don't you think we could do better? For example, it would probably be helpfu

Hmm, that's a consistent approach, but it reminds me of a hill-climbing algorithm. Don't you think we could do better? For example, it would probably be helpful to study how cultures and traditions changed in the past. At some point, some guy changed his mind from pro-slavery to anti-slavery without initially wanting to become anti-slavery. How did this happen? If we could identify the sort of thought process that leads to these novel conclusions, we could apply it to our own traditions and figure out beneficial changes.

xenophanes 17y ago
I'd be happy to do better, but I don't see any limits my approach imposes that are problematic. For slavery, I think he first noticed some kind of problem. Maybe he was a slave owner and didn't like disobedient, unproductive, or dishonest slaves. He may have at first thought this was just a problem with how he treated his own slaves that his neighbors had already fixed. So he goes and asks his neighbors about it. He's not trying to rock the boat, just make a bit more money. He finds out his neighbors have the same problem. So that pushes him in the direction of seeing it as a problem with slavery in general. But he still expects there will be a solution that keeps slavery more or less in tact. So then he looks for a solution. He tries different ways of treating his slaves and tries to figure out which result in more cotton production. As he learns about what works, it gradually leads him away from slavery. This example shows how someone could end up becoming anti-slavery by accident, just by trying to solve immediate, practical problems. There were also other ways to become opposed to slavery. For example, one could notice that slavery is an exception to widespread traditions that existed at the time. And one could wonder: what is the reason for making this exception? People did wonder that, and they had answers like that black people are less than human. But one could notice problems with those answers. They aren't very intellectually satisfying arguments and they had logical flaws. Or one might talk to a black man for an hour and notice he seems like a normal human.

xenophanes 17y ago

I'd be happy to do better, but I don't see any limits my approach imposes that are problematic. For slavery, I think he first noticed some kind of problem. Maybe he was a slave owner and didn't like disobedient, unproductive, or dishonest slaves. He may have at first thought this was just a problem with how he treated his own slaves that his neighbors had already fixed. So he goes and asks his neighbors about it. He's not trying to rock the boat, just make a bit more money. He finds out his neighbors have the same problem. So that pushes him in the direction of seeing it as a problem with slavery in general. But he still expects there will be a solution that keeps slavery more or less in tact. So then he looks for a solution. He tries different ways of treating his slaves and tries to figure out which result in more cotton production. As he learns about what works, it gradually leads him away from slavery. This example shows how someone could end up becoming anti-slavery by accident, just by trying to solve immediate, practical problems. There were also other ways to become opposed to slavery. For example, one could notice that slavery is an exception to widespread traditions that existed at the time. And one could wonder: what is the reason for making this exception? People did wonder that, and they had answers like that black people are less than human. But one could notice problems with those answers. They aren't very intellectually satisfying arguments and they had logical flaws. Or one might talk to a black man for an hour and notice he seems like a normal human.