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It's true that I'm counting relevance to the topic in the conversation. Given that these are replies to a thread with a normative statement, the responses are e
by Locke1689 16y ago
It's true that I'm counting relevance to the topic in the conversation. Given that these are replies to a thread with a normative statement, the responses are either a fallacy or completely off-topic. I chose the more charitable interpretation.
- chc 16y agoAs far as I can tell, it was neither fallacious nor completely off-topic. It was a response to the logical argument, "We should not do this because this is slavery, and we know slavery is wrong." This is a valid argument, so they were replying that the argument is factually unsound, which is a descriptive sub-issue within the larger normative question. If we are not allowed to debate the facts and can only debate the normative conclusions, arguments almost invariably devolve into emotional shouting matches.
- Locke1689 16y agoActually, I think that whether or not something can be called "slavery" is irrelevant to whether or not it is wrong. If it shares the same moral violations that our conventional idea of slavery does then it is wrong, but not because it is called slavery but because it violates the same moral or ethical precepts. If it could be called slavery but doesn't violate these precepts then it is not a moral wrong. This is actually slightly related to Socrates' question in Plato's Euthyphro.