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> You can’t be the one deciding if people are hurt or not, it’s their call. Are you trying to suggest that this is a dichotomy? It seems to me that the common-

by 4bpp 4y ago

> You can’t be the one deciding if people are hurt or not, it’s their call. Are you trying to suggest that this is a dichotomy? It seems to me that the common-sense position is (used to be?) that neither the person performing an action nor the person at the receiving end can be considered impartial and trusted to make that call. Either way, the idea that "being hurt" is a state that the individual has full discretion to declare themselves as being in seems incompatible with our existing widespread moral intuition that A hurting B results in a moral and potentially legal claim to redress from B towards A; otherwise, anyone could trivially claim constantly being hurt by everyone and therefore entitle themselves to an arbitrary amount of restitution. One of the two therefore has to go for society to function: either you don't get to make the call if you are hurt, or it's a priori morally neutral to hurt you.

makeitdouble 4y ago
> our existing widespread moral intuition that A hurting B results in a moral and potentially legal claim to redress from B towards A This would be the part where differ. I understand the argument, but as you point out it would lead us to a dead end. IMHO someone being hurt doesn’t mean they need reparation. As an example, people mourning are deeply hurt, and they will also be extra sensible to specific words that are mundane but resonate differently to them. We can both recognize they’re hurt, some words hit them differently, and have no redressment to them outside of sympathy perhaps. That’s an extreme example, but I would see a lot of steps on the spectrum, including for instance my boss hurting my feelings by coldly and factually pointing out how bad of a job I did. I get to decide if I’m hurt or not, but that doesn’t automatically make me a victim entitled to reparations.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > IMHO someone being hurt doesn’t mean they need reparation. There needs to be some kind of end, some kind of closure to hurt - otherwise we have a positive feedback loop that amplifies suffering and eventually turns violent. > As an example, people mourning are deeply hurt, and they will also be extra sensible to specific words that are mundane but resonate differently to them. In this and similar cases (bad breakup, loss of health or future prospects or sentimental property, etc.), other people are making a time-limited concession to let the grieving person process their experience. Beyond that time limit, one should not expect others to keep carefully controlling their language for one's sake. One should especially not count on making those concessions permanent. > That’s an extreme example, but I would see a lot of steps on the spectrum, including for instance my boss hurting my feelings by coldly and factually pointing out how bad of a job I did. Happened to me the other day, and while I did suffer internally, not for a second I thought they should've been prohibited from saying what they said, or from saying it the way they did. It's not the words that hurt me, but awareness that I'm seen as less reliable in the eyes of the other (coupled with anxiety/fear related to the prospects of my future employment).
  - ryanbrunner 4y ago
    > There needs to be some kind of end, some kind of closure to hurt - otherwise we have a positive feedback loop that amplifies suffering and eventually turns violent. I don't see why the end can't be education on the part of the person saying those words. The reasonable response to someone saying they're impacted negatively by a phrase is to find a way to rephrase it, maybe this isn't always possible, but 90% of the time it is and doing so will result in a more positive outcome for both parties pretty much always.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > I don't see why the end can't be education on the part of the person saying those words. In specific cases it can, and is, what happens. But in general case it cannot - for the reason '4bpp already phrased well upthread: > One of the two therefore has to go for society to function: either you don't get to make the call if you are hurt, or it's a priori morally neutral to hurt you. Or, put another way: you can't both 1) be able to unilaterally declare you're being hurt, and 2) expect any moral or practical response from others to you being hurt. It's either one or the other - because allowing someone to have both means giving them power to easily control and hurt others without consequence.
ryanbrunner 4y ago
That doesn't really make sense to me. Of course the person at the receiving end is capable of determining without bias what impact something had on them - practically by definition they are the only ones. If they're hurt by words, maybe it's irrational that they're hurt by them, but they still are. Assuming that they're being honest, "you weren't actually hurt by that" is a nonsensical statement - the person saying that has absolutely 0 evidence to make that call, and the hurt person has perfect knowledge. I think tying it up into legal language of restitution is a mistake, no one is advocating for legal liability or even any real punishment here.
- imgabe 4y ago
  Have you ever seen a little kid fall down? And they start bawling uncontrollably? So you go over and check them out, make sure nothing is broken, and maybe you say something like "it's all right buddy, you're ok", because they aren't actually hurt. The kid, despite having perfect knowledge, has incorrectly judged the severity of the situation. This happens with kids, because they don't have enough experience or emotional maturity to appropriately gauge their emotional responses, much like the people who write lists like this.
  - mbg721 4y ago
    With my toddler, the perfectly-okay response is "No. I am NOT okay," just to hold onto the grievance, which also happens online.
- 4bpp 4y ago
  If you define being hurt via the subjective mental state, then the statement indeed becomes trivially true, as you point out - but then it seems quite misleading to have a single word ("hurt") cover objectively measurable physical injury, qualia of pain that we understand to be a proxy for the former (and so we have, at least in the current revision of "Elimination of Harmful Language" lists, no qualms with terminology such as "phantom pain" which implies that pain which does not correspond to real injury is in some sense less legitimate), and purely psychogenic phenomena. This makes it seem like it is a matter of consistency or principledness to respond to the last category similarly to how you would to the first, even though they are not very alike. > I think tying it up into legal language of restitution is a mistake, no one is advocating for legal liability or even any real punishment here. What exactly is a "real punishment"? It seems like there are certainly calls for extrajudicial liability, insofar as there is no shortage of examples where people call for damage to be done to those who "engage in harmful behaviours" (referring to hurtful words) that is in excess of what would be necessary to stop the "harmful behaviours" and more seems to be aimed at causing disutility to someone who is taken to deserve it. I assume that a Stanford employee, in any capacity, who refuses to abide by this guideline and draws any amount of attention in the process would find themselves at the receiving end of the actions of a large number of people who would try to get them fired rather quickly. Is this not a real punishment?

by 4bpp 4y ago

makeitdouble 4y ago

> our existing widespread moral intuition that A hurting B results in a moral and potentially legal claim to redress from B towards A This would be the part where differ. I understand the argument, but as you point out it would lead us to a dead end. IMHO someone being hurt doesn’t mean they need reparation. As an example, people mourning are deeply hurt, and they will also be extra sensible to specific words that are mundane but resonate differently to them. We can both recognize they’re hurt, some words hit them differently, and have no redressment to them outside of sympathy perhaps. That’s an extreme example, but I would see a lot of steps on the spectrum, including for instance my boss hurting my feelings by coldly and factually pointing out how bad of a job I did. I get to decide if I’m hurt or not, but that doesn’t automatically make me a victim entitled to reparations.

TeMPOraL 4y ago
> IMHO someone being hurt doesn’t mean they need reparation. There needs to be some kind of end, some kind of closure to hurt - otherwise we have a positive feedback loop that amplifies suffering and eventually turns violent. > As an example, people mourning are deeply hurt, and they will also be extra sensible to specific words that are mundane but resonate differently to them. In this and similar cases (bad breakup, loss of health or future prospects or sentimental property, etc.), other people are making a time-limited concession to let the grieving person process their experience. Beyond that time limit, one should not expect others to keep carefully controlling their language for one's sake. One should especially not count on making those concessions permanent. > That’s an extreme example, but I would see a lot of steps on the spectrum, including for instance my boss hurting my feelings by coldly and factually pointing out how bad of a job I did. Happened to me the other day, and while I did suffer internally, not for a second I thought they should've been prohibited from saying what they said, or from saying it the way they did. It's not the words that hurt me, but awareness that I'm seen as less reliable in the eyes of the other (coupled with anxiety/fear related to the prospects of my future employment).
- ryanbrunner 4y ago
  > There needs to be some kind of end, some kind of closure to hurt - otherwise we have a positive feedback loop that amplifies suffering and eventually turns violent. I don't see why the end can't be education on the part of the person saying those words. The reasonable response to someone saying they're impacted negatively by a phrase is to find a way to rephrase it, maybe this isn't always possible, but 90% of the time it is and doing so will result in a more positive outcome for both parties pretty much always.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > I don't see why the end can't be education on the part of the person saying those words. In specific cases it can, and is, what happens. But in general case it cannot - for the reason '4bpp already phrased well upthread: > One of the two therefore has to go for society to function: either you don't get to make the call if you are hurt, or it's a priori morally neutral to hurt you. Or, put another way: you can't both 1) be able to unilaterally declare you're being hurt, and 2) expect any moral or practical response from others to you being hurt. It's either one or the other - because allowing someone to have both means giving them power to easily control and hurt others without consequence.

ryanbrunner 4y ago

That doesn't really make sense to me. Of course the person at the receiving end is capable of determining without bias what impact something had on them - practically by definition they are the only ones. If they're hurt by words, maybe it's irrational that they're hurt by them, but they still are. Assuming that they're being honest, "you weren't actually hurt by that" is a nonsensical statement - the person saying that has absolutely 0 evidence to make that call, and the hurt person has perfect knowledge. I think tying it up into legal language of restitution is a mistake, no one is advocating for legal liability or even any real punishment here.

imgabe 4y ago
Have you ever seen a little kid fall down? And they start bawling uncontrollably? So you go over and check them out, make sure nothing is broken, and maybe you say something like "it's all right buddy, you're ok", because they aren't actually hurt. The kid, despite having perfect knowledge, has incorrectly judged the severity of the situation. This happens with kids, because they don't have enough experience or emotional maturity to appropriately gauge their emotional responses, much like the people who write lists like this.
- mbg721 4y ago
  With my toddler, the perfectly-okay response is "No. I am NOT okay," just to hold onto the grievance, which also happens online.
4bpp 4y ago
If you define being hurt via the subjective mental state, then the statement indeed becomes trivially true, as you point out - but then it seems quite misleading to have a single word ("hurt") cover objectively measurable physical injury, qualia of pain that we understand to be a proxy for the former (and so we have, at least in the current revision of "Elimination of Harmful Language" lists, no qualms with terminology such as "phantom pain" which implies that pain which does not correspond to real injury is in some sense less legitimate), and purely psychogenic phenomena. This makes it seem like it is a matter of consistency or principledness to respond to the last category similarly to how you would to the first, even though they are not very alike. > I think tying it up into legal language of restitution is a mistake, no one is advocating for legal liability or even any real punishment here. What exactly is a "real punishment"? It seems like there are certainly calls for extrajudicial liability, insofar as there is no shortage of examples where people call for damage to be done to those who "engage in harmful behaviours" (referring to hurtful words) that is in excess of what would be necessary to stop the "harmful behaviours" and more seems to be aimed at causing disutility to someone who is taken to deserve it. I assume that a Stanford employee, in any capacity, who refuses to abide by this guideline and draws any amount of attention in the process would find themselves at the receiving end of the actions of a large number of people who would try to get them fired rather quickly. Is this not a real punishment?