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That's a stretch and regardless, what influenced the ideas of liberalism is a non-sequitur. No one has the right to use violence against someone for being gay

That's a stretch and regardless, what influenced the ideas of liberalism is a non-sequitur. No one has the right to use violence against someone for being gay or transgender. Whether being gay or transgender is immoral or not is a religious question and not something politics can adequately answer.

bad_user 3y ago
Morality, as in the principles for distinguishing right from wrong, good from evil, is very relevant for politics. The naive would say, "just let science settle it", but that's not how society works. Just an example: is banning abortion an injustice to women, as they lose autonomy of their body, or is abortion a crime? Is an abortion 1 month before birth a crime? What about killing a baby 1 month after birth? I am radically pro-choice, BTW, due to seeing what happened in my (Warsaw-pact) country that banned abortions. But there are no good answers, which is why compromises need to be made. E.g., abortion on request in Europe is usually allowed until 12–14 weeks old. No one should have the right to "use violence" against someone for their sexual preferences, ethnicity, religion, or gender identity. We agree here. But what about free healthcare? Should transgender people have access to free, universal healthcare for their needs? I, for one, think they do, I think everyone should get free healthcare. But notice how we aren't talking of "violence", but about spending the state's resources, coming out of people's taxes. Bigots may think being gay or being trans is immoral. But they are, IMO, the minority. Moderates care about other topics that are not bigoted and that often are a question of morality. Another commenter said that religion is just a bunch of made up shit. That's a silly view of the world. Religion is tradition, religion is a codification of best practices, as a sort of learned knowledge that is passed between generations. Some of those practices are obsolete, or downright harmful in modern times, but some are as relevant as ever. If you let reasoning, for example, be the only guiding principle in politics, the problem is that politicians and the people are blinded by the fact that science is often biased, doesn't have all the answers, or that whatever findings we have are incomplete. And when nihilism takes over, you can easily arrive at the conclusion that certain groups of people need to be eliminated in order for society to thrive (e.g., the Jews, the handicapped, the bourgeoisie). I, for one, am not happy that one of Canada's answers to poverty appears to be assisted suicide. The belief that all human life is sacred, and that everyone needs to be free to live and to find their happiness, is ultimately a religious belief, much like liberalism in general. And that's good, actually.
- crabrangoon 3y ago
  In the context of liberalism and rights, you can certainly establish a system of natural law based on reason instead of the existence of God. Whether or not 'reason' comes from God is an interesting ontological question, but irrelevant to political philosophy. The point is that we can derive ethics from observations on the natural world. It is an apple's nature to fall to the ground, and based on observation of cause and effect, we have described a set of laws for this phenomenon. There is nothing particularly mystical or religious about gravity. When a government passes a law that prohibits transgender people from obtaining healthcare to treat their condition, that is a violation of their natural right to live. There is no shortage of genocides and pogroms committed by religious groups, were they being 'nihilistic'?.
  - bad_user 3y ago
    Right. Well, we can agree to disagree that we can derive ethics from observations of the natural world. We might be able to do that, if we were more enlightened or had greater resources at disposal, but we are far from being there. Human beings are pretty fallible and irrational, which is why we still need tradition, even if tradition needs to be questioned periodically. For instance, I think that the most heinous, most damaging ideas tend to come from rationalist philosophers, because with the right set of first principles you can justify anything. In fairness, you mentioned empiricism (observations), however, how are you going to conduct studies on what's "murder"? All kinds of social experiments ended in disaster, we can't even do good studies on nutrition without spending a lot of resources, and studies that can knowingly hurt individuals are deemed as immoral and thus forbidden. In general, I think that at this point, "secular ethics based on observations" is a pipe dream. At least until we'll be able to simulate society somehow, and in the meantime, mathematical models are bullshit with a really poor prediction rate. Also, even if science would unequivocally suggest that getting rid of certain groups of people would be a net benefit, I'd still have a problem with it. As in my view, policies baked by current scientific findings and that supposedly benefit society, can still be evil. At the dawn of the 20th century, it probably took a lot of courage to speak against race science and eugenics. I also have this opinion that ALL people are religious, and by religion I mean beliefs that are non-falsifiable, or close to it, and in this definition religion does not require the existence of a God. > When a government passes a law that prohibits transgender people from obtaining healthcare to treat their condition, that is a violation of their natural right to live. Again, I'm all for transgender people having all the healthcare they need. However, access to healthcare is not a natural right for the simple fact that somebody else has to pay for it and the tradition is not fully established. Consider how free universal healthcare is only possible in affluent countries with a high GDP. "Taxing the rich" is also only a solution in countries that have enough rich people to tax. The public budget is never unlimited, and there are always priorities. Countries like the US could provide free universal healthcare, no doubt about it. It is also my impression that US's healthcare is corrupt, and they could probably do it without increasing current spending, if the corruption was dealt with. But if the public spending goes up (big if), then it's the taxpayers that have to agree with it, and they do that by voting. Which is a sad state of affairs, as all would benefit from universal healthcare, but it underlines the fact that free healthcare is a privilege. Note that I'm saying this as an asthmatic, a chronic condition for which I need medication, without which I'd be unable to live. I do have access to it, but I don't consider it a right, but rather a blessing to live in a century in which I can have access to it. I might have been born 30 years earlier.

bad_user 3y ago

Morality, as in the principles for distinguishing right from wrong, good from evil, is very relevant for politics. The naive would say, "just let science settle it", but that's not how society works. Just an example: is banning abortion an injustice to women, as they lose autonomy of their body, or is abortion a crime? Is an abortion 1 month before birth a crime? What about killing a baby 1 month after birth? I am radically pro-choice, BTW, due to seeing what happened in my (Warsaw-pact) country that banned abortions. But there are no good answers, which is why compromises need to be made. E.g., abortion on request in Europe is usually allowed until 12–14 weeks old. No one should have the right to "use violence" against someone for their sexual preferences, ethnicity, religion, or gender identity. We agree here. But what about free healthcare? Should transgender people have access to free, universal healthcare for their needs? I, for one, think they do, I think everyone should get free healthcare. But notice how we aren't talking of "violence", but about spending the state's resources, coming out of people's taxes. Bigots may think being gay or being trans is immoral. But they are, IMO, the minority. Moderates care about other topics that are not bigoted and that often are a question of morality. Another commenter said that religion is just a bunch of made up shit. That's a silly view of the world. Religion is tradition, religion is a codification of best practices, as a sort of learned knowledge that is passed between generations. Some of those practices are obsolete, or downright harmful in modern times, but some are as relevant as ever. If you let reasoning, for example, be the only guiding principle in politics, the problem is that politicians and the people are blinded by the fact that science is often biased, doesn't have all the answers, or that whatever findings we have are incomplete. And when nihilism takes over, you can easily arrive at the conclusion that certain groups of people need to be eliminated in order for society to thrive (e.g., the Jews, the handicapped, the bourgeoisie). I, for one, am not happy that one of Canada's answers to poverty appears to be assisted suicide. The belief that all human life is sacred, and that everyone needs to be free to live and to find their happiness, is ultimately a religious belief, much like liberalism in general. And that's good, actually.

crabrangoon 3y ago
In the context of liberalism and rights, you can certainly establish a system of natural law based on reason instead of the existence of God. Whether or not 'reason' comes from God is an interesting ontological question, but irrelevant to political philosophy. The point is that we can derive ethics from observations on the natural world. It is an apple's nature to fall to the ground, and based on observation of cause and effect, we have described a set of laws for this phenomenon. There is nothing particularly mystical or religious about gravity. When a government passes a law that prohibits transgender people from obtaining healthcare to treat their condition, that is a violation of their natural right to live. There is no shortage of genocides and pogroms committed by religious groups, were they being 'nihilistic'?.
- bad_user 3y ago
  Right. Well, we can agree to disagree that we can derive ethics from observations of the natural world. We might be able to do that, if we were more enlightened or had greater resources at disposal, but we are far from being there. Human beings are pretty fallible and irrational, which is why we still need tradition, even if tradition needs to be questioned periodically. For instance, I think that the most heinous, most damaging ideas tend to come from rationalist philosophers, because with the right set of first principles you can justify anything. In fairness, you mentioned empiricism (observations), however, how are you going to conduct studies on what's "murder"? All kinds of social experiments ended in disaster, we can't even do good studies on nutrition without spending a lot of resources, and studies that can knowingly hurt individuals are deemed as immoral and thus forbidden. In general, I think that at this point, "secular ethics based on observations" is a pipe dream. At least until we'll be able to simulate society somehow, and in the meantime, mathematical models are bullshit with a really poor prediction rate. Also, even if science would unequivocally suggest that getting rid of certain groups of people would be a net benefit, I'd still have a problem with it. As in my view, policies baked by current scientific findings and that supposedly benefit society, can still be evil. At the dawn of the 20th century, it probably took a lot of courage to speak against race science and eugenics. I also have this opinion that ALL people are religious, and by religion I mean beliefs that are non-falsifiable, or close to it, and in this definition religion does not require the existence of a God. > When a government passes a law that prohibits transgender people from obtaining healthcare to treat their condition, that is a violation of their natural right to live. Again, I'm all for transgender people having all the healthcare they need. However, access to healthcare is not a natural right for the simple fact that somebody else has to pay for it and the tradition is not fully established. Consider how free universal healthcare is only possible in affluent countries with a high GDP. "Taxing the rich" is also only a solution in countries that have enough rich people to tax. The public budget is never unlimited, and there are always priorities. Countries like the US could provide free universal healthcare, no doubt about it. It is also my impression that US's healthcare is corrupt, and they could probably do it without increasing current spending, if the corruption was dealt with. But if the public spending goes up (big if), then it's the taxpayers that have to agree with it, and they do that by voting. Which is a sad state of affairs, as all would benefit from universal healthcare, but it underlines the fact that free healthcare is a privilege. Note that I'm saying this as an asthmatic, a chronic condition for which I need medication, without which I'd be unable to live. I do have access to it, but I don't consider it a right, but rather a blessing to live in a century in which I can have access to it. I might have been born 30 years earlier.