3 ms·

The set W of women suffer harms because of their membership of that set. This property is mutable. You could make a number of other sets like this (non-white,

by aaren 13y ago

The set W of women suffer harms because of their membership of that set. This property is mutable. You could make a number of other sets like this (non-white, old, young), but the largest one (esp. in the UK) is likely to be W, women (50% population). We should try and create an environment in which sets of people do not have this property anymore.

yummyfajitas 13y ago
A set doesn't suffer anything, only individuals suffer. Some women (say 80%, for concreteness) have suffered because they are women. Consider the set WM consisting of those 80%, plus a random 20% of men. WM has the same statistical properties as W - it's members have suffered harms due to being a member of the set of suffering women + random people, and this group is also 50% of Britain. Is WM due the same moral consideration as W? You can't use only the statistical properties of a subset to determine it's moral weight. For nearly any statistic you can think of, there are massive (i.e., 2^bignum >> population of earth) numbers of statistically identical subsets.
- aaren 13y ago
  WM's members don't suffer harms because they are a member of WM. They suffer harms because they are members of W. Women are a significant population in the uk. It has been shown that this population suffer some harms only because of their being women. This is wrong.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    Is the distinguishing principle you are trying to arrive at merely the motive of the people harming them? I.e., is the principle along the lines of "If a bunch of jerks define and disproportionately harm group X, then we now assign moral weight to group X"?
- dkoston 13y ago
  You can't use only the statistical properties of a subset to determine it's moral weight. For nearly any statistic you can think of, there are massive (i.e., 2^bignum >> population of earth) numbers of statistically identical subsets. A core part of this disagreement/discussion is that there is no accepted formula for determining moral weight. It's certainly fine to have a discussion at more of a core philosophical level but I think that your arguments would more accepted by the HN audience if you would provide more context about what level of depth you are choosing to discuss instead of calling the article "ridiculous" and providing a single data point about one of the many thoughts posed by the article. Most people responding are considering the current state of the world and what incremental actions they would take to improve it, not philosophical questions like "what is a harm?", "which harms are worst?", "should we eliminate harms?", "is it right to eliminate harms from one group over another?" There are many tough questions that need to be answered before you can even discuss selecting or not selecting groups of people and considering their moral weight. Without posing or answering questions like "what is a harm?", "what harms are not permissible?", and "should we eliminate harms?", it's impossible to know whether or not we will be at a philosophical impasse when asking "should one group get additional weight for societal protection from harms over others?".

by aaren 13y ago

yummyfajitas 13y ago

A set doesn't suffer anything, only individuals suffer. Some women (say 80%, for concreteness) have suffered because they are women. Consider the set WM consisting of those 80%, plus a random 20% of men. WM has the same statistical properties as W - it's members have suffered harms due to being a member of the set of suffering women + random people, and this group is also 50% of Britain. Is WM due the same moral consideration as W? You can't use only the statistical properties of a subset to determine it's moral weight. For nearly any statistic you can think of, there are massive (i.e., 2^bignum >> population of earth) numbers of statistically identical subsets.

aaren 13y ago
WM's members don't suffer harms because they are a member of WM. They suffer harms because they are members of W. Women are a significant population in the uk. It has been shown that this population suffer some harms only because of their being women. This is wrong.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  Is the distinguishing principle you are trying to arrive at merely the motive of the people harming them? I.e., is the principle along the lines of "If a bunch of jerks define and disproportionately harm group X, then we now assign moral weight to group X"?
dkoston 13y ago
You can't use only the statistical properties of a subset to determine it's moral weight. For nearly any statistic you can think of, there are massive (i.e., 2^bignum >> population of earth) numbers of statistically identical subsets. A core part of this disagreement/discussion is that there is no accepted formula for determining moral weight. It's certainly fine to have a discussion at more of a core philosophical level but I think that your arguments would more accepted by the HN audience if you would provide more context about what level of depth you are choosing to discuss instead of calling the article "ridiculous" and providing a single data point about one of the many thoughts posed by the article. Most people responding are considering the current state of the world and what incremental actions they would take to improve it, not philosophical questions like "what is a harm?", "which harms are worst?", "should we eliminate harms?", "is it right to eliminate harms from one group over another?" There are many tough questions that need to be answered before you can even discuss selecting or not selecting groups of people and considering their moral weight. Without posing or answering questions like "what is a harm?", "what harms are not permissible?", and "should we eliminate harms?", it's impossible to know whether or not we will be at a philosophical impasse when asking "should one group get additional weight for societal protection from harms over others?".