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Our moral instinct is confused because our political agitators have based normative (should) conclusions on positive (is) claims. I.e., "racial stereotypes are

Our moral instinct is confused because our political agitators have based normative (should) conclusions on positive (is) claims. I.e., "racial stereotypes are incorrect, and therefore it's morally wrong to base decisions on them". See, for example, this long thread where this conflation is made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8368876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8368876 The claim is logically false - you can't prove a normative claim without a normative premise. In my example above, one possible normative hypothesis would be "and it's morally wrong to use incorrect premises to make decisions" (or possibly "it's morally wrong to use incorrect racial premises to make decisions"). Now our algorithms are revealing that underlying positive claim (e.g., "racial stereotypes are incorrect") might not be true either. This is confusing, and rightly so - it demonstrates our entire belief system was predicated on nonsense. Hopefully we'll actually respond with some useful analytical philosophy.

netcan 11y ago
Political messages are based on what works, what's appealing to our moral instinct. Personally, I hate the "born this way" argument for gay rights. It's irrelevant and it's not necessarily true. It might not even be ever true, who knows. But, it's getting the job done. But if a neurologist proves that sexual orientation is acquired during childhood, are we going to throw out gay rights? In any case, I think these moral arguments are (a) more of a counterpoint argument to the pseudoscientific racism of the Nazis and their predecessors and (b) more about innate genetic potential than socio-cultural traits. I think the stronger moral argument is about equality of opportunity and (hat tip to a charmingly american ethos) individual merit. The idea is that it is more moral to judge people by their personal merit, rather than profiling and assuming even if that gives you a better chance of being correct.

netcan 11y ago

Political messages are based on what works, what's appealing to our moral instinct. Personally, I hate the "born this way" argument for gay rights. It's irrelevant and it's not necessarily true. It might not even be ever true, who knows. But, it's getting the job done. But if a neurologist proves that sexual orientation is acquired during childhood, are we going to throw out gay rights? In any case, I think these moral arguments are (a) more of a counterpoint argument to the pseudoscientific racism of the Nazis and their predecessors and (b) more about innate genetic potential than socio-cultural traits. I think the stronger moral argument is about equality of opportunity and (hat tip to a charmingly american ethos) individual merit. The idea is that it is more moral to judge people by their personal merit, rather than profiling and assuming even if that gives you a better chance of being correct.