Errors in moral reasoning

Events occurring and how they relate/affect Anabaptist faith and culture.
MaxPC
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Re: Errors in moral reasoning

Post by MaxPC »

PeterG wrote:
haithabu wrote:The argument about who is more reprehensible I believe is based on flawed moral reasoning. Part of it is that it arises out of zero sum thinking.
I have argued that both sides are guilty of some things, and one side is guilty of additional things. In what sense is this zero-sum thinking?
haithabu wrote:I am approaching the question from a systems point of view: I look at the dynamics of what is going on rather than the personalities or ideologies and ask, where is the greatest social danger?
[snip]
I believe that the probability of white supremacism taking hold in the US is not non-zero but it is definitely below the threshold of measurement. The real danger lies in the opposite direction from where everyone is looking and the moral panic which I and others are being invited to share, rather than a solution is actually at risk of becoming part of the problem.
Whether white supremacism is a lesser danger than violent leftism is not at all clear to me. Perhaps it is; violent leftism is certainly not part of any solution. But it is abundantly clear to me that there is significant social danger in the failure of conservatives, especially conservative Christians, to forcefully and explicitly criticize white nationalism, etc. to a greater degree than you are doing. Your own experiences are examples of this. Many prominent conservatives and Christians seem to recognize this danger and have acted accordingly, as well documented on MN recently.
haithabu wrote:Aside from that, the only reason anyone would ask such a denunciation of me is to "prove" that I am on the right side, which contains an implication that I have something to prove. Which I would naturally resent. :)
haithabu wrote:I find it as offensive as any virtuous girl might if she were asked to declare her virginity "quite loudly".
I've often heard conservatives encourage others to let go of their resentments and cease the taking of offense, and this has generally struck me as sound advice.
Ah, but there's the rub: "keeping score" is intended for escalation of conflicts. Trying to say one side is guilty of more or additional things will require accurate scoring in order to be true. Are you willing to monitor all statements full time to provide an accurate and impartial score, Peter? That would include all news stories both left and right leaning; all recordings; all phone calls; all comments and commentaries on the internet.... come to think of it not even a hundred unbiased men could do that.

I think Haithabu's point here goes right back to [bible]Matthew 7,1-3 [/bible]
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PeterG
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Re: Errors in moral reasoning

Post by PeterG »

MaxPC wrote:Are you willing to monitor all statements full time to provide an accurate and impartial score, Peter?
I do my best with the resources I have, as we all should.

We all evaluate the comparative correctness of the people and situations we face. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you yourself appear to have drawn conclusions about which posts in this thread are more correct than others.
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Re: Errors in moral reasoning

Post by haithabu »

Bootstrap wrote: Suppose I am a black Jewish student at the University of Charlottesville. Please explain what you are trying to say to me. I really don't understand. I'm baffled. I suspect that's what you are seeing on Facebook.
That you have nothing to be worried about because the views of the Klansmen are not widely shared and that no one I know shares them, including myself. But anyone who has paying attention to what I have written, here or on FB would already know that.

That if I ever saw them actually being attacked I would stand with them (physically if need be, not just metaphorically).

I know that if I had walked by the synagogue and noticed what was going on my first instinct would have been to respectfully engage the loitering camo people and ask them why they were there.

I have always considered you a clear thinker too, Boot. Your perspective is much the same as mine except for your belief that we all need to be more demonstrative. Maybe it's a cultural difference.
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Robert
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Re: Errors in moral reasoning

Post by Robert »

haithabu wrote:Your perspective is much the same as mine except for your belief that we all need to be more demonstrative. Maybe it's a cultural difference.
I was just thinking about the voices on the most recent threads and how they are different from those who often post.

It is easy to see there is a totally different world view for the two. Many cM really do not like discussing this stuff. They grow quiet while we bloviate. Once we wear down, they slowly pop back up and carry on.

I really like that part of the forum. We give space for each and tolerance for the other. I see that as an act of love and respect. You may not agree, but you are willing to not challenge or bail out because it is a topic you do not like.

I even noticed Lester's thread and he efforts to give a different direction for things. Lester, it will work. Hang in there. Emotions run high, but they run their course and the ship rights again.

If people feel heard, then I am at peace.
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Re: Errors in moral reasoning

Post by Bootstrap »

haithabu wrote:Your perspective is much the same as mine except for your belief that we all need to be more demonstrative. Maybe it's a cultural difference.
Hmmm.

For what it's worth, I talk things out a lot before I act. The most political action I am taking these days is to teach English to Syrian refugees who entered this country legally and are sponsored by the government. I did lead demonstrations in the early 1980s, but haven't led or participated in them since.

I see a whole lot of blind, gratuitous, stupid hatred building, and I'd like to be able to do something against it. I'm not sure exactly what. That's why I like discussing this among people whose opinions I value.
Robert wrote:I was just thinking about the voices on the most recent threads and how they are different from those who often post.

It is easy to see there is a totally different world view for the two. Many cM really do not like discussing this stuff. They grow quiet while we bloviate. Once we wear down, they slowly pop back up and carry on.

I really like that part of the forum. We give space for each and tolerance for the other. I see that as an act of love and respect. You may not agree, but you are willing to not challenge or bail out because it is a topic you do not like.
To me, hashing these things out openly, without having to agree - at least at first - is an important part of coming to clarity.
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Bootstrap
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Re: Errors in moral reasoning

Post by Bootstrap »

MaxPC wrote:Ah, but there's the rub: "keeping score" is intended for escalation of conflicts.
Agreed.

"Love keeps no record of wrongs" ... you can have one or the other, but not both. If the goal is to prove that the other guy is worse, you're playing the wrong game.
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haithabu
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Re: Errors in moral reasoning

Post by haithabu »

Bootstrap wrote:
haithabu wrote:Your perspective is much the same as mine except for your belief that we all need to be more demonstrative. Maybe it's a cultural difference.
Hmmm.

For what it's worth, I talk things out a lot before I act. The most political action I am taking these days is to teach English to Syrian refugees who entered this country legally and are sponsored by the government. I did lead demonstrations in the early 1980s, but haven't led or participated in them since.

I see a whole lot of blind, gratuitous, stupid hatred building, and I'd like to be able to do something against it. I'm not sure exactly what. That's why I like discussing this among people whose opinions I value.

Me too. That was the intended purpose of my FB intervention.
I am also speaking the truth "as I see it". For me, that the neo-Nazis are wrong is a given. That they in themselves are a significant threat is not. I see a very unhealthy dynamic going on in the US, a kind of mutual paranoia, and as we know paranoia can be a self-fulfilIing prophecy. Ie, if you assume that someone is your enemy and act accordingly, you have a very good chance of making him your enemy even if he wasn't one to begin with. It's time to de-escalate. Otherwise, I wouldn't be surprised if you guys sleepwalk your way into disunion or worse.
Of all the errors listed above, #2 (Passion) is the one that I feel is most potentially harmful in the present circumstances.

Well maybe also #5 also (moral supremacy). Fighting over who is the "better Jew".

Addendum: Do you notice that there is almost no public debate or criticism between liberal and orthodox synagogues? Maybe it is because the memory is kept alive among the Jews as to what those things led to.
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temporal1
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Re: Errors in moral reasoning

Post by temporal1 »

OP, Page 1 / bears repeating :)
haithabu wrote:I'm putting this under Current Events because it is highly pertinent to what is going on in American society right now.

Here are some common fallacies or errors I see people committing in assessing the right or wrong in various situations. This is not some theoretical philosophical discussion but I see them has having the potential to lead to real evil and disorder in society.


1) That moral responsibility is a zero sum game.

There is a tendency to interpret the criticism of one aspect of a position or action or event as a corresponding support for or justification for the other side. We see this repeated over and over in the near universal criticism of Trump's statements on Charlottesville. I myself just got my feathers singed on FB in trying to make what some others deemed to be inappropriate moral distinctions. But God judged Adam and Eve and the serpent separately for their respective sins without assigning any one credit for the contribution of others, and so He will each of us.

People who rely on the zero sum concept for self-justification are less likely to examine themselves for wrong actions and attitudes and are more likely to judge others harshly.


2) That passion is an index of virtue.

That your commitment to a value and therefore your virtue is measured by how vociferously and how intemperately you advocate for it. But I believe that moral reason is like a computer: it doesn't work properly over a certain temperature. In watching the storms of emotion rage through the body public today I am reminded of W.B. Yeats' words:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Movements which elevate passion in moral, religious or political questions are more likely to be complacent about extreme actions by their members and even though the majority may be otherwise reasonable people, the more extreme members tend to set the direction for the rest because they are assigned the moral high ground within the movement and are thus given the capacity to shame the more moderate members into following them or at least not opposing them.


3) A failure to balance values - the idea that one value should be supreme over others.

I think of justice and mercy as values which are conceptually opposed. Justice means to give to someone what is due them for their wrong actions. Mercy means to refrain from doing so. Yet both are necessary and the moral task of humanity under God is to balance the two. An exclusive focus on one over the other leads to objectively evil outcomes.

The same thing applies to human rights codes. A code contains a laundry list of rights and they are all listed co-equally, but there are various situations where different rights come into conflict. It is the job of courts to balance them in an equitable way. If the court were to privilege one right absolutely over another, the second right would be on its way to being nullified or marginalized.


4) ...and that therefore the end justifies the means.

If one value or cause reigns supreme in the moral universe, then petty considerations of reason, truth, integrity, fairness, compassion or legality may be subordinated to that pursuit. Stalin or Lenin are variously reported to have said "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs". The irony in their case is that though millions of eggs were broken, the omelette never arrived.

The problem with this thinking occurs on several levels:

a) The supreme Good that is pursued in the case of a utopian or millenarian or morally perfectionistic movement never arrives. It is either unattainable or the movement moves on in pursuit of ever higher levels of purity. In the end the movement breaks down and its adherents find that they have committed real evil in exchange for an illusionary good.

b) It degrades the person morally. He may persuade himself that these tactics are necessary to achieve his Good, but in the end he becomes his tactics or he becomes what he habitually does.

c) It is immoral (I would say wicked) because the practitioner of these tactics in effect is penalizing his opponents for their virtues. The pushing aside of certain values may give the activist a momentary advantage over his opponents - but only because they are not doing the same themselves. So someone who is committed to telling only the truth is punished for that because no matter what the truth is, the liar can tell a better story.

d) Which leads to the moral degradation of society as those depreciated values go out the window on all sides. Some may think of this as a temporary price to pay on the way to victory, but a society which loses the values of truth, integrity, fairness, civility, social peace and tolerance will not quickly recover them. A generation after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia still struggles to recover the freedoms and rule of law which were denied to it by the Bolsheviks.


5) Moral supremacism - the temptation to think that there is no wisdom or virtue or good faith on the other side of an issue.

Another word for it might be moral narcissism, only this is a narcissism which takes place on a collective level rather than just on an individual level.

This attitude makes its holders correction proof. It impedes their goals by creating unnecessary conflict and resistance to their ideas. Any movement which runs on this basis finds itself splitting into factions over time because its adherents will apply the same intolerance for dissent toward each other as they do toward people outside the movement.

I wrote in another post about "gratuitous hatred" which according to the Talmud was the cause for the destruction of the Jewish nation. The rabbis go on to say that this mutual hatred between Jews took the form of various faction disputing, then fighting, then hunting each others' members down over the question of who was the better Jew. Isn't this what is happening today? That Americans are starting look at each other with fear and loathing over the matter of who is the "better Jew". Or more accurately, who is the better white American.


6) Language abuse to muddy the water. Strictly speaking these are not usually errors but deliberate strategy. But for those who are taken in by them it does lead to errors in moral reasoning.

One is the use of constructive language to describe values, so that terms like "love", "Justice" and "tolerance" are used with special ideologically constructed meanings which are different from, and in some cases opposed to their common everyday meaning. This is wrong because unless those special definitions are made explicit they are deceiving to ordinary folk. They are often used manipulatively to put opponents into a false position where because they oppose the specific application which is being advocated, they are portrayed as being against the value altogether.

Related to that is the use of baggage filled cant phrases to express a position without actually reasoning it out or fitting it to the circumstances. "Person of color" is one such. It immediately invokes a narrative of oppressor and oppressed which is intended to produce a certain reflexive response to any situation where it is applied.

Both of these practices are described in detail by George Orwell under the heading of "Newspeak".


7) Outsourcing moral reasoning to others.

The idea than a group as a whole has a truer moral instinct than any individual in it is based in part on the idea of the wisdom of crowds. However studies where this has been tested for quantifiable matters (the only way this theory can really be tested) have shown that the principle only works when people reach their own conclusions individually without referring to others. So I suggest that the path to collective moral wisdom always runs through each individual's own moral compass.

When people look to the group itself as the ultimate moral arbiter, then its "wisdom" becomes an artifact of the views of its more dominant or vocal members and the benefit of collective wisdom is lost. In some cases, a relatively small but cohesive and coordinated vocal faction can create an apparent consensus where there is none and lead the group in a direction where most of its members in fact do not want to go.

Part of this view is rooted in my personal experience. As someone who was a socially awkward outsider, I learned in middle school that the group was not to be trusted; that individuals who were quite civil one on one could become publicly cruel while in the group setting. If the people I knew while growing up were at their worst in the group, why should I look to the group for my moral cues?

And looking at recent history: those who stood against Hitler (since everyone is talking about Hitler nowadays) did so in spite of, not because of the apparent social consensus around them. Those who went along did so because they did not trust their own moral instincts over the apparent values of their neighbours.
beautiful. not at all surprised to read this from you. :D
you are one of my fav forum writers.

wondering what you might think - :)
long ago, i was told, "The opposite of love is NOT hate, but apathy."
as a passionate young woman, this was startling. how could this be? i really had to think.
(i've taken many "notes-to-self" in my life, starting as a child!)

years have passed. i've found those words to be reliably true.
studying scriptures, they make me think of God's poor view of lukewarm faith (apathy.)

you mentioned Skokie. o.yeah. it has a history.

in my view, had there been no counter protest, this "rally," or whatever it was, would have never received national attention, possibly not local attention. well adjusted people have been deliberately not giving them a platform for decades. that's not exactly apathy, in my understanding, possibly "strategic tolerance?" tolerated, not admired or condoned, as long as they behave within the parameters of law. Westboro Church is another example that receives similar response.

the counter protestors are reported to have shown up without permit, and, armed for aggression.
they have not done their cause any good in this process, and, they have elevated a tiny minority into the national psyche.

the driver that hit pedestrians was not a leader, his driving is not thot to have been planned, and, he has a history of problems not associated with any group. that's under formal investigation.

none of what i've described is new info to anyone.

the counter protestors had a purpose, it was not peace. it was self-promotion.
when 2 sides decide violence is the way, there is little to stop them.

the counter protestors know media loves a violent circus, they act-out, smile for the cameras.
it's a production. some reports say there were ads offering $25/hour to counter protestors.
some reports claim the counter protest was organized by elected politicians in advance of the original rally.

i hope the investigation will be thorough.
to avoid leaving those on the ground, the pawns at the bottom, holding the bag, when accountability should go 'way up the food chain.
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Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.


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temporal1
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Re: Errors in moral reasoning

Post by temporal1 »

About passion. it's one of those things.
it's important in scriptures, it's important to our humanity.

passion is often compared to fire.
old saying about fire,
"Fire makes a good servant, but a bad master."
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Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.


”We’re all just walking each other home.”
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MaxPC
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Re: Errors in moral reasoning

Post by MaxPC »

PeterG wrote:
MaxPC wrote:Are you willing to monitor all statements full time to provide an accurate and impartial score, Peter?
I do my best with the resources I have, as we all should.

We all evaluate the comparative correctness of the people and situations we face. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you yourself appear to have drawn conclusions about which posts in this thread are more correct than others.
By the way you're attacking me I would say my comment hit pretty close to home. I hope you understand that I'm trying to inject the Biblical perspective into this situation. Keeping score is not what I'm reading in Matthew 7 which I quoted; quite the opposite in fact.

Again in Romans 3:10 - 18 we read
10 as it is written:
None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.

12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.

13 “Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
17 and the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
The Bible is saying ALL have sinned; not just some, not one more than others. ALL. Sin is sin. Turning away from God to make an idol of politics and judging those who don't share our views is also sin. It takes our attention away from our prayer life, our family and our discipleship to Jesus. Do we or you really want to spend all of our time "keeping score" on secular politics or should we embrace [bible]Matthew 7,1-3[/bible]??
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Mt 24:35
Proverbs 18:2 A fool does not delight in understanding but only in revealing his own mind.
1 Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God
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